is when people diagnose themselves.

Yes, it's one thing to contemplate and be worried, but it's completely different to look at a list of symptoms and assume that you're probably atypical because you think you fit a list.

People think they have things all the time. I get a strange cough, I Google it, and lo-and-behold, I have some life threatening disease. Not really, but you see what I mean?

The mind is a complex thing and it takes someone who has spent a LOT of time studying how complex it is and how it works. You need someone to evaluate YOU from THEIR standpoint, to look at YOUR feelings and YOUR behaviors.

I never thought that I had ADHD, or PTSD, or GAD or anything like that because I've been living with these disorders for so long that they feel natural to me. I always thought that I was dealing with something like depression. And it's funny, because I'm the kind of person that researches mental health disorders all the time since I find them interesting, and I already knew just about everything about these disorders.

But anyways, when I finally got the chance to sit down with a professional and have them diagnose me, everything they said made sense. And I'm finally beginning to feel a sense of normality with the correct treatments and correct diagnoses.

What I'm trying to say is, don't diagnose yourself. It makes people look like they're stereotyping themselves, and it's irritating and can be insulting. Just look up a clinic and have a professional do it.

I like what you have to say. I had no idea I had GAD until I started having panic attacks and talked to my doctor. I realized later that I'd experienced GAD for as far back as I could remember, but like you said, I was so use to it, I didn't know it wasn't normal.