Who wants to see a collage I made about fictional medicine while having Really Big Feelings about my chronic illness finally starting to improve?
I am very, very iatrophobic and fiction is a safe avenue to explore scary things. Somehow over the last six years, in which I have read and written extensively about the compassion and safety I wish I could routinely experience in real-life medical care, I stopped being solely terrified of medical stuff and instead became both-scared-and-fascinated.
And that turned into having the guts to actually deal with my real medical issues, including asking for help despite being absolutely terrified I'd be punished for it. It was a super rough process but I now get to feel physically better than I have possibly in my entire life, so it was worth it.
And I could not have done it without the stories and characters I used to imagine safety before I could experience it for myself.
