Let's imagine a hypothetical world where WebMD was 100% accurate in diagnosing and prognosing users' illnesses. This is not true of course (see Wikipedia: WebMD#Criticism), but let's assume it is for this thought experiment. Is any real-life doctor, who has just spent at least ten years toiling in higher education, going to tell you to use the perfect WebMD instead of their own imperfect judgment? Of course not; sunk-cost fallacy will prevent the doctor from even believing it himself.
My point is this: it doesn't matter how accurate the information you get online is, a professional in the field will always tell you that you need to consult a professional. So why should you trust them? I'm not just talking about doctors. Carpenters, plumbers, mechanics, psychiatrists... any professional will tell you you can't do things yourself. Sometimes, they're right; there's no substitute for years of real-world experience. Yet lots of times, they're wrong. Yes, you can fix your own automobile after watching videos on YouTube, and you'll save lots of money. If the procedure in the videos looks too complicated, you can always hire a professional. When you do, you'll at least be armed with knowledge that can prevent a rip-off or expose a sloppy mechanic.
Not only do professionals have incentive to convince you that their expertise cannot be replicated, but they are often incompetent or downright self-serving in their efforts to serve you. Medical doctors who have taken the Hippocratic oath regularly take bribes from pharmaceutical companies to push drugs onto patients. According to Open Payments, Big Pharma paid doctors more than $12 billion in 2022. Legally, they can choose to make payments to doctors that push their drugs and make no payments to doctors that don't. It's bribery by definition. And the effects are devastating: consider, for example, the opioid crisis in America.
I've always had some skepticism of medical professionals, but it came to a head in early 2017 when I started to seek therapy to treat my depression. Many people say "You can't self-diagnose mental disorders like depression," as if a third-party can determine how I'm feeling more accurately than I can. In any case, as a long-haul trucker, my options for therapy were extremely limited. I tried to find a therapist that would do sessions over the phone, and every single one I talked to was booked full, with months-long wait-lists. My experience was not unique: according to an American Psychologists Association study from November 2022, three out of five psychologists in the country are fully booked (The Guardian: Americans need therapy – but psychologists are booked).
I also tried BetterHelp remote therapy. They advertise regularly on my podcasts ("Get therapy on your own time, through video calls and chats in our app"), so it sounded like they at least wouldn't be booked full. I went to their website and filled out their "new patient questionnaire". One of the multiple-choice questions was "How often do you think about suicide?" and I only answered "Every day" because there was no option for "Every hour". (Remember, many of my peers do not believe I ever had depression because it was not diagnosed by a professional.) BetterHelp declined to serve me, citing the seriousness of my case and suggesting that I seek real-life therapy. Of course, I'd already tried that and come up empty-handed.
Honestly, I can't blame BetterHelp for only taking on Karens with first-world problems as patients. I mean, I was a legal liability. They didn't want their fingerprints on my train wreck. If they took on cases as serious as mine, they'd probably be sued out of existence and wouldn't be able to offer any help to anyone.
With no therapist ready to take on my case, I was out of options, except one: self-diagnosis and self-treatment. So I started the same procedure I would have used to fix my own car:
Steps 1-3 could be done conveniently on Wikipedia, which has a similar structure for most diseases: a section on symptoms, a section on causes, a section on diagnosis, a section on treatment. I learned a lot about Clinical depression from a single article. For example, depression is often a symptom of underlying psychological disorders like personality disorders. From there, I read every article on personality disorders and DSM-5. I learned that DSM-5 has specific criteria for psychologists to diagnose disorders, as in, "if your patient exhibits 5 out of 9 of these symptoms, they have borderline personality disorder." Of course these standards are somewhat arbitrarily-determined and DSM gets revised regularly with updated criteria. But I was at least armed with the same information that a professional psychiatrist would have.
Using these hard requirements, I determined that I had five of the nine symptoms required to be diagnosed with Schizotypal personality disorder (StPD). People continue to argue that I cannot diagnose myself, but I counter that:
This second one is especially relevant in the case of personality disorders because psychologists often have to parse out the information their patient is willing to give them. Some patients will have symptoms like pathological lying that can make it a lot harder to diagnose them. A lot of the professional training that psychiatrists receive is in collecting information from patients that regularly lie, exaggerate, or withhold information. Of course, none of this is relevant for someone attempting a self-diagnosis.
Feeling like I understood the causes and origins of my negative emotions, I stopped feeling like there was something inherently wrong with me, and started to learn that my depression and personality disorder were natural psychological responses to the environment I was in. I was already feeling empowered and ready to fight back against my problems.
Learning about my psyche was easy. Fixing it was another monster. The articles I'd read had lots of information on the efficacy of various drugs (which I could not self-prescribe) and methods of therapy (which was unavailable). But then I read this (Quoted from Wikipedia: Major depressive disorder, retrieved 2023-07-01, emphasis mine):
Physical exercise has been found to be effective for major depression, and may be recommended to people who are willing, motivated, and healthy enough to participate in an exercise program as treatment. It is equivalent to the use of medications or psychological therapies in most people.
That passage, like all information on Wikipedia, was backed up by real-world research. In my case, it was my only hope. I started a regiment of regular cardio and strength-training, and hoped for the best.
That was six years ago, and today I say with confidence that I am cured. I was better after only a few weeks of regular physical activity. For me, it was an absolute miracle cure. I never think about suicide and haven't for many years. I no longer fit any of DSM-5's criteria for StPD. My depression is gone, and I mean GONE. I have no side-effects, no drug dependency, no hour-long sessions with some qualified moron. I feel joy all the time; I can't even express it.
Remember that Wikipedia said regular exercise is "equivalent to the use of medications or psychological therapies in most people." Knowing this, you would think that most mental health professionals would diagnose patients with exercise first and resort to medication after it doesn't work. Tell me, have you ever heard of a psychiatrist prescribing a workout routine to a patient? I never have.
Many of my friends suffer from depression and anxiety and personality disorders, and many of them go to regular therapy and take antidepressants. Every one of them is (as far as I know) still in therapy and still dependent on the drugs, years later. Not one of them has been cured of their mental health problems. It's clear to me that I did a better job than the professionals could have, so I'm actually glad I wasn't able to get therapy when I sought it out.
Remember when I said medical professionals accept bribes from pharmaceutical companies? It's in their financial interest to prescribe drugs; they make no money by prescribing exercise. It's not even in their financial interest to cure your illness. They receive regular payment by saying "Let's work on this; I'll see you next week."
I'm not suggesting anyone attempt DIY surgery after watching a few videos online. I already mentioned that there's no substitute for real-world experience. What I am advocating is this: don't treat professionals as the single source of infallible information. Instead accept their expertise as another source of quality research. And if a professional ever contradicts your own research, or tells you not to do your own research, find another one.
Exercise isn't just good for treating depression. It does wonders for physical health and mental health everywhere you look. It prevents heart disease, strokes, dementia, Alzheimer's, and pretty much everything bad. The benefits are innumerable and there are no negative side-effects. Physical fitness might slightly improve lifespan, but the evidence on quality-of-life is rock-solid. Ask yourself, do you want to grow up into a frail senior, dependent on nurses to feed you and change your diapers? Or do you want to be healthy, active, and independent until your last breath?
^ 2023/07