in-patience

[serial-unaliver-deactivated2024]

HELPPPPP

[charlesoberonn]

Reminds me of Jason Kander, former Missouri Secretary of State. When he went to the VA hospital to treat his PTSD, he told the nurse that Obama told him he should run for president, and she thought he was delusional.

[charlesoberonn]

Correction: It was worse. She asked him how long he's been hearing voices.

[therapyhorrorstories]

I think I'm gonna make this my go-to story. It's not the worst I've ever heard, which is an asset because people won't believe you if you tell them the actual bad stuff those people do. And it just perfectly sums up the casual arrogance everyone working in mental health seems to have. The way they treat you as inherently Lesser for being in their care.

[therapyhorrorstories]

If they can't even handle basic, easily verified shit like "I'm a lawyer" they are never going to believe you when you tell them that you know how to manage a condition you've been dealing with for decades better than they can or will.

[homoqueerjewhobbit]

And then there's Alexander Morris, who was put in a straitjacket, called racial slurs, and denied treatment for his potentially life-threatening heart condition when he told them he was the lead singer of the band he was lead singer of.

Four Tops singer sues hospital alleging racial discrimination after he says he was placed in a ‘restraining jacket’ | CNN

The lead singer of the Motown group the Four Tops has filed a federal lawsuit against Ascension Macomb Oakland Hospital in Warren, Michigan,

[plum-soup]

There are multiple parts of that article that are Jae droppingly awful but this one really gets me:

They almost let this man die in a straight jacket simply because they were too racist. And then when they realize their "mistake", they tell him that his life is worth a 25$ supermarket gift card. Of course he's suing them for $75,000 as he should but like. Can you imagine how insulted he must've been. The 4 Tops were one of the top Motown bands of all time. You can be at the top of the music scene and still, they'll kill you because you're black. And they'll use fake claims about mental illness and "aggression" to justify it

[tor-rentials-deactivated2022020]

(Not my content)

[beaniebaneenie]

About 6 years ago, I was in the hospital with awful pain… I was asked where it hit on the 0-10 scale and I said a 9… because I was told “10 is the worst pain you can imagine”.

I have a pretty vivid imagination. I was in the worst pain of my life, but I imagined that having my limbs torn off by a gator would probably hurt more. So I said “9”.

Turned out I had 6 simultaneous kidney stones. As anyone who’s ever had one can tell you, even a single kidney stone is monumentally painful- famously so.

I had 6 at once. 4 in one kidney, and 2 in the other.

When the doctor figured out what was wrong with me, he was floored that I hadn’t said “10”. Floored that I wasn’t screaming.

I told him about my imagination. He asked if I had chronic pain. I told him yeah, and that the reason I waited almost 10hrs to come to the hospital when I started was because “it felt like period cramps”.

His advice? “Any time anyone asks you where you’re at on the 0-10 scale? Add four to account for my chronic pain daily threshold.

[twishagratzu]

This pain scale isn’t as useful, but it’s funny.

I saw it in my orthopedic surgeon’s office.

[elfwreck]

A useful pain scale:

If you have chronic pain, your baseline may be 6. A good day may be 5.

Don't downplay that for the doctor. If your recent bad day was 8 or 9 - if you regularly have days that hit 8 or 9 - say so.

Part of the problem with doctors ignoring women's pain and people of color's pain, is that people who are disadvantaged are told to "suck it up" a lot, and they downgrade their baseline at 2-4 to zero.

Fuck that.

Describe your pain as if you were an overprivileged white guy who's never actually done 8 hours of manual labor in his life.

[spooniestrong]

[beemovieerotica]

I feel like I would have been diagnosed with OCD a lot earlier if the vast majority of screening questions (for mental illnesses in general) weren't based on the person's perception of their own behavior, in isolation. and what i mean by that is asking someone with OCD "do you wash your hands excessively?" is not a good question.

a person with OCD believes they are washing their hands the correct number of times. it's not excessive. we believe we're exhibiting best practices and helping to keep everything clean.

better questions might be, "does it seem like you wash your hands a lot more than your friends or family?" "do you get dry patches or cuts on your hands from washing your hands?" "do you find it deeply distressing, more so than how you've seen other people react, when you get something on your hands that you can't clean off right away?"

being asked "are you overly preoccupied with bugs, symmetry, and contamination?" also got "no" responses from me years ago in my life. what they didn't ask for, and didn't know, was what *exactly* I was doing in my day to day life that genuinely ate up my time and mental space to a concerning degree, but I *didn't know* that other people don't do this.

"do you spend a lot of time cleaning?" -> no, it's not a lot. it's a good amount. why?

"do you become frustrated because it seems like no one else meets your organizational and cleanliness standards - do you often 'take over' for other people because they can't do it right - do new friends seem surprised by how strict you can be about your living space?" -> oh. yeah. yeah I get it now.

[starfieldcanvas]

if the screening questions on the mental illness test sound at all like "are you already aware you're mentally ill?" then, shocker, it's not going to work all that well!

[chronicallypainful]

So many doctors never learned to say "I don't know"

Instead they say:

Some version of "It's not real": "It's all in your head," "Are you sure that's what's actually happening?", "Maybe you're just looking for attention?"

Or, some version of "It's your fault": "You just need to lose some weight/be more active/eat better/etc.", "It's just because you're stressed out."

In summary, doctors whose egos can't handle not knowing everything either invalidate what you're feeling in your own body or else they blame you for it. And the results can be traumatizing. "I don't know" should be a part of everyone's vocabulary!

[spooniestrong]

I'd rather hear that than "you're fine" or "have you tried ---". 💙🥄

[softgritspoonie]

@spoonie-living

[junglejim4322]

Doctor calls you with your bloodwork results and just says “I’m really mad at you” and then hangs up

[gentlier]

This is basically what happens to anyone trying to get a chronic illness/pain issue taken seriously, addressed, and treated.

[cripinpain]

healthcare should not have a weight limit.

[cripinpain]

like it doesn’t matter if a person is so fat they’re immobile & have infections in their skin folds & need assistance with everything from hygiene to cooking to cleaning etc. they should still get good medical care.

the fattest person you possibly imagine still deserves medical care. it also doesn’t matter why they’re fat, even if that person got fat because all they did was eat and eat without ever exercising, they still deserve medical care.

[tumble-tv]

SAY IT WITH ME: MEDICAL GASLIGHTING IS MALPRACTICE

[hillqq]

MEDICAL GASLIGHTING IS MALPRACTICE!

GIVING ME A DIAGNOSIS OF EXCLUSION WITHOUT RUNNING ANY TESTS OR EVEN TALKING TO ME IS MALPRECTICE!

TELLING ME "I DONT THINK THATS REALLY HAPPENING" WHEN MY LEGS ARE GIVING OUT UNDER ME IS MALPRACTICE!

REFERRING ME TO PSYCH WHEN I TELL YOU I CANT FEEL MY FEET IS MALPRACTICE!

IGNORING ME WHEN I TELL YOU YOUR TREATMENT IS MAKING ME WORSE IS MALPRACTICE!

"MIND OVER MATTER" WHILE I CRY AND SCREAM AND BEG YOU TO STOP IS MALPACTICE!

they know what there doing. they do it behind closed doors because they know.

[wizardnuke]

"everyone experiences [symptom]" how many times does it have to be explained that it's often about the frequency of the symptom, not the symptom itself

[wizardnuke]

"nearly everyone has had a headache before" i agree. "most people get headaches regularly" you're starting to lose me. "it's normal to have a headache all the time" go to a doctor.

"everyone gets anxious sometimes" true! "people get anxious pretty often" um. "it's normal to be anxious all the time" go to a doctor. etc

[genderqueerdykes]

okay but why are so many medical professionals focused solely on getting their patients back to their jobs and not actually helping the patient feel better. like you will be literally unable to digest food or eat or do anything and they'll be like "that's not good we gotta get you BACK to WORK!!!!!!!!" and so they drag their heels and take up a bunch of time and give you treatments that don't work or take forever to give you ones that do and when you tell them. hey i still don't feel good the first thing is "BUT YOUR JOB!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

fuck my stupid job. i'm dying. i'm a person not a walking job. help me. a lot of medical professionals will refuse to do their job and instead lecture you about being unable to go to your job instead. unreal.

[heyatleastitsnotcancer]

I went to a sleep specialist because I was having something that looks like narcolepsy along with extreme pain when they occur. Instead, she fixated on the fact I usually stay up late at night and sleep in. I don't work. I don't care that this is my schedule. It fits my life fine. I always stayed up even when I did work too. It's just who I am.

Instead, she decided I must have a normal person sleep schedule so that I can get back to work. She prescribed me cognitive behavioral therapy... for insomnia and completely ignored the episodes that brought me to her.

[justabunny]

unpopular opinion but mobility aids shouldn't cost so much !!

[markthekng]

Piece of advice for people who might need a cheaper cane, try to go to a CVS near a college with a design school. Sometimes they sell canes at extremely marked down prices so that they can survey if people like the design and if it has good sales so the business kids can study the numbers. The CVS near my school was selling most canes for 40 dollars, but the one I got that was designed by the design school was ten dollars and collapsible.

[a-little-bit-oddish]

so i'm joining the stem cell registry and donating blood regularly now, because i like, should. and it's been a good process and they're very nice. but as i was signing up for things, it had the box for sex at birth. Which is kind of an insane question. not "what hormones does your body primarily run on". but just... sex at birth. something that is not remotely relevant for blood donation, and also extremely misleading??

they check your red blood cell count when you show up. if I told them my sex at birth was female they'd be fucking horrified by my count. testosterone does shit to the blood! It is so much more relevant to know that my body runs on testosterone! i keep seeing medical fields doing this.

i think that they assume it's nicer, somehow. they don't just ask sex anymore, they just go haha please tell us what you were called as a baby :) we're doctors so we need to know, it's important :)

except it's not. at all. it is more ethical for me to lie to the blood donation centre so that they don't see my blood and flag it, when it is perfectly good blood for people with more testosterone.

i have to go to a throat doctor next month. they specifically asked for my sex at birth. there was not an option to tell them what they should actually expect from my voice and body. when it asked me to list medications, it physically wouldn't allow me to list testosterone, and it flagged it.

it's nuts, because all these places have actually been really welcoming and cool about me being trans, but the actual system is horrific, it's just forcing me to out myself by having to reach out after to correct it. because answering honestly is medical misinformation.

anyway you can just fucking lie i guess

[fibro-memes]

[lifeafterpsychiatry]

Hey did y'all ever think about that if doctors blame all fat people's medical issues on them being too fat without proper investigation and then feel justified in neglecting their medical concerns, then statistically more fat people WILL develop and potentially die from serious health issues and it might not actually be because of the fat when everything comes down to it

[cripinpain]

physically disabled people who are also fat deserve mobility aids just as much as physically disabled people who are skinny.

we also deserve to have mobility aids that fit us, we shouldn’t have to settle for ones that don’t meet our needs. whether it’s having a high enough weight limit or being wide enough or being sturdy enough, we deserve that.

it doesn’t even matter whether a person is fat because of their disability/ies or if they’re disabled because they’re fat. that person still deserve good mobility aids that meet their needs.

[this is a post about fatness and physical disability, derail and i will steal your mail for three months and two days]

[conarcoin]

fyi things like insulin, hearing aids, wheelchairs, glasses costing money at all is a form of structural ableism

[conarcoin]

disabled people should not have to pay to live their lives like everyone else. and in the case of insulin, disabled people should not have to pay to Not Fucking Die