I get where you're coming from with needing an official diagnosis for work accommodations, but none of your friends are really going to demand to see a doctor's note, so why would personal relationships depend on an official diagnosis?

The same reasons as from a professional experience. Yes they aren't going to pull the doctor's note but neither is work IMHO. What it does is provide more weight behind your words of "hey I'm not just googling this shit. I'm not just an insufferable asshole looking to validate that I am. I'm actually working with a psychologist."

Friends, just like coworkers, etc. care less of the diagnosis. They want to know you're working on you because I'd argue writ large people want to see you succeed. A self-diagnosis can help but it doesn't give you access to all the tools you may need to succeed so from the outside I would argue that official diagnosis matters. It means you now have someone else on your "team" be it a GP or a psychologist or whatever helping you navigate things.

I've had conversations with people about "how can you love the news so much? It's so negative and depressing!"

The best I've explained it is first and foremost you need to understand and appreciate we are a deeply flawed creature and there's a beauty in that. How could someone not love life for that? I am in a dingy alley having a tea right now I can smell garbage, I can hear the drone of the city around me, everything is stained. But if I look up the sky is beautiful and blue, cute girls are walking by, someone is smoking a flavoured cigar.

If you're unwilling to appreciate it all, you will struggle on appreciating any of it. Happiness is what you make of the world around you and if you are not willing to be happy inside no external event will change that.

Self-diagnosis doesn't help with relationships IMHO either and I mean that both from a personal and professional perspective.

Why you might ask?

YMMV but for me, I am an open book. Having the diagnosis meant I could talk to bosses when trying a new med, or explain to them when struggling. Knowing the diagnosis means you immediately diffuse an aspect of a challenge. For me, that has been immensely valuable.

Edit - wanted to add a common counterpoint is don't let work know because you can't predict people who will use your honesty against you. I will argue assholes are assholes and you can't live your life at the possibility someone will be a dick. Most people are good people. Trust on that.

That role? Life.

Amen. Virtue is the bomb, but also rum

Guns don't protect children. They're the leading cause of death in children.

Fucking THANK YOU!

Because writ large we are all under staffed and it we need to cut something it's QA.

Good.

Cheap.

Fast.

Businesses have shown time and time again they choose cheap and fast. Good is a problem for the future.

MVP baby!

Man ugly people truly are fucked in every sense.

I'm sure they announce it on their loudspeakers when you're in the store too.

Ass to ass as it were

I mean we can probably all visualize the person who had that tattoo and "foreign pervert" probably fits them perfectly.

OMG that last bolded line made me legit LOL. Gotta love it!