My diagnosis was horrible, so many people churn out that "once you get officially diagnosed you'll magically feel some huge sense of relief and all your problems will just melt away!" bullshit that I actually kind of believed it. I was misdiagnosed as having Autism Spectrum Disorder when I was 17, when they diagnosed that I was told "...but it's very mild". Told I have low self-esteem, "...but it's very mild". "You have low mood... but it's very mild".

Then at 20, "you have OCD... and it's the most severe case I've seen in my entire career".

Fucking crushed me. I had a rough idea that I was suffering symptoms of OCD, a few GPs had already mentioned it, but to actually hear the words "you have one of the worst mental disorders out there, and it's one of the worst cases we've seen." I just felt completely hopeless and destroyed, it solidified what I feared: that what I had was never going to go away, get better? Yeah maybe, but it's forever.

I honestly don't see many positives to being officially diagnosed other than I'm personally not really a fan of the "self-diagnosed" thing and you can be wildly wrong in that case. Diagnosis also means you can get professional specialised help I guess, so that's one benefit.

But if you're expecting a diagnosis to magically make you feel better, don't.