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I've had anxiety most days for a few weeks. Should I take a test here or just see a doctor?

It's not any one thing I can point to. I keep checking how I feel, which probably doesn't help, and I don't know if this is a phase or something to actually act on.

The answer

Answered by Fpsycal

Go see a doctor rather than waiting on a questionnaire to decide for you, and here is the reasoning rather than just the instruction.

Nothing on this site, or on most sites like it, can diagnose anxiety. A self-report scale returns a position on a trait or a reading of a recent window — useful for noticing a pattern, not for ruling out the things that produce the same symptoms. Weeks of persistent unease can come from poor sleep, caffeine, thyroid changes, a medication, a genuinely stressful stretch of life, or an anxiety disorder, and distinguishing those requires a clinician asking questions a questionnaire does not ask. A trait or mood assessment is not a diagnostic instrument, and treating a score as one is the most common way people either over-react to a mild result or under-react to a concerning one.

What does make sense to do yourself first: notice whether it is getting in the way of sleep, work, or people, and for how long. 'A few weeks and getting in the way' is already past the point where a conversation with a GP or a therapist is worth having — not because something is necessarily wrong, but because that is specifically what they are positioned to sort out and you are not. Checking in on your own state constantly, which you mentioned doing, is itself something that tends to keep anxiety elevated rather than resolve it; naming that to a clinician is useful information, not a confession.

If things ever reach a point where you are thinking about harming yourself, that is not a 'wait and see' situation — contact a crisis line or emergency services the same day. Short of that, the honest use of any assessment here is as something to bring to that first appointment, not as a replacement for having it.

Checkable with: Resilience & Stress Coping, Outlook & Gratitude

Written by us rather than by a member, and not clinical advice. Where it rests on published research the answer says so, and where the evidence stops it says that too.

From the community

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Check it on yourself

Reading the answer and seeing your own numbers are different things. These are the assessments the answer above refers to.

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