This self-assessment is designed to help female first responders identify whether they view their mental health challenges, trauma responses, and struggles through a "broken and needs fixing" lens or through a healing and resilience framework. The distinction between these two perspectives profoundly impacts how you experience your struggles, what recovery looks like, and how you relate to yourself during difficult periods.

The "repair" mindset treats you like damaged equipment, something broken that needs fixing before returning to service. It implies you were normal, something broke you, experts must fix you, and once fixed you should be as you were before. This framework creates shame, hiding, and impossible expectations.

The "resilience" mindset recognizes that you're responding normally to abnormal circumstances. Your symptoms aren't evidence of defectiveness but rather understandable responses to extraordinary stress. This framework allows for growth, integration, and becoming someone different but not lesser—someone who carries wisdom alongside wounds.

For female first responders, this distinction is particularly important. You navigate not only the trauma inherent in emergency services but also the unique pressures of working in male-dominated fields, often while dealing with discrimination, impossible standards, and the constant pressure to prove you belong. Understanding whether you view yourself as broken or as healing shapes everything from whether you seek help to how you experience recovery.

This assessment explores how these two frameworks operate in your thinking, beliefs, and behaviors. There are no right or wrong answers—the goal is honest reflection about which lens currently shapes your experience and how you might shift toward perspectives that better serve your healing.