#but the thing about putting off getting diagnosed and getting treatment

[thethingything]

our mum's boyfriend has been telling her to avoid going to a doctor about her asthma symptoms for as long as possible because "once you start on an inhaler it's really hard to stop taking it again because you can't breathe when you stop taking it" and like??? yeah no shit, if you stop taking the meds that help you breathe you're gonna start struggling to breathe

[lesbiansanemi]

I have started to accept I am a bit more (re a lot more) psychologically unstable than I thought for a long time and man…. I’m tired of it

[sebastian-ciel-mutual-bullying]

Ciel's eyesight probably makes him act a little silly

I'm not sure if Yana confirmed this, but the wiki says that Ciel has trouble with determining distance due to his now monocular vision. I saw a post about this recently and it reminded me of my own trouble with my monocular vision.

When I was 10 and head over heels for Black Butler, I got diagnosed with Amblyopia, which is basically lack of vision in one eye because the brain decided that the eye didn't need to be used, and that the dominant eye was good enough. Little me was so distraught about having to wear an eyepatch for treatment- until I put it on and pretended to be Ciel!

Thinking back on that reminded me of how my amblyopia made me do some clumsy things as a kid- like run into poles or fall of edges because I couldn't tell the distance.

Another fun thing amblyopia causes is a lazy eye and double vision (in cases where the eye has some functioning). It was not pleasant having both.

Ciel's contract eye has full vision still. He patches it so much that I'm sure his brain is ready to shut it off (after all, he' young enough for it to develop that way).

The thought of him taking off his patch just to have his eye be completely off to the side and making him see double is hilarious.

Just imagine him whipping off his eyepatch to give an order to Sebastian and his eye is just doing its own thing and there are now two Sebastians.

"Sebastian, this is an order!"

"Yes, my lord"

And all Ciel sees is this:

And Sebastian is probably seeing this:

His poor eye must be so tired.

He definitely gets humbled by stairs.

[woman-for-women]

"For years, Sharissa Derricott, 30, had no idea why her body seemed to be failing. At 21, a surgeon replaced her deteriorated jaw joint. She’s been diagnosed with degenerative disc disease and fibromyalgia, a chronic pain condition. Her teeth are shedding enamel and cracking.

None of it made sense to her until she discovered a community of women online who describe similar symptoms and have one thing in common: all had taken a drug called Lupron.

Thousands of parents chose to inject their daughters with the drug, which was approved to shut down puberty in young girls but also is commonly used off-label to help short kids grow taller.

The drug’s pediatric version comes with few warnings about long-term side effects. It is also used in adults to fight prostate cancer or relieve uterine pain and the Food and Drug Administration has warnings on the drug’s adult labels about a variety of side effects.

More than 10,000 adverse event reports filed with the FDA reflect the experiences of women who’ve taken Lupron. The reports describe everything from brittle bones to faulty joints.

In interviews and in online forums, women who took the drug as young girls or initiated a daughter’s treatment described harsh side effects that have been well-documented in adults.

Women who used Lupron a decade or more ago to delay puberty or grow taller described the short-term side effects listed on the pediatric label: pain at the injection site, mood swings and headaches. Yet they also described conditions that usually affect people much later in life. A 20-year-old from South Carolina was diagnosed with osteopenia, a thinning of the bones, while a 25 year-old from Pennsylvania has osteoporosis and a cracked spine. A 26 year-old in Massachusetts needed a total hip replacement. A 25-year-old in Wisconsin, like Derricott, has chronic pain and degenerative disc disease.

“It just feels like I’m being punished for basically being experimented on when I was a child,” said Derricott, of Lawton, Okla. “I’d hate for a child to be put on Lupron, get to my age and go through the things I have been through.”

PBS - Women fear drug they used to halt puberty led to health problems (2017)

[dolleminas]

Something that absolutely makes me want to tear people to shreds with my teeth is thinking about how women's health is just not a priority in medicine.

1 in 10 women of childbearing age have PCOS.

Yet it's not considered important at all. It's hardly researched. Many women who suffer from this go undiagnosed for years. They are brushed off, ignored, not heard, or just put on birth control as if that's a cure-all. Even if someone with PCOS does get diagnosed the doctors don't even know everything there is to know about it.

Did you know that more than half of women with PCOS develop Type 2 Diabetes by the age of 40? Women with PCOS are often insulin resistant. Furthermore, many women with PCOS also have trouble with vitamin deficiencies, like vitamin D. And did you know that many women with PCOS also suffer from crippling fatigue?

Heart disease?

High blood pressure?

Again, one in ten women.

Can you imagine if one in ten men had PCOS? It would be the most well-researched condition on earth. Going to the doctor would mean that testing for PCOS is one of the first things they do. There would be awareness for PCOS. Treatments would be readily available and covered by health insurance. And so on.

But women are left to suffer because, why? The female body is just not considered important in medicine, yet it's the one people want to control the most. Almost half of the earth's population is female, yet our health is not a priority. If that doesn't make anyone want to go crazy, then I don't know what will.

[sirfrogsworth]

Froglock Holmes, Internet Sleuth

I don't remember dates very well, but I believe sometime in the mid 2000s I had a friend drive me from St. Louis to Detroit. It was a very difficult journey. I have never done well as a car passenger and driving for an entire day was one of the more miserable experiences in my life.

But I got through it because I was *convinced* I was about to be cured. Back then it was the only thing I wished for and I was willing to try absolutely anything.

So we were off to see the Wizard about my wish.

During that time there were no doctors in St. Louis who knew anything about Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. But I found a website for a medical company that claimed if I saw one of their approved doctors, they could guarantee a 50% improvement. And when I did my pre-interview on the phone, that lady said some patients experienced a full recovery. To which I replied, "Yes, I will take one full recovery please."

But the closest approved specialist I could find was in Detroit and she would only treat me if I did my first consultation in person. She would then continue treating me over the phone.

My friend took three days off and she borrowed her parent's SUV so I would have leg room during the 8 hour trip. We loaded up on snacks and compact discs and began our road trip to wellness. We merged onto the Yellow Brick Road (a.k.a. I-70 East) and headed toward the land of Marshall Mathers.

The more I got car sick, the more I focused on asking the Wizard to grant my wish.

A new... mitochondria?

Plus several trillion.

A new several trillion little powerhouses.

This doctor was part of a national network of facilities that claimed they could effectively treat Fibromyalgia and CFS with a groundbreaking 6 step "holistic" approach. It was super holistic. Extra super duper holistic. The website made sure you knew it was holistic.

And those 6 steps sounded very fancy.

I mean, that all seems pretty legit. They were going to enhance my cells and address coagulation deficits. That's a thing, right?

Now I know that "holistic" is a buzzword that should be met with skepticism, but back then I was really hopeful they could help me. They enthusiastically made bold promises and filled me with such assured hope that I sold my car to help pay for everything.

We arrived in Detroit the evening before the appointment. I slept maybe an hour. Morning eventually arrived and we headed to the office. They gave me a clipboard full of paperwork that took forever to fill out.

"Can I please just see the Wizard and get my wish?"

I got to the exam room and they put me in a gown with the butt showing—which I don't think my friend was prepared for. I have a condition known as Hank Hill Butt and it can take a bit of getting used to upon first glance.

My poor friend refused to make eye contact while I was wearing it.

The doctor finally arrived and this supernatural healing wizard turned out to be a very short Greek lady. She asked dozens of questions—most of which I answered on the forms already. She poked my belly, checked my reflexes, and at no point did her examination require a gown with the butt showing.

She officially diagnosed me with severe Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and told me she was going to type up a custom treatment regimen and while she was doing that, I was going to get a special IV they designed to specifically combat CFS.

They took me to a room full of comfy reclining chairs and hooked me to an IV full of orange nonsense. Once that was done I met back up with the Wizard and she had created the afore-mentioned "customized" treatment regimen full of expensive supplements and vitamins that were not covered by insurance. Many of which I had to buy directly from the facility. As I looked over the treatment worksheet, I realized they gave the same document to all of the patients.

It was at this point, 560 miles away from my home, stuck in some office in the suburbs of Detroit (which will eventually be taken over by a tooth pulp dentist), with my Hank Hill butt hanging out...

I realized this could have been an email.

I decided to put everything on three different credit cards. Combined with the money from my car, I had about $20,000 to invest in fixing my broken body. My plan was to get all better so I could get a job and pay everything back. I even told the doctor this brilliant financial stratagem and she agreed it was a good plan. No notes.

Young Froggie was being hit in the face with red flag after red flag and Old Froggie is a little embarrassed about that.

I don't remember any of the supplements, but they had names like "EnergyMax Plus" and "Ultra MitoBooster 3000." They definitely sounded like legitimate, evidenced-backed medical supplements and not knockoff energy drinks endorsed by D-list Instagram influencers.

It wasn't all overpriced vitamins though. The doctor had some silly ideas that were actually covered by insurance. She said I should thin my blood so it took less energy to circulate. And I should boost my testosterone levels above the typical range to improve energy. So I had to inject myself with blood thinners and rub testosterone cream on my legs every day for months.

The blood thinners gave me tons of painful bruises at the injection sites and made me dizzy from time to time. The shots became so painful I would have to close my eyes and have my dad inject me. Otherwise I would chicken out. We kept running out of places that didn't have bruises so he would just pick the smallest bruise and stick the needle there.

And the testosterone cream had an interesting side effect that I am debating whether to talk about as I write this sentence.

Okay, I'm just going to tell you.

We are all adults here and we can handle adult conversations while remaining dignified and mature.

The testosterone cream gave me constant, spontaneous, hours-long boners.

I hadn't experienced anything like it since I was a teenager. No erotic inspiration required other than a gentle breeze. Only this time I didn't have a math book to hide behind.

None of it helped my fatigue.

In fact, the constant bonerpalooza was exhausting to deal with.

"Oh look, that actress I enjoy has a fully exposed ankle." "I bet that attractive lady has boobs under that heavy winter coat." "Hey, is it Wednesday?"

At some point it becomes a chore, ya know?

Thank god it was well before 2014, because if I had seen Chris Evans bicep curling a helicopter I probably would have needed hospitalization.

/end dignified adult conversation

After six months I had 0% of the promised 30-50% improvement 90% of the time and she kept saying I just needed to give it more time. She said it works quicker with the IVs full of orange nonsense. But they custom made those IVs and can only administer them in Detroit. She claimed the oral supplements were filled with the same nonsense, but took much longer to kick in. She told me I could be patient or drive to Detroit once a week for an IV treatment if I wanted faster results. If that were true, I feel like that should have been disclosed at the beginning. But I was assured I could get the same results without the IV treatments.

It didn't matter at that point. My credit cards were maxed out and I was out of money. I called the doctor and asked if there was any treatment she could recommend that was covered by my insurance. She got very quiet and awkwardly said she would try to figure something out. Roughly 30 minutes later I was emailed a coupon for $20 off our next phone consultation. I responded and told her I literally had no money left.

I never heard from her again.

The Wizard had no ability to grant my wish for several trillion properly functioning mitochondrias. She had no magic treatment. I finally saw her for what she truly was.

With perfect hindsight I could now see all of the red flags.

Though if I hadn't at least tried, I probably would have wondered and regretted it.

Hard to say.

I was kind of amazed how they built a country wide collection of clinics and they were able to operate for years solely on the placebo effect.

Years later I was curious what happened to this network of quackery. I found a news article saying it was all shut down due to fraud. I don't think they had a holistic approach to paying their taxes.

The reason I am telling this tale is because I have been playing detective and gathering evidence for my disability case. I started to wonder if maybe I could find my fraudulent Wizard to see if she had any kind of records or something that might help me. I knew it was a long shot, but I didn't want to leave a stone unturned.

At first all I could remember was her last name and that she was a D.O. and not an M.D. Standard Google searches were not turning up anything. I couldn't find her current practice nor any contact information. Apparently her Greek last name is a popular Arabic first name for men... so all my searches kept resulting in doctor dudes. This was not the time for a sausage fest and I was getting frustrated.

And then I finally remembered the name of the medical company.

Fibromyalgia & Fatigue Centers, Inc.

I even remembered their URL... fibroandfatigue.com

So I went to the Wayback Machine and I was able to find their now-defunct website. I suddenly remembered its cloudy banner image and "concerned_woman.png" like it was yesterday.

Why, yes... I am tired of being tired.

I also remembered their promise that over 90% of patients had at least a 30-50% improvement. Which was the claim that sent me down this rabbit hole to begin with all those years ago.

I started searching different versions of the site to see how their claims of effectiveness changed over time. At first they basically implied they made everyone completely better.

If I saw that I would definitely think I was getting a cure. But I imagine this caused some problems so they had to dial it back a bit.

I couldn't find the 90% version, but I did find the 30-50%.

This actually sounds like you have a 100% chance of a 30 to 50% improvement.

As I skipped around to the archived captures of different years, the promised percentage kept changing. I don't think they did an actual statistical analysis of their patients. I think they just picked a percentage that sounded enticing without promising too much. Just enough to be life-changing with a built-in excuse for when it all goes tits up.

Years after my experience, the site finally settled on a 65% improvement in energy levels. It was on their new page detailing how "affordable" their treatment was.

$20,000, you say? Balderdash, no one would spend that much.

If you were curious, they claim their treatment is now affordable due to a new monthly payment plan system. It did not become any cheaper.

However, under the 65% promise, they added this disclaimer with a large bold heading...

Success depends largely on your dedication and commitment. Our most successful patients are the ones who make the commitment to follow the treatment program rigorously. Patients who are aggressive and comply with the treatment process experience significantly better long-term results than those whose dedication is half-hearted and whose compliance is minimal.

In other words, "If our bullshit supplements don't work, it is YOUR fault."

Or in my case... "If you run out of money, it is YOUR fault."

Oh and there was also this...

Looking at all of the versions of the Fibro & Fatigue, Inc website was certainly fascinating, but I had to quit dicking clicking around and find my focus.

I still had detective-ing to do.

I was on the hunt for a Detroit-area Greek doctor of osteopathy.

There were ~250 captures of the site between 2004 and 2016. She wasn't listed in the newest captures, nor the oldest captures. So I kept trying to drill down to find the exact time period she worked at the company.

And then... EUREKA!

She was hiding in 2005 on their "Meet the Doctors" page.

Her first name was *drumroll* Sultana!

I can't imagine why I didn't remember that common first name.

Finally, after weeks of trying to figure this out, I now had enough information to do a proper Google search and discover what the heck she is currently up to. Probably putting people in open-butt gowns to check their tonsils or something.

*googling noises intensify*

I'm not sure I've ever come across such a literal dead end.

Should I be making puns about this?

I mean, she did help exploit me out of my entire life savings and put me in significant credit card debt with the Sex Panther-approved promise of a guaranteed 30-50% recovery 90% of the time.

And the institution she was a part of was shut down for fraud.

Still... I never wished an early death upon her.

I would have been happy with a trip to small claims court.

[am-i-the-asshole-official]

AITA for threatening to get my best friend sectioned?

This actually happened 2 years ago, but last night he made a joke about it that kind of seemed like he might still be mad at me about it. So. Anyway, ages and all are written as they were at the time.

For context, my (18m) mom took guardianship of my friend (17m), called “J”, after his grandfather passed, a few months before this happened.

Not going into specifics, but J has struggled with OCD and an ED for years, and I suspect when he’s an adult he’ll probably get diagnosed with Narcissistic Personality Disorder at some point.

(Update from the Present: no dice… yet.)

A close family friend of his passed away and it caused his mental issues (particularly the ED) to get a lot worse really quickly.

Even thought my mom was technically his guardian, she kind of relied on me to keep tabs on him because he’s usually pretty honest with me compared to other people. Like, if he’s not doing well, I have the best chance of finding that out.

So. His family friend dies, he gets worse, I report all of this back to my mom, who starts trying to get some sort of more intensive treatment lined up for him (difficult and time consuming because of where we lived at the time).

My mom tells me not to tell J, because he “talks a big game” about not wanting treatment or whatever and she firmly believes it’ll be easier if he doesn’t have time to stress himself out about it before it happens. Okay. So I don’t tell J.

Somehow, he finds out anyway, and also finds out that I knew and had chosen not to tell him, but doesn’t tell me that he knows. (Convoluted, I know, sorry.)

I pick J up from an after school thing one night, we end up talking about pretty heavy shit in the car for a /long/ time, and after the conversation died, he put a hand on my shoulder, leaned over, and kissed me. And like not a short kiss either. It was like a 3 to 4 second kiss.

Context again, I realized I was gay and that I liked J in a not particularly friend-like way when I was 13. I never told him and never planned on telling him. I told him a lot of things but I intended on growing old and dying with that one kept nice and secret. Even if he was some form of not-straight, which I was 99.99% sure he wasn’t, I didn’t think it was worth jeopardizing my closest friendship with romantic and/or sexual feelings that could at best confuse him or make him uncomfortable or at worst outright disgust him.

Anyway. We don’t talk about it, I end up going to stay for a few days with a guy (20m but not really relevant) I’d been sort of seeing/sleeping with for a couple months because I literally couldn’t be in the same house as J or I would probably implode.

Fast forward a week, I’m picking J up from a hospital 2 towns over because he ran away (? unclear really, haven’t discussed the particulars w him and I wasn’t staying at home at the time) and ended up having to go to the ER.

In the car (best time to talk to someone because they can’t run away), he apologizes for kissing me. I’m thrown off by that, because he hadn’t said anything up to this point and it honestly wasn’t even in the top 5 things I was thinking about.

I asked him why he did it and he just sighed and explained in this tone of voice that, I don’t know how to explain it, but had just the right lack of empathy or affect that I knew he was being 110% honest.

Condensed version: he found out I was reporting everything he told me to my mom (still don’t know how). He was pissed. He was aware he needed more intensive treatment, and he knew my mom was aware. He did not want treatment. He knew I had liked him for years. He knew that I was relatively fragile about it. He knew that if he did something (like kiss me for example) there was a good chance it would break my brain and I would freak out.

He essentially kissed me to decommission me for a few days so he could formulate a plan to run away.

FINALLY we have arrived at the AITA part.

After hearing all this, I tried very hard to come up with something rational to say, but ended up saying (essentially), “You’re fucking insane, and I’m telling my mother you need to be committed.”

I know I wasn’t wrong to be angry. But I also know from past knowledge and experiences that he had a deep fear of being deemed “insane” or unfixable or whatever, and also that he was really afraid of treatment in general.

Idk. I go back and forth on whether or not I was out of line, or needlessly escalating the situation, by threatening him. It was a much bigger threat in his mind than it was in mine, and so even though I know I said it as a reaction to a fucked up situation, there’s still the idea that I blew it completely out of proportion and weaponized his own mental issues against him.

So AITA for threatening my best friend by telling him I was going to get him committed to a long term psychiatric hospital?

What are these acronyms?

[macgyvermedical]

My Experience in Inpatient Psych

So I know a lot of people on here have talked about their experience in inpatient psych facilities, but I'd like to add mine just to give all you writers out there a writer-focused one. It's below the cut just in case you have to sit this one out for your own reasons.

To give you some background, I am 30 years old and have had hallucinations since about 16 and bizarre intrusive thoughts (someone living in my house that wasn't supposed to be there, somebody poisoned my walls, etc...) for about a decade, as well as very severe anxiety since I was about 3 years old. This is something not a lot of people know about me, even people I am friends with IRL.

The only thing I am actually diagnosed with is anxiety, which I'm starting to think is a failing of the psych systems I have been a part of. I have had counseling off and on and prior to this hospitalization I took escitalopram, aripiprazole, and gabapentin prescribed by my primary care doctor- all for the severe anxiety.

Quite frankly, I should have been in inpatient psych at least a few times before this, and it's by sheer dumb luck that I've survived to continue this blog.

On Friday, I was at home alone and made a few pretty bad decisions. I wont say what they were because frankly they're embarrassing, but they have to do with self-harm. I was scheduled to work Saturday and at about 9pm I realized that if I drove myself to work I would crash my car. Since my wife drives me sometimes, I figured I would just ask her to.

I told my wife and she asked- even if she drove me to work, since I was a nurse, would I be able to keep myself safe around insulin or other potentially dangerous drugs? I couldn't answer that question. We talked for a couple hours and came to the conclusion that I probably needed to go to the emergency department.

At this point I figured they would evaluate me and release me because I couldn't possibly meet the criteria for inpatient. I was wrong in this assumption. After telling them the decisions I had made that day, the feelings of wanting to die in a car crash, plus about a previous attempt, they recommended inpatient. Turns out, when you're a nurse, you can make some really bad life choices with the knowledge you have, and they didn't want to take any chances.

I was given paper scrubs to wear (so I couldn't hurt myself with my clothing or a hospital gown). I was also given a patient companion (someone who sits in the room and makes sure you don't hurt yourself).

They gave me the option of signing myself in voluntarily, or putting me on a writ of detention. A writ of detention is a piece of paperwork that allows a medical professional or law enforcement officer to hold someone for 3 days in a psychiatric facility against the person's will for the purposes of psychiatric treatment. Whether you sign the voluntary or get placed on a writ, you cannot sign yourself out. You need to wait until the psychiatrist taking care of you thinks you're ready to go.

I didn't believe at this point I needed to go inpatient, but I took the voluntary option because there are some perks, like being able to leave within 3 days if appropriate. At this point I was convinced I was probably going to have to call off work Saturday and Sunday, probably be out of the hospital Monday, have a few days to rest and be back at work on my next scheduled shift after that, which was Thursday.

Well, that's not what happened.

Because of some of the decisions I had made, along with bed availability, they wanted to keep me in the observation unit overnight before they sent me to psych. I stayed overnight in a unit that shares staff with the unit I work on, so I was taken care of by my coworkers. This was surprisingly not that bad. I like my coworkers and they were really professional about it.

Saturday I felt like I was in a fog all day. I couldn't watch TV. I couldn't color or write. I worked out some in my hospital room and paced the halls once or twice. Mostly I hung out with my wife and occasionally talked with my companion, but even talking was difficult. I had refused ativan because I felt like I had no hope of finding a medication that made me feel better, and I figured I didn't want to take the one medication that might actually work and then not be able to get it ever again.

Around 7PM I took a 45 minute ambulance ride to the facility. Getting my blood pressure taken is a big anxiety trigger for me, but my brain felt so scrambled that I couldn't express this well. They took it every 10 minutes on the ride there and by the time I got there it was in the 170s/100s (BP goes up when you're having severe anxiety). This was not their fault of course, but no matter how much I thought about telling them or refusing the BPs, I just couldn't do it.

When I got to the facility I was greeted by a tech who took my BP again (150s/90s this time), showed me around and looked through my personal belongings (basically just the clothing I came in with since my wife took my phone and wallet knowing I wouldn't be able to have them on the unit) to make sure I didn't have anything I wasn't allowed to on the unit. She showed me around my room and was really thorough with telling me how things worked, what the rules were, etc..

The rules included:

No patients allowed in other patients rooms

No personal belongings that had strings, belts, or laces, or that could be used as a weapon

No caffeine after lunch and no free access to caffeine

No personal electronics (including eReaders and watches). There was a TV in the day room and 2 phones mounted to the wall for patient use

A little later my nurse came into my room and asked me a ton of questions. Here's the thing about any hospital- you get asked the same questions over and over. By the time I'd gotten there I could give my story in under a minute. Or at least, that's what it felt like. There were only 2 clocks on the unit, at the nurses stations.

The unit itself was laid out in a "T" shape. There was a main nurse's station at the place where the two hallways intersected. At the end of the long hallway there was another smaller nurses station, a cafeteria/day room, and a "comfort room" which was a small room off the day room that had a collection of the oldest and worst donated books that have every come together on a bookshelf.

I did some pacing that night and then went to bed, but didn't sleep particularly well.

On Sunday morning the tech woke me up to take my blood pressure, which was, not unsurprisingly, still high. It was about 5 AM so I got up and paced the longer of the corridors for about an hour. Breakfast was served at 8 and the food wasn't that bad. The coffee was about the worst I'd ever drank, which I suppose helped with the no caffeine goals.

Just after breakfast I met with a psychiatrist on an iPad for about half a minute, and I'm not exaggerating there. The only questions he asked were whether I was suicidal and whether I would be fine with tripling my dose of aripiprazole in light of the hallucinations. I had had a 50-lb weight gain in the last year so I asked to switch my med. He switched the med to cariprazine. That was all.

I had a much longer meeting with my nurse later. All the nurses did an excellent job of assessing me, asked tons of questions, and it seemed like they really tried to figure out what was going on. That day I also met with a social worker, and a therapist, and a nurse practitioner. Each of them did an assessment to see what my needs were while I was there.

There was also a music therapy session where I cried my eyes out to Because of You by Kelly Clarkson.

I was really tired by the end of the day but I also didn't think I could sleep so I asked for trazodone. I should clarify that when I say "I" in this piece I really mean my wife convinced me to ask because I legitimately didn't believe I needed or deserved any of the things I asked for at this point. To my utter shock and surprise, they gave me the trazodone.

My first night on trazodone was amazing and I realized I hadn't slept well in a long time. With trazodone I fell asleep and stayed asleep until the blood pressure cart came rolling down the hallway at 5am. The second I got up on Monday morning I was wide awake.

I paced a lot Monday. I went to a goals session in the morning where I gave a goal to write 3/4 of a page. I didn't know if I could do it or what I was even going to write about, but I know I like to write and it might be a reasonable introduction to getting back to life.

I also was having kind of a rough day brain-wise. My brain was coming up with all the ways I could hurt myself in my room. There weren't a lot of them, but it was trying. I told the nurse during her assessment and she asked if I felt I could keep myself safe. I asked her what she would do if I said no. She said they could move me to a more secure part of the unit and give me more supervision. I knew what part of the unit she was talking about, and I didn't want to go there (no space to pace, and pacing was keeping me alive right then). So I told her I could keep myself safe (if anything, the idea of moving was good motivation to do stay safe in itself). I hallucinated some black and white blood cells falling from the ceiling and music coming out of my vents.

I also had another meeting with the social worker to figure out discharge plans. I voiced in the meeting that I wasn't sure that I could trust my wife, since it felt like at the time she was the one who exaggerated my symptoms to get me in here. The social worker said we had really good communication skills, since this was something I felt needed to be said in front of both of them and we both stayed really calm through the whole thing.

I finished the day with an art therapy session that really helped me turn a corner. The prompt was to draw the emotion(s) you felt right now on one side of the paper, and to draw the emotions you wished you could feel on the other side. For the first time I realized that my emotional state was actually really bad and that the suicidality hadn't come out of nowhere, and that I needed help.

When my wife came to visit later that night I was able to tell her about my breakthrough, even though I still felt a little bit like she had done something to get me in here and I still wasn't sure I needed to be inpatient.

Tuesday was a lot better. I felt like I had woken up out of some kind of fog and I had no idea how long I'd been in it. I went to goals group, a spiritual group, and group occupational therapy. My goal was to be more social and I made a friend and we paced together and worked out. I read a quarter of The Martian by Andy Weir (my wife brought it for me because the best thing on the bookshelf was Louis L'Amour). I wrote about how good I suddenly felt. Turns out, I thought, a few days of good sleep, lots of therapy, and a new medication or two will really change things.

A quick side note about The Martian. I highly recommend it to anyone who is chilling in a psych hospital but has the ability to read while they're there (I sure didn't the first few days). I don't really know why, but the first few times I read it, I felt like they had created this superhuman character in Mark Watney just so they could throw a ton of wild things at him for the story. This time reading it, as a suddenly not suicidal person, I realized anyone with Mark's skill would have done the same thing and not just died on Sol 7 to get it over with.

Wednesday I woke up not feeling nearly as good as Tuesday, but still like the fog had lifted. I was a little disappointed (I hallucinated my cat (thanks for coming to visit me, Corina), some spiders, and just felt kinda meh. But I remembered how good I felt the day before, and that really kept me hopeful about going home.

I saw the psychiatrist again and asked to go home. He joked a little about me staying till Christmas, but ultimately he said as soon as his note was in I could go. I ended up leaving at about 12:30 with my wife.

In the time since leaving I have required a lot of support from my wife. The medications are all locked up, so are the blades and anything I could use to hurt myself. My wife has me in eyeshot at all times. I can't drive due to intrusive thoughts, so she does all the driving now. I quit my job because I feel like it was a big part of why I ended up as bad as I was. As someone who has been a pretty independent person this is a big change of pace, but something that is really necessary to my healing.

Ultimately at the end of my hospital stay, I was prescribed escitalopram, gabapentin, trazodone, cariprazine, and then a few days later propranolol. I'm currently on a total of 5 psych meds and honestly I don't care one bit because its so much better than being not on them at this point in my life.

[switchcase]

Causing fear about what happens during and post diagnosis for any condition by lying about it is not any type of disability advocacy

A lot of people online lie about both diagnostic and treatment processes and at times it is very obvious (or outright stated) that the people who are claiming these sorts of things have never been to the professional they're talking about. This is not to be any sort of "anti-self dx" post, simply that if you are this person you should consider not making PSAs about how diagnosis gets you put on govt lists or gets your rights taken away immediately.

Instead talk about patient rights, patient advocacy, and your local laws!

The most important one being that in the USA there is no govt list of disabled people that gets updated the minute you get a diagnosis. Your human rights are not just yoinked the minute you leave the Dr's office.

The ONLY people who know about your diagnosis are: the Dr who assessed you, and IF you used insurance AND the Dr submitted the diagnostic code to the insurance company, the insurance company will know. 1) you can REQUEST your Dr leave off the diagnostic code if you want to and 2) not going through health insurance may be more expensive but if you ARE very worried about your insurance knowing you can simply not use it.

Those are the only people who know! The ONLY way your diagnostic information can be shared to literally anyone else, including your primary care provider or any other Dr or the govt: 1) you sign a release of information for your medical records to be released to another person/dr, 2) you are submitting your diagnostic paperwork Somewhere to receive accommodations/assistance (for school/work, SSDI/SSI, etc--even then they will ONLY know the diagnoses you gave them), 3) you told them, 4) the court orders your medical information for an active court case (divorce etc), 5) a HIPAA violation where the dr/clinic doing the assessment illegally gives your information to anybody else without your permission. You can sue over this, as well as get their license revoked by reporting them to both the state and federal licensing boards for their profession.

As far as human rights are concerned, the main issues are in conservatorships, child custody, and medical abuse/neglect. Some things (like marriage issues and having 'too much money') are strictly SSI related which many disabled people are not on. Conservatorships and child custody issues are NOT based on your diagnosis! You can literally have this issue with conditions that many people on here overlook such as depression or GAD. These are based on severity of symptoms and someone trying to claim you are very ill. Meaning you can provide evidence that you do not need conservatorship, need a DIFFERENT conservator, or are able to care for your child either with or without assistance. Medical neglect/abuse is a big human rights issue but again this is NOT based on diagnosis, this can happen to anybody. You can also sue and report these incidents to revoke a professional's license.

While yes certain highly stigmatized conditions (both physical and mental) are more prone to experiencing these issues, telling people that if they seek help at all they will lose their rights and bad things will happen to them is unforgivable levels of fear mongering. There is not a diagnosis that will automatically revoke your human rights. Especially when it comes to mental health where many therapists will treat you while never putting a diagnosis down on paper because MANY therapists are aware of those issues and will not list a diagnostic code by default unless you request it for reasons like disability hearings.

[embarrassedanon]

The Model Patient

Eddie's friend Tony assured him that being a model patient was an easy and painless way to make a few extra bucks on the weekend.

Tony had been given an index card with of symptoms to memorize and assigned a handful of medical students who clamored to be first to diagnose him. Sounded easy enough.

When Eddie pulled up to the medical school that Saturday morning and saw his index card his heart sank. The card's directive was simple yet humiliating.

patient seeks treatment for persistent painful rash on gluteal epidermis

Surely this was some sort of joke Eddie thought. Tony only had to pretend to have the flu, but he had some crazy butt rash. He was going to have to spend the whole talking about a butt rash with these medical students...

Before he could contemplate any further, the director of the model patient program barged into the room looking down at his clipboard.

"What are you doing still dressed?" the disheveled director said barely even looking up at Eddie. "Come on, strip down completely and put on the gown."

"Completely? No one said anything about being naked."

"The students need to grow accustom interacting patients as they'll actually be in real life. If you're going to be a problem can you just go, I've got like a million things to do."

As quick as he arrived the director was gone and Eddie found himself standing in the cold room in nothing but a paper thin gown.

The next 90 minutes were perhaps some of the most embarrassing of Eddie's young life. A revolving door of young, bookish, nerdy, wannabe dermatologists, the types of guys Eddie teased in school came and poked and prodded his exposed backside.

The line between fact and fiction quickly blurred as the simple index card diagnosis gave Eddie no answers for the med students exhaustive questions about his condition.

Not much of an improviser, Eddie was answering honestly engaging with questions about how sweaty his butt got, his habits of shaving his butt cheeks, and what type of underwear he wore. These doctors were intent on finding the cause of his phantom rash.

The invasive questions were nothing compared to the physical exams. Latex gloves did little to insulate cold hands. The students massaged, squeezed, and in one case even parted his cheeks, hoping to get full points for successfully completing a thorough exam. The embarrassment was physically painful for Eddie.

Worse were the students attempting to make him feel comfortable and break the ice. He cringed and broke out into a full body blush as he heard "well I don't have to ask about your exercise habits, it's clear your squatting?" or "No wonder you came in to see about this rash, it's totally cramping your style as you show off that thing."

When the final student finished up, Eddie quickly got dressed, anxious to get home and shower off the embarrassment of the whole ordeal. He entered the lobby where all the students were gather comparing notes from their respective exams. They all looked up at him and sheepishly smiled.

The way they looked at him made him totally naked again. He collected his envelope of cash, feeling cheap and used. He headed to the exit, the future doctors lingering stares on his ass felt hot enough to burn through the seat of his pants. Unbeknownst to Eddie the stress of this ordeal was already forming the faintest hives, exactly where he least wanted them.

It wouldn't be long before his cheeks were getting examined for real.

[woso-fan13]

Comfortember 2023: 9 (??)

*not really woso or comfort, but it’s what you get*

9. Aftermath

Everyone knows about the calm before the storm. The few moments of silence before disaster strikes. Where the earth is still and the only sound is a heartbeat. 

No one ever talks about the calm after the storm. When the worst has passed and you’re left standing still. The silence has returned, but it’s haunting now. What once was a reflection of the good is now an echo of the horrors just past. 

It’s the same thing after an injury. There’s the rush as everything happens, your body hitting the pitch. There’s the frantic shouting of your teammates and the constant noise from the crowd. There’s the hands all over your body, medics trying to help you. The rocking as you’re moved to a stretcher and lifted off of the ground. 

And you’re taken off the pitch and put into a treatment room. You’re assessed and diagnosed, treated if you can be. And then you’re alone. You’re alone and it’s quiet and all that you’re really left with are your thoughts. They swirl through your head as you reflect on if this could be the moment that ended your career. 

Sometimes, if you hold your breath and listen very closely, you can still hear the game. You can hear the way that the world has moved on without you. How nothing has changed since you left. 

The calm after the storm surrounds you and suffocates you. And there’s no telling when it could end. 

[spiderriot]

"Why I disappeared for 2 and a half years" life update

‼️tw for medical trauma/near death experience‼️

So first off if you have no idea who I am, that makes total sense. I'm the former artist who drew these

If you still don't remember me, that's extremely valid and understandable

So about 2 and a half years ago I got really sick, so sick I lost my ability to walk or use my hands and was in so much constant pain I would hardly sleep and passed my days literally screaming and crying in pain. I got sick to the point where drinking water even made me throw up and I was slowly starving. But I had no insurance or money so no doctor would help me. I lived like this for half a year until I was rushed to the hospital at risk of heart attack, starvation, and organ failure. Luckily at this time I finally had insurance so after a long time in the hospital I was able to be linked up with doctors and proper medication.

I was diagnosed with a late stage degenerative nerve disease, as well as seizures. Because of how long it took to get proper treatment I had lost the use of my legs and am now permanently wheelchair bound. I also live in constant pain as there is no cure and all I can do is manage the pain I have. Basically my pain receptors are always turned all the way up and I have to be medicated for the rest of my life or it will kill me.

With that I also lost the use of my hands. Luckily with a lot of physical therapy I can use them again, just not like I used to. I had to completely reteach myself how to move my fingers, hold things, type, eat, put on clothes, etc. But sadly this means I'm having to reteach myself how to draw. I am very early into it and it's not going well yet, but I hope one day I will be able to draw again.

As to why I haven't posted about this until now.

1) I was so sick for so long I didn't use social media for almost a year and honestly between grieving the loss of so much and my rehabilitation I just straight up forgot

2) I could not for the life of me remember any of my old login info and just today found the info in an old file

But if you've read this far, thank you, and as I continue to recover I hope to be more active on here and maybe one day post art again. Thank you

[thebibliosphere]

Hey Joy, this isn't a question so much as a way for me to convince myself I'm not a hypochondriac, lol. Lately, I've been experiencing symptoms of fatigue, brain fog or memory issues, light-headedness, etc, that are uncommon for my age (30). I have related disorders such as anemia, anxiety, & ADHD that may be contributing to these symptoms, although they seem to have gotten worse or appear more frequently now than when I was initially diagnosed with those disorders. My work allows me to read & interact with disabled people with rare diseases, so I often find similarities with their medical issues. At first, I thought this was all just burnout or something related to the lockdown during COVID. I just saw my doctor and had blood work done to check my levels, and I may have a heart condition (tachycardia, mitral valve prolapse). I've fallen asleep at work before because I can't keep my eyes open, even after a full 8 hours of sleep. I can get dizzy from standing up too fast & can't seem to be on my feet for very long without discomfort & pain (I used to work retail, how did I ever do it?). I've researched some of my symptoms and found ME/CFS and POTS as possible conditions. Do you think it's a possibility I have these, or is it just my anxiety? Thank you! (P.s. Hunger Pangs is on my tbr!)

I obviously cannot tell you with any certainty what is wrong--and I am glad you are seeing doctors about it already and may have possible answers wrt tachycardia and the mitral valve.

What I will say is that there are many types of dysautonomia, of which POTS is one, and that what you are describing sounds very familiar to me as someone with two known types of dysautonomia.

The fact that this is hampering your quality of life to the point where you fall asleep at work, are unable to stand without getting dizzy, and are experiencing chronic pain, is enough of a reason to pursue further testing for things like dysautonomia and, yes, possibly even ME/CFS though given your history of anemia, I'm inclined more toward dysautonomia because the two often go hand in hand.

Also, it is normal to feel anxiety experiencing these types of symptoms. Even if it turns out to be a symptom of your anxiety, doesn't make the experiences any less real and debilitating, and you deserve treatment that will help improve your quality and comfort of life. And there is treatment and things you can do that will make you feel better. Getting your anemia under control should be a top priority if it isn't already. Mines was allowed to go untreated for years until we found out my iron anemia was being caused by pernicious anemia (b12 deficiency), and the iron anemia I'd been plagued with since birth suddenly cleared up.

Years and years of blood transfusions and infusion treatments, and the whole time I needed b12. Who knew? Certainly not my old doctors.

Anyway. If your symptoms are at the point where you are recognizing yourself in things like POTS? It's time to pursue that with your doctor. Don't put it off because you think it's not that bad or others have it worse. Everyone deserves to feel well.

Good luck.

[bomberqueen17]

ugh

I can't sleep and I'm just sort of stewing over how unprepared I am to be entirely on my own managing my own healthcare. blech.

Did I mention, Farmsister was suffering from hip pain and went to her doctor and was diagnosed with the exact same problem I have?

Diagnosed, I said. Yes! Her doctor actually investigated the cause of her pain, diagnosed her, referred her to a physical therapist, but also came up with a plan of treatment. Told her physical therapy often can't resolve this issue, so after a set amount of PT, if there wasn't enough improvement she'd refer her to an orthopedist instead.

Imagine that. My doctor was like "you've got intermittently debilitating pain? You should go see a doctor about that." and that was that. I went to a physical therapist because that's what she recommended, but I don't have a plan, I'm just spending $150/wk to work out in a room full of other people. I guess I'll ask my PT if there's a plan or like timeline or like, idk, something we should look for, or what. IDK what a realistic goal is. Pain-free seems out of reach. I'd settle for largely functional, I guess? But I don't know, and I guess I'm on my own to figure it out.

And the same with the ADHD! She was like "oh, your insurance isn't going to cover it and it's probably going to take months of waiting, but you had better go see someone about that", and refused to engage any further. So I messaged the psychiatrist today and he doesn't check the messages on that platform so I texted the admin who was like oh usually medication is adjusted at follow-ups, and I'm like well in the three minutes he talked to me it didn't come up I guess, so then they texted back that he says to try taking two pills a day for a couple days and then schedule a follow-up.

I've asked around, and usually I guess the regular adderall pills, you take in two doses at separate times. But if the point is that I'm trying to see if a higher dose helps, I'd probably better take them at the same time??

It's just that when the small ineffective dose wears off four or five hours after I take it, without my ever having had a good phase, I get horribly drowsy and also get this kind of gross formless yearning that I think might be a dopamine crash, where I roam the house in itchy horrible discontent trying to think of something that might help me, but it's not candy and it's not reading a book and it's not napping, and I guess I understand why people turn to drugs or self-harm because the feeling is awful, spacy and wrung-out and aimlessly needy.

But I guess it's up to me to research what that is and what to do about it, and then at my $250 three-minute follow-up appointment in three days or whatever I'll tell the psych what I want prescribed to me, because it's sure as shit not like he's going to have any fucking advice for me.

And like. Laugh out loud at the notion that my primary care physician would give a single shit about this. Maybe I didn't mention this on here either but literally the only thing she has looked into about me is that my blood tests came back with a fasting blood glucose level of 5.7 (idk what units, just that she's fixated on that number) and it is exactly entirely that post circulating about """"pre-diabetes"""? She has put in my chart that she wants to start me on Metformin!! Christ all fucking mighty, it could not be more obvious that she took one look at my fat ass and was like "this bitch eats only candy! I'd better scare her straight!"

Ma'am fuck off. She wants me to get my blood retested in July and I am figuring I'll take advantage of having to have a visit then anyway to get the ADHD stuff entered into my main chart, and I'm also going to tell her that since she was so disinterested in literally any of the conditions actually debilitating me (my hip pain and my ADHD) I had to research those so I could treat myself, and in the course of researching that I found out about the fake "epidemic" of "pre-diabetes" which isn't a thing, it's a fucking PR gambit to sell drugs, and so if she prescribes me diabetes drugs when I do not fucking have diabetes I will not be taking them, and I will also be looking for a new doctor, because I do not appreciate her fixation on treating a condition I do not have while ignoring things that are literally preventing me from leading the life I want to, wherein I can do things like, stand/walk as much as I like and can also like, perform tasks.

So there's my timeline.

(Yeah my insurance won't cover blood testing a second time in a year so that's gonna cost me $200ish, and the phone doctor visit she insisted on to discuss the results last time was $45 and it'll be that again for this one, but I mean, eventually I'll hit my deductible maybe.)

I don't know, people tell me that they have medical professionals that actually listen to and treat them and give them like actual good actionable advice on how to improve their various health conditions but as far as I can tell that all sounds fake and isn't a thing.

Unfortunately, I am too fucking debilitated by my Can't Think Good disease to do a competent job at caring for myself, so I guess I'm just going to have to fucking muddle through somehow, or something.

Probably I should put together my citations on how Pre-Diabetes Is Fake so that when I unload that on my doctor I can do so with fucking footnotes at least. Lord knows I can't sleep at the moment so I might as well do something productive.

[cashandprizes]

Thwip Thursday

Oh yeah baby. It's happening. Enjoy an excerpt of my final paper for CBT where I treat our fun CBT dear professor Lasko. This is the funniest thing I've ever posted on my blog because yes, I am writing about redacted for a graduate school final paper for a grade. I will put it in the tag because I think it's funny.

(No read more necessary! Can you believe it! Just a warning though I did fill out his backstory and he did get hit with the transgenderification beam. sorry not sorry)

This case conceptualization addresses the hypothetical course of treatment for Lasko Moore, a character in a modern-fantasy audio narrative. Lasko Moore presented to treatment as a 30-year-old pansexual and transgender Indo-Caribbean man working as an administrator and adjunct professor at Dahlia Academy for Magical Novices for persistent anxiety symptoms. Upon intake, Lasko reported experiencing near constant racing thoughts that he was unable to “turn off”, panic attacks, and increased anxiety about social interactions at his work. He described spending a significant amount of mental energy preparing for and reviewing social interactions with colleagues such that he often avoids his colleagues in an effort to minimize his anxiety. Lasko reported that the anticipation around coworker interactions (meetings, socials, etc.) becomes quickly overwhelming as he becomes preoccupied with what he will say and do in an effort to try and minimize his tendency to become hyperverbal and overshare information as well as stuttering. He described this process as starting with embarrassment over previous interactions which leads to critical thoughts like “I shouldn’t be so anxious” which leads to rehearsal of potential outcomes of interactions. However, in the moment of social interactions he becomes so anxious as there “aren’t any objectives [or] any specific roles” to the conversations that he “word vomits” and becomes tangential and overshares until he runs out of breath and stops himself from talking due to his own critical thoughts and begins to isolate himself. Lasko was initially diagnosed with Panic Disorder (F41.0) and Generalized Anxiety Disorder (F41.1) to capture his persistent anxious state with occasional intense bouts of extreme anxiety and panic. An initial long-term goal was collaboratively set as improving his coping strategies and tolerance of anxious affect to better network and create relationships. As this was Lasko’s first time utilizing mental health services, treatment began with inhibitory learning in combination with Acceptance and Commitment Therapy in order to facilitate willingness to experience interoceptive cues and extinguish avoidance due to fear of negative consequences. This was able to reduce his panic attacks as he felt more able to tolerate overwhelming anxious affect. Despite his clear engagement with treatment through attendance, homework, and skills practice, Lasko continued to struggle with critical thoughts and avoidance of coworkers which he identified as a major barrier to his continued professional development and potential non-academic relationships. Through collaborative exploration, a persistent early maladaptive schema relating to his critical thoughts emerged and treatment shifted to a goal of starting dialogue between schema modes to facilitate the use of coping strategies to build interpersonal effectiveness.

[yrfemmehusband]

I have a doctor's appointment tomorrow and I'm thinking a lot about my own role in my medical treatment and how I've definitely aided in my own prolonged diagnosis. Yes, lots of doctors gaslight, and lots of doctors are starkly rude and unhelpful. But it's hard to deny I've also played a role in not getting what I need from appointments and Drs.

My severe medical trauma makes it really difficult to explain what exactly I want to say. It makes it hard to say anything. And while that's hard to overcome when you keep getting traumatized, it's something I really need to do. Not being able to fully articulate to my doctors what's going on with me has severely negatively impacted my care.

It is also up to the patient to redirect their care if it isn't going in the direction they feel it needs to go. I have known this whole time I need to go up a neurologist but on some level I have allowed myself to be yanked from specialist to specialist to not find anything wrong. Investigating issues that might be a problem but don't fit all my symptoms, especially the most important ones. I should have emphasized which symptoms were affecting me most and I should have displayed more of my knowledge about where I think their origin could be.

All of this was hard to do for multiple reasons. These things have been more or less out of my control, it was hard to recognize what I needed to do. Part of the issue is fear of doctors and the medical system as a whole. Listing off all of my symptoms is difficult because they are so widespread. Ive had so many gaslight me that it's easier to pick a few most impactful symptoms and leave out the rest.

Another reason is because of my illness itself. Doing anything has been extremely difficult for two years now. It's hard to make art, to post, to organize my symptoms let alone keep track of them. Ive wanted to make a folder of my symptoms, diagnoses, a timeline and pictures. I want to, just feel like it's not within my grasp to do it at all. It's difficult to pick up new habits or learn new things at home and at work. Everything is difficult for me. Add medical trauma on top of this and I was nearly mute in so many of my doctors appointments. Even now it's simply hard to articulate everything and remember everything I want to say.

Honestly I don't blame myself, this isn't my fault. The medical system and doctors should put in more effort and safeguards for people who have issues articulating their issues, and a patient advocate did not help me either, it wasn't even his fault to be honest.

This time I'm setting aside time to write everything down. I already have a chart and timeline of my symptoms and diagnoses I made with my therapist and now I'm going to draft a script for my appointment tomorrow. Pls wish me luck and if anyone has any advice that is welcomed thanks if u read my rant lol