When I first asked a doctor about mental illness, specifically depression, I was 17. I had grown up in a world where mental emotional problems were treated as spiritual issues, and had interpreted my mental illness symptoms as signs of a spiritual defect or lack of faith until that point.
In actuality, my earliest years were traumatizing in ways that would affect me for the rest of my life. It would take me 10 years from the first time I asked a doctor about my mental health to discover this truth.
I was diagnosed with depression and anxiety by a general practitioner after little assessment of my symptoms. He did not use the depression or anxiety quizzes, which I am now very familiar with, nor ask me follow-up questions about the symptoms
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