u/Own_Vanilla_310

Whenever I answer a depression questionnaire, providers always assume my depression is medium to high, even though my actual sadness/low mood is very little (or mild/moderate), because of questions like "how many days do you have little to no energy," "how many days can people notice your speech be slow," "how many days do you have trouble falling or staying asleep" but the reality is I have severe chronic fatigue and I often have issues staying asleep regardless of mood (have had years of nighttime awakenings). I find it frustrating that they will tell me this means I have a high depression level even when I don't feel sad or when I feel happy or neutral most of the time. How should I actually be answering these questions?

Does anyone else avoid mentioning past trauma to certain mental health professionals because you know all your current symptoms will be attributed to the past trauma? I had something happen to me that sounds very bad on paper, but it was a joke compared to the nightmares psych med reactions and injuries have put me through. It doesn't matter how much I have healed from the past traumatic event or how much I did for it or how much better I'm feeling about it, somehow THAT's the reason I was suicidal a couple years ago even though a reaction to meds brought on a much higher amount of suicidality and disability. I think this is some kind of discrimination that trauma survivors go through - everything current is blamed on past trauma even when the bad-sounding traumatic event was nothing compared to psych med damage. It's sad that I have to hide this