"But that's something you can conquer!"
So I had to go see the psych at the free/low-cost counseling place I've been going so that I can get my refills for another three months. Like usual, they take me back and take my vitals, which means the blood pressure machine, and then, they attempt to weigh me. I have never once let them do this, as there is no earthly reason they need to know, and having to do it is triggering. There is a whole column in my chart with no weight readings whatsoever. Not a single one.
This time it's a new girl who looks about twenty, with the body language of a twenty-year-old, and when I politely demur, as I always do, with "We don't do the weighing thing with me," she responds with "Why not?" Which, while it's actually really rude to question that at all, I accept as the price of admission. I mean, most people just don't get it. So I explain, swallowing down the frustration like I always do. "Ex-slash-recovering eating disorder. It's triggering. I don't do it."
Then she gets this blank look on her face and comes out with "But you look fine!"
I blink and point to my head. "Well, yes. Because you can't see a mental illness." Still being polite.
The blank look intensifies, tinged with frustration. I am not following The Rules. I have abandoned The Script. She comes out with "But . . . that's a thing you can conquer!"
. . .
Like . . . I guess she wasn't expecting to meet a mentally ill person at a clinic that treats mentally ill people?
I break out the Very Soft Voice. "Yes. That's why I am here. And I am not having the rest of this conversation with anyone but my doctor or my therapist." And I get up, politely excuse myself to the foyer, and leave before I actually start explaining things to her using very small but very angry words. Not that she didn't need it, but I didn't need to fuel the reaction.
I was mad about it for a while, and I did indeed discuss her remarks with the doctor, though at the rate he's forced to churn through patients I have serious doubts he has time to care. I'm not mad now, really, just disgusted. I honestly don't know what the fuck was going through her head, and unless that was an isolated incident of momentary stupidity, I also don't know why she's got a job dealing with crazy people.
I'm very tempted to make another appointment for a couple of weeks out for basically no reason other than to mess with her. She needs to sharpen up or get the fuck out.
This is one of those things that grinds on you. I can't go to a different clinic. I don't have that option. And here, I can't do what I usually do in these situations and simply face away from the scale and say "Don't tell me."
A) The room is tiny, and the way it's set up, I'm looking right at the scale from the chair I sit in.
B) The room is tiny, and I'm sitting at the same tiny table with the so far always right-handed person taking my vitals, meaning my file is sometimes literally under my hand while I'm having my blood pressure taken. Open right to that page.
So I can't let them do it at all, because I will see.
These things seem inconsequential to people without these issues, I realize that. It's "no big deal." Believe me, I've wrestled with the frustration of that. It shouldn't be a big deal! But being crazy means that things that aren't a big deal bother you anyway, and you don't get a choice about it. The best you can do is work to get over or around it at your own speed, and one thing that does not ever help with that is telling yourself that the way you feel is stupid and wrong. You have to respect your own limits. You don't have to let them be your limits forever, you can work at pushing them outward or flattening them down or whatever it is you gotta do, but you do have to respect wherever it is they currently are.
That's one of mine.
It's also a stubbornness thing. My weight has fucking nothing to do with my health. I won't let them treat it like it does. My blood pressure is important -- and almost always elevated at that clinic, for what I hope are by now understandable reasons -- so I pay attention to that, but my weight, no. If the time comes when they need to know my weight for a legitimate reason -- a medication that has to be carefully measured, whatever -- they can weigh me in about ten seconds.
And . . . I'm not that sensitive about it. I'm good most of the time. Truly. But having to defend this limit literally every time I come in there by reminding them and explaining why every time is . . . well . . . it brings it up. It makes me think about that awful time and the awful things I did to myself and the awful things I would do to myself again, if I thought they would work. It makes me think about the numbers. It makes me hurt knowing that I used to look like this, holy CHRIST, even though I was very, very sick when that picture was taken. It makes me wonder what I weigh, and that could be a tremendously destructive thing for me to know, still. And it reminds me that in coming to terms and dealing with that whole thing, I had to educate myself, teach myself, about the relationship between weight and health, the realities of weight loss, and the nature of body dysmorphic disorders, until I now know more about it than most medical professionals.
It's not a super-big deal. They could be actively harassing me to lose weight. I'm just presenting it as another example of shitty interactions at this clinic, and in doctor's offices in general, and as an example of the general crappiness of low-cost health care. Between them, the two clinics that make up this organization served over 5,000 people last year. That sounds like a victory, but the state doesn't even give them enough money to buy enough chairs. Sneaky inter-office furniture theft is an actual Issue, one that's been brought up by nearly everyone I've seen there. They are understaffed. They're hurried. They don't have the time or space or money to treat people like humans. My therapist is great. The rest . . . nope.
Tomorrow (Monday) I go see my actual doctor, because the folks at CRS don't prescribe or keep on hand the drugs I need to control my anxiety. Inconvenient for me, but understandable considering they are benzodiazepines, and many of the people who go to that clinic are recovering addicts. I'm not angry at CRS about that particular thing, just annoyed that I have to pay for an appointment to discuss it with my real doctor, who I love, but can't afford to see regularly.
I found out the other day that we spend $20-30k per year on prisoners, and while I absolutely do not think that they should be treated badly -- I think inmates should be treated far, far, far better than they are -- it does make me want to puke knowing that the government will only give me a quarter of that at best to live on, because, you know, can't encourage those povs to leech off the government. Even if they're sick, and can't care for themselves.
It's all so tiresome.
X-posted from Dreamwidth. Comment count:
This time it's a new girl who looks about twenty, with the body language of a twenty-year-old, and when I politely demur, as I always do, with "We don't do the weighing thing with me," she responds with "Why not?" Which, while it's actually really rude to question that at all, I accept as the price of admission. I mean, most people just don't get it. So I explain, swallowing down the frustration like I always do. "Ex-slash-recovering eating disorder. It's triggering. I don't do it."
Then she gets this blank look on her face and comes out with "But you look fine!"
I blink and point to my head. "Well, yes. Because you can't see a mental illness." Still being polite.
The blank look intensifies, tinged with frustration. I am not following The Rules. I have abandoned The Script. She comes out with "But . . . that's a thing you can conquer!"
. . .
Like . . . I guess she wasn't expecting to meet a mentally ill person at a clinic that treats mentally ill people?
I break out the Very Soft Voice. "Yes. That's why I am here. And I am not having the rest of this conversation with anyone but my doctor or my therapist." And I get up, politely excuse myself to the foyer, and leave before I actually start explaining things to her using very small but very angry words. Not that she didn't need it, but I didn't need to fuel the reaction.
I was mad about it for a while, and I did indeed discuss her remarks with the doctor, though at the rate he's forced to churn through patients I have serious doubts he has time to care. I'm not mad now, really, just disgusted. I honestly don't know what the fuck was going through her head, and unless that was an isolated incident of momentary stupidity, I also don't know why she's got a job dealing with crazy people.
I'm very tempted to make another appointment for a couple of weeks out for basically no reason other than to mess with her. She needs to sharpen up or get the fuck out.
This is one of those things that grinds on you. I can't go to a different clinic. I don't have that option. And here, I can't do what I usually do in these situations and simply face away from the scale and say "Don't tell me."
A) The room is tiny, and the way it's set up, I'm looking right at the scale from the chair I sit in.
B) The room is tiny, and I'm sitting at the same tiny table with the so far always right-handed person taking my vitals, meaning my file is sometimes literally under my hand while I'm having my blood pressure taken. Open right to that page.
So I can't let them do it at all, because I will see.
These things seem inconsequential to people without these issues, I realize that. It's "no big deal." Believe me, I've wrestled with the frustration of that. It shouldn't be a big deal! But being crazy means that things that aren't a big deal bother you anyway, and you don't get a choice about it. The best you can do is work to get over or around it at your own speed, and one thing that does not ever help with that is telling yourself that the way you feel is stupid and wrong. You have to respect your own limits. You don't have to let them be your limits forever, you can work at pushing them outward or flattening them down or whatever it is you gotta do, but you do have to respect wherever it is they currently are.
That's one of mine.
It's also a stubbornness thing. My weight has fucking nothing to do with my health. I won't let them treat it like it does. My blood pressure is important -- and almost always elevated at that clinic, for what I hope are by now understandable reasons -- so I pay attention to that, but my weight, no. If the time comes when they need to know my weight for a legitimate reason -- a medication that has to be carefully measured, whatever -- they can weigh me in about ten seconds.
And . . . I'm not that sensitive about it. I'm good most of the time. Truly. But having to defend this limit literally every time I come in there by reminding them and explaining why every time is . . . well . . . it brings it up. It makes me think about that awful time and the awful things I did to myself and the awful things I would do to myself again, if I thought they would work. It makes me think about the numbers. It makes me hurt knowing that I used to look like this, holy CHRIST, even though I was very, very sick when that picture was taken. It makes me wonder what I weigh, and that could be a tremendously destructive thing for me to know, still. And it reminds me that in coming to terms and dealing with that whole thing, I had to educate myself, teach myself, about the relationship between weight and health, the realities of weight loss, and the nature of body dysmorphic disorders, until I now know more about it than most medical professionals.
It's not a super-big deal. They could be actively harassing me to lose weight. I'm just presenting it as another example of shitty interactions at this clinic, and in doctor's offices in general, and as an example of the general crappiness of low-cost health care. Between them, the two clinics that make up this organization served over 5,000 people last year. That sounds like a victory, but the state doesn't even give them enough money to buy enough chairs. Sneaky inter-office furniture theft is an actual Issue, one that's been brought up by nearly everyone I've seen there. They are understaffed. They're hurried. They don't have the time or space or money to treat people like humans. My therapist is great. The rest . . . nope.
Tomorrow (Monday) I go see my actual doctor, because the folks at CRS don't prescribe or keep on hand the drugs I need to control my anxiety. Inconvenient for me, but understandable considering they are benzodiazepines, and many of the people who go to that clinic are recovering addicts. I'm not angry at CRS about that particular thing, just annoyed that I have to pay for an appointment to discuss it with my real doctor, who I love, but can't afford to see regularly.
I found out the other day that we spend $20-30k per year on prisoners, and while I absolutely do not think that they should be treated badly -- I think inmates should be treated far, far, far better than they are -- it does make me want to puke knowing that the government will only give me a quarter of that at best to live on, because, you know, can't encourage those povs to leech off the government. Even if they're sick, and can't care for themselves.
It's all so tiresome.
X-posted from Dreamwidth. Comment count: