doctors-are-bastards

[doctors-are-bastards]

Bottom of the Mariana Trench

I’m at the bottom of the Mariana Trench

I’m down an arm and my other limbs aren’t that great.

I’m screaming for help

It sounds so loud to me it’s all I hear

I just need something to help me

I want a rope

A life jacket

Fuck, give me the arm floaties that I had as a baby

Anything

I will take anything to help me out of this hole

But you just keep telling me to swim

[doctors-are-bastards]

anyone who dissociates semi-constantly, please avoid traditional mindfulness

I have now been told by two mental health professionals in two days that under NO CIRCUMSTANCES EVER am I to practice traditional Mindfulness exercises

Apparently ‘feeling like I’m dissolving’ and also that ‘I’m rising out of my body’, and being passing-out-exhausted afterwards, are all the complete OPPOSITE of what’s meant to happen

Who knew???

But seriously - this is something that apparently happens to people who are low-key (or not so low-key) disassociating semi-constantly, and is really really not good for you. So if you’re one of those people, like me! then there are other forms of mindfulness that may be more appropriate for you - specifically touch/sensation based, rather than the guided-thinking, breath- and sensory-focusing exercises that make up traditional mindfulness programs/exercises. Talk to your local health care professional if at all possible. 

But basically, if you know you have issues with disassociation, and somebody recommends a mindfulness program to you, BRING UP THE FACT THAT YOU DISASSOCIATE. Because normal mindfulness can be super bad for you. There ARE apparently mindfulness programs that can be helpful, but they have to be catered to the disassociation. So.

Please bear that in mind, everybody.

[doctors-are-bastards]

I go to bed tired, I wake up tired. I’m in pain all the time. No it does not stop. I eat and feel nauseous, I don’t eat and I feel nauseous. So don’t get pissy at me if I’m not smiling and happy all the time. I’m doing the best I can and you have no idea how much effort that’s taking.

[doctors-are-bastards]

Sorry I haven’t been here for a week thanks to the continued incompetence of my health care professionals I spent a day in the ER due to pain so severe I couldn’t eat, drink, or sleep

I think this is going to break me in a way 

[doctors-are-bastards]

I don’t know when exactly I learned that doctors weren’t on my side but if pressed I would say it was when I was suffering from chronic migraines and was missing weeks of school at a time. I kept going to my doctor and he would try new things, refer me to other doctors, but none of it really worked. I was in  a lot of pain, nauseous, vomiting, and miserable, I was unable go to school and when I asked for another doctors note he told me he “wasn’t comfortable” with that and if I wanted to continue to get care I should go find someone new. He didn’t refer me to another specialist, he just sent me on my way. I was 12, he abandoned me. He didn’t help me when I needed it and he certainly wasn’t the last

[doctors-are-bastards]

I relate to this so hard.

[doctors-are-bastards]

This is crazy. Republican politicians are desperately trying to take healthcare away from women, sick people & children (literally), just so that they can give even more tax cuts to the super wealthy. And many destitute Republican voters who are living paycheck to paycheck are cheering them on.

Republicans truly are evil.

[doctors-are-bastards]

Lets compare the Hippocratic Oath to what health care professionals do in reality:

I swear to fulfill, to the best of my ability and judgment, this covenant:... 

I will respect the hard-won scientific gains of those physicians in whose steps I walk, and gladly share such knowledge as is mine with those who are to follow.

I will apply, for the benefit of the sick, all measures which are required, avoiding those twin traps of overtreatment and therapeutic nihilism.

I will remember that there is art to medicine as well as science, and that warmth, sympathy, and understanding may outweigh the surgeon's knife or the chemist's drug.

Hahaha!  Warmth? Sympathy? I would love to have those be part of my experience

I will not be ashamed to say "I know not," nor will I fail to call in my colleagues when the skills of another are needed for a patient's recovery.

I can’t even with this one because so frequently I’m told they don’t know and its not their problem.

I will respect the privacy of my patients, for their problems are not disclosed to me that the world may know. Most especially must I tread with care in matters of life and death. Above all, I must not play at God.

Does playing God entail denying treatment because people aren’t awed by your brilliance?

I will remember that I do not treat a fever chart, a cancerous growth, but a sick human being, whose illness may affect the person's family and economic stability. My responsibility includes these related problems, if I am to care adequately for the sick.

They don’t even know their patients are human

I will prevent disease whenever I can but I will always look for a path to a cure for all diseases.

If you’re cutting corners to save money you can’t do this 

I will remember that I remain a member of society, with special obligations to all my fellow human beings, those sound of mind and body as well as the infirm.

If I do not violate this oath, may I enjoy life and art, respected while I live and remembered with affection thereafter. May I always act so as to preserve the finest traditions of my calling and may I long experience the joy of healing those who seek my help.

Its rarer to find a medical professional that follows this than it is to find one that doesn’t

[doctors-are-bastards]

Doctors assuming you’re not in as much pain as you claim to be, because your face isn’t twisted in agony.

Nah, doc. I’ve just learned to suppress the outer signs of my pain because of the society we live in. That doesn’t mean you poking at my knee doesn’t feel like an actual fire poker shooting up through my leg.

But I guess you know my pain better than I do.

[doctors-are-bastards]

Congressman Rod Blum in a Dubuque town hall (Monday) night asked, ‘Why should a 62-year-old man have to pay for maternity care?’ I ask, why should I pay for a bridge I don’t cross, a sidewalk I don’t walk on, a library book I don’t read? Why should I pay for a flower I won’t smell, a park I don’t visit or art I can’t appreciate? Why should I pay the salaries of politicians I didn’t vote for, a tax cut that doesn’t affect me or a loophole I can’t take advantage of?

Barbara Rank, a retired Iowa teacher, in response to Blum’s defense of the AHCA. Read more about the letter she wrote to her local paper. (via micdotcom)

[doctors-are-bastards]

Richard Nixon though people shouldn't die because they didn't have $30 k in 1972, whats changed?

Profit became more important than people’s lives.

This isn’t only a problem with dialysis, it permeates the health care industry.

Doctors don’t even tell people about treatments their insurance won’t cover.

How is this following the Hippocratic Oath?

Doing things for profit makes you selfish, health care has no space for that mind set

We need people to care for us not their wallets

Get angry, call your reps and senators, don’t let people die just for what they don’t have in their bank accounts 

[doctors-are-bastards]

“I understood their suffering because I’d been there, in hell, with no idea how to get out.”

Representation matters in any field, but the success of the therapeutic techniques she's created shows just how much we need people with mental illness to treat people with mental illness.  

How can people help you fight your demons if they don’t even know they’re real? 

If you want to read the article where she talks about her mental health journey and publicly disclosing her mental health you can find it here 

Final note: Her name is Marsha not Marcia 

why are So Many practitioners/teachers of psychology and related fields neurotypical. you wanna talk fetishizing lets talk how many people get into psychology just because my Brain Problems are Fascinating

[doctors-are-bastards]

Being denied health care is violence

Don't tell me being left to suffer and die isn’t violent just because no one is pointing a gun to their head

[doctors-are-bastards]

“Doctors who spent years studying the human body”

Do you mean doctors who spent years learning about abled white cis men’s bodies

[doctors-are-bastards]

“Mental illness is not a personal failure.” Dr Gro Harlem Brundtland

[doctors-are-bastards]

[doctors-are-bastards]

Dealing with doctors when they don’t seem to understand your pain is frustrating so here are some really great tips! 

I just discovered this blog but everything I’ve read so far seems wonderful! (they have a Patreon if you want to support this awesome blog)

This is one epically important post for those with chronic pain (and, to an extent, any other chronic issues). Please, take a moment to give it a quick read, as these are specific and concrete ways to get your symptoms across to your doctors.

Emmie of Illness to Wellness lays out a number of different aspects of your pain to communicate with your healthcare providers, gives you a few different frameworks to draw on, and even provides resources for increasing your vocabulary.

Should we have to be doing this emotional labor to make sure our symptoms aren’t dismissed? Heckin’ NO! But until something changes, this advice is Spoonie 101 Required Reading.