Separate issue: I have a really reactive emotionality around work. I think it's rooted in all the rejection and failure, but it's also just as easily diagnosed as anxiety. But my pattern is to work low-level jobs for several years and then completely burning out and being unemployed for a year or two before trying again: my life set to "rinse and repeat."

So I really have to figure out how to get help as a neurodivergent person if I'm going to get this lens a real shot (both for medication and therapy), but I'm worried I'm just going to keep getting sucked in neurotypical mood disorders as an explanation which I already know is untreatable in my case.

[This person also recommended a job search service which I'd used for years and they were absolutely useless outside of helping apply for jobs. Any kind of self-exploration and values-clarification and job-evaluation? Absolutely nil. They just had me apply for jobs all the time. For years. They do not give a fuck.]

From what I have heard, it is a well known cycle. Inattentiveness causes a patient to have productivity issues which leads to depression. The depression caused anxiety when asked to perform. The anxiety is distracting and leads to productivity issues. It is a self perpetuating spiral.

From what I understand, the only way to find the root cause is to figure out what started first and/or trying to treat one after another until you find which one the patient responds best to. In some countries, stimulants (to treat ADHD) are more controlled than antidepressants, so it is possible that your doctor first needs to make sure that an antidepressant will not help you before they can justify trying a stimulant.

Like you, I am caught up in the cycle. After years of my doctors trying treatments, we found a solution that works for me: a stimulant that makes my inattention a bit more manageable and therapy to slowly break the cycle.

Because most people are overworked and incompetent. In short, yes, they are stupid.

Most of the time, they're not doing it out of malice.

When you're dealing with stupid people, you can't expect them to magically be non-stupid. You then have to be smart yourself.

How far away is the neuropsych evaluation?

Which country is this?

I don't know any good suggestions for you. I got lucky and found out I have undiagnosed, heavily masked AuDHD only 3 years into unsuccessful treatment of depression and cPTSD. Switched a lot of psychiatrists and psychotherapists in the meantime, until I stumbled on an AuDHD psychiatrist, who diagnosed me, and refered to a neurodivergent therapist.

But I agree with you totally this medical system is a mess, most mental health professionals have zero clue what they are doing. Neurodivergence awareness is in the negatives.

I was treated for cPTSD and negative beliefs about myself like incompetence or or unlovability or hiding emotions for so long, without me or therapist understanding true cause or treating it.

Psychiatrists also had really big aversion towards diagnosing me with more than one illness. Although comorbidity is like very common. Everyone just slapped "depression" and prescribed SSRIs, because that's simplest, meanwhile the full, complex picture of my problems is cPTSD/borderline PD, OCD, AuDHD, depression, and anxiety.

What country are you in, can you see a different psychiatrist, maybe get a referal to one from your therapist? Ive experienced this before from certain psychiatrists that are leery of writing scripts for stimulants (or even non stimulants for some reason). Seeing a different one had been my way around it.