OCD sufferer with intrusive thoughts. Honestly, pretty bad experience. Just an anecdote but this is my story:
Struggled between the ages of 8-13 with constant depression and obsessing over troubling/disturbing thoughts (What if I become a criminal when I grow up? What if I act on curiosity to harm someone? What if I don't take action to prevent a tragedy and then I have blood on my hands?). I also had the ritualistic compulsions at the time like constantly adjusting things, checking light-switches and taps multiple times and having to urinate and go back to bed about 5 times before finally going to sleep. However, these didn't cause me any stress at the time, so never came up in conversation with the GP.
If it had done, it would have been any easy OCD diagnosis, however between the ages of 13-16 I continued to struggled with intrusive thoughts and depression as my GP would continue to send me to get counselling, which was a complete waste of time. We just spoke about my life, which had no bearing whatsoever on improving my OCD.
Eventually, I confided in a school nurse that I was still deeply depressed about my intrusive thoughts, and after I shared some very dark thoughts with her about what if I act on violence and stuff like that, she twigged it was OCD and suggested I see my GP again, this time armed with the name of a mental health clinic she'd given me.
Eventually, I got the treatment I needed at a proper mental health clinic, and whilst there's no 'cure', I have coping methods, like mindfulness, and have learnt how to dismiss thoughts. Knowing what my problem was, was definitely the most important step. Until that point I didn't know I had OCD, I was just deeply depressed that I thought I was crazy with these disturbing intrusive thoughts.
so
The biggest weakness would just have to be the diagnosis problem. Most mental health carers I spoke with admit that my GP should have done more probing about my 'worrying'. The mental health people I spoke with were all sublime and helpful. I am very glad that more people are starting to support an increase in mental health spending, and the stigma around it is going away too.