I had a similar experience in some ways. I’ve seen many health professionals over the years, some counsellors, some therapists, some psychiatrists. It is very hard to find a good one that helps. It really depends on how good your mental health professional is, whether the diagnoses is going to be useful or not.

I have a couple stories about the doctors I’ve seen when I was in my 20s.

One was a psychiatrist. I would see her in person and like you she would barely look at me. She would spend 5 to 15 minutes with me. I told her about my very serious trauma and she didn’t say anything and didn’t try to discuss it. Completely uninterested, didn’t care at all. Just gave me drugs. She even prescribed me a stimulant meant for ADD. She didn’t say why or what it was for. I was too scared to ask her so I looked it up on the internet and found out it was for ADD symptoms, so I assumed I had ADD. Then about 8 months later, when the side effects were getting worrisome, I finally asked her about it. She said she thought I was a bit fat so she put me on it to make me lose weight. I never asked for help with that, and I was only 20lbs over weight at the time. We had never discussed my weight or anything, it was unhelpful and not why I went to see her. That medication would actually induce mania in me and I’d become impulsive and make really bad decisions while on it.

My next psychiatrist was worse. I was on a merry go round of meds all the time, changing nearly every month or two. It screws with your functioning getting use to one med, and then having to go off it. Withdrawals suck. And I was on multiple meds at one time so it was even worse. I was taking 8 different mental health meds at one point. I’d get side effects from one, then I’d get prescribed something to “help” with the side effects of that one, then get more side effects from this newest addition of drug, and again put on something to combat the side effects of that one. Or I’d mention something small that happened to me during the week, or a tiny thought that she squeezed out of me by her questioning and suddenly I’m on another drug with a brand new diagnosis. I got diagnosed and medicated for a tonne of different issues. I have no idea which ones are accurate. I don’t trust psychiatrists now.

When I would tell her I want OFF a medication, she would get insulted, as though it was a personal offense to her, and would interrogate me because I dared to question her. I’d have to prove it to her that I needed off them. Even though it was my body and if I wanted off them for absolutely any reason, even “I don’t like the way its making me feel”, I had a right to do so.

She also asked leading questions, and if I didn’t answer the way she wanted she would get irritated. So I started changing my answers to please her and her ego. I should have ended my sessions earlier than I did but I trusted her because she was a doctor, and because of my past I used to be a push over, especially with authority figures.

Her sessions could last 3 to 4 hours. It was mostly her talking at me about GMOs or television shows or whatever crap that had nothing to do with my issues, or doing office work like faxing prescriptions, or writing crap down after our appointment, or making phone calls. But she wouldn’t let me leave until she had done all that for some reason.

She was constantly late because she’d do the same with her other patients. I remember one time the patient after me knocked on the door and was justifiably annoyed. He said “it’s been 2 hours since my appointment was supposed to start”. She told him his current patient (me) was in total crisis breakdown and she needed to handle it. That was a lie. I was fine, I wasn’t crying or anything, I was normal. She was acting like I was actively suicidal or something and I wasn’t at all. Before the guy knocked on the door she was talking about where she bought her scarf. She was using me as an excuse for her poor time management. It was humiliating walking out into the waiting room after that in front of the patients out there knowing they heard her say that.

She would also gaslight me. She’d claim I never mentioned something before, when I know with 100% certainty I had. She would rifle through her notes and say “Nope it’s not here, you never said that.” As though it was final. Just because she never bothered to write it down didn’t mean I never brought it up. Luckily one of the times she claimed that, my partner was with me during those sessions and backed me up because he had heard me say it.

And these two long winded stories are only 2 of the people I saw. There’s more that were bad too. There was 1 that I wish I could have kept seeing because she was actually helping but we had to move.

TLDR I think if someone is just starting out trying to seek a diagnosis, I would not begin with a psychiatrist. They will dole out meds like candy. Go to a therapist or a counselor first and get an idea of what it could be before stuffing pills into yourself. Pills can help but it needs to be the right ones. Also if your mental health professional isn’t helping, end the sessions sooner rather than later. You should know by session 1 to 3 if they are going to be able to help you.