Hey, I’m back to bitch about institutions with you. It took a bit because my body decided it was going to me make feel like shit.
Anyway, god I have a lot to complain about. I’ll start with one thing because my hands don’t like typing for long. I have told this story to others so depending on the accs you follow you might have heard it…
Morning routines sucked. But the worst part to me was morning check ups. They would check my blood pressure, see that it was high, and then recheck it. Meanwhile, I would be sitting there crying and telling them it hurt. They’d do it like, three or four times before throwing out the results and letting me go because they couldn’t get an accurate read. Every single time, I told them it hurt. I was a fat kid, so eventually they *finally* decided to stop using the smallest cuff after a week of nonstop crying and begging them to stop.
It didn’t really help. The bigger cuff was *less* pain, but it still hurt and that and the pain I came to expect (+ the whole, you know, being institutionalized as a child thing) meant that the results were skewed. They still continued to do it and just gave up on trying to help.
This has resulted in me developing an intense fear of blood pressure machines that still affects me to this day. They also just still hurt. Because as it turns out I have fibromyalgia, and if you don’t fibromyalgia can cause specific parts of the body to be intensely painful when squeezed. And one of those parts—surprise surprise—the shoulders and upper arms!
Yay, nursing malpractice! (Sarcasm)
I hope they'd switch the arm the cuff was on every time they tried to get a new read--it's pretty basic knowledge that you're supposed to do that to avoid tissue damage, however minor, or an inaccurate read! Something tells me they didn't, and even if they did, doing it three or four times over does not actually allow for the 5-minute rest period per arm. These people aren't 'evil'--it's worse. They are good and kind to people outside of their job. They will even occasionally be good and kind to you, but other times, they will treat you like they think everything you say is some bid for attention. Whatever description of your behavior is most convenient for them at the moment. They just get so used to the place that they work that the discomfort and pain they inflict on people becomes such common background noise that it doesn't even register to them. It's just normal. To borrow a paragraph from Disco Elysium that has always stuck with me:
The Kingdom of Conscience will be exactly as it is now. Moralists don't really *have* beliefs. Sometimes they stumble on one, like on a child's toy left on the carpet. The toy must be put away immediately. And the child reprimanded. Centrism isn't change -- not even incremental change. It is *control*. Over yourself and the world. Exercise it. Look up at the sky, at the dark shapes of Coalition airships hanging there. Ask yourself: is there something sinister in moralism? And then answer: no. God is in his heaven. Everything is normal on Earth.
I'm sorry you went through that. The blood pressure cuff is uncomfortable enough when sized correctly, and I'm sure it was much worse in the situation you described. It's awful that they wouldn't do something that was so easily fixed to avoid hurting you. But I suppose that's the crux of most anti-psychiatry...