I really hate the mental health questionnaires. They did a poor job of assessing my difficulties when I was in the thick of it (I’m doing much better now). I al

I really hate the mental health questionnaires. They did a poor job of assessing my difficulties when I was in the thick of it (I’m doing much better now). I also found them quite stressful to fill out. I remember getting scores of “mild anxiety” or “mild depression” and just kind of sitting there confused and somewhat dismayed, thinking… “Why am I having such a hard time? What is actually wrong with me?” Turns out some of my core issues were difficulty knowing and connecting with my emotional state, constantly trying to meet intense expectations that I believed were necessary regardless of how I was feeling, putting (what I imagined to be) the needs of others above my own needs, and having deep fractures in my sense of self-worth. Five years ago, I was largely oblivious to all of that. All though some pieces of the puzzle had been slowly coming together for some time. Some potentially more informative labels for what I’ve been dealing with: C-PTSD, emotional neglect, and / or highly sensitive person. C-PTSD isn’t even in the frickin DSM! I had taken online questionnaires (the anxiety and depression ones mentioned earlier were from medical professionals) for PTSD. It didn’t really match up, which makes sense. There is less material for C-PTSD compared to PTSD. I did try one or two assessments I found online for c-ptsd and I think I got a score that was very close to the “clinical threshold”. Which was a little helpful. But it took me quite a while to get to that point and I was still confused and uncertain. All that to say… The ”best in class” assessments, as well as our general ability to classify and understand the mental health difficulties that people experience, are not very good. We can do much, much better. And doing so would alleviate an immense amount of suffering. P.S. My advice for anyone who relates to this is to find a good somatic therapist who knows how to work with complex trauma / emotional neglect. It’s very difficult to work through this on your own. I was pretty skeptical about therapy… It took me 4 tries to find a good therapist. The first 3 were not that helpful. The somatic approach is important. If you haven’t found a good therapist, keep looking!