What do we hope to find on Google about our mental health?

[KiMission1]

Hello all! Question: my GP and therapist hate when I Google my symptoms / struggles, because they believe many people self-diagnose too soon. I however found it helpful to read explanations of what may cause it and read stories of others who are going through the same thing (such as on this place!) :). Really curious what you think about this? What kind of impact did online search have on you / your recovery? What did you hope to find online?
Thanks!
xx Kim

I think googling your symptoms can be a double edged sword.

On the one hand not everything on the internet is correct. Also a little bit ok knowledge can be a dangerous thing as it's easy to convince ourselves we have a condition based on an internet search and this in itself can cause more anxiety and distress and we may well be wrong as we don't have the experience of our Drs/therapists.

On the otherhand I have found brilliant support from others on online forums once I have known the diagnosis. Also GPs are not necessarily experts in mental health. My GP was treating me for depression and anxiety, but my councellor and CPN both thought I had PTSD so I looked online and found standardised questionnaires that supported this and then looked at the NICE guidelines and found out what the reccommended treatment was (I ended up going privately) and it made a huge difference, so the internet was very useful in that case.