Folk. I don't think I'm some clever smarty-pants and I don't understand why I'm being talked to like I'm shitting on your mother's corpse.

I also don't understand how citing books that agree with and informed my position is evidence I'm making shit up. You seem determined to read me as a evil stupid troll.

I understand there's no point in arguing with people hostile to you. But I genuinely do not understand. This is not me trolling or trying to bait or trick you.

Medical gatekeeping through diagnosis has a long history that you clearly are sympathetic to with your early acknowledgement of how institutionally these experts somehow keep misdiagnosing things. And I'm sure you're also fully aware how entire medical diagnosis have been invented and uninvented for the purpose of persecution such as for hysterical women and blacks who ran away from slavery. I would argue we see that even today with how gender dysphoria diagnosis criteria has been used to gatekeep trans healthcare. This is not me being bad faith, and if you want me to dive deeper into this I can because it's a huge topic.

I understand if you think psyches are doing good shit by being on demand well informed people to help people understand themselves. I agree with you!

But most diagnosis really is 15 minutes of questions that's not a bad faith exaggeration. That's literally what it is. And then they give their opinion. And it is an opinion. Different equally qualified person will give an entirely different opinion

I don't know how to convince you I'm not some bad faith troll, and if that's really what you think I am you would should stop replying. What I am is someone who has seen how the medical diagnosis model abuses people. Tells them, especially women, that they don't know their own minds and experiences, and how it gatekeeps the poor who don't get the luxury to shop around until some doctor tells them what they needed to hear.

I don't think doctors should be ignored. But diagnosis is a deeply flawed system. It's neither accessible nor proven more accurate than the alternatives. It can do good, and it does do good. But revering it as if it is a hard science is absurd. It's not like getting a CAT scan for medical diagnosis. It is genuinely, just someone's opinion which they write so insurance will pay for treatment. And it doesn't claim to be more than that!

So why should someone who can't afford it, will be abused and ignored by such a system be required to be legitimized by it? Why do they need that to get the care they need? Why should people have to do that when their symptoms are self evident? So you really think the risk of letting people know themselves based off an informed consent system, is worse than the reality of medical gatekeeping? Do you really think it's killing fewer people than the alternative? What if they live somewhere where they isn't an option? What if their family refuses to have them seen? Why add these barriers?

Why aren't they allowed to be legitimate? Why aren't they allowed to get care?

Do you actually have any evidence that gatekeeping mental illness behind diagnosis does more good than the harm?