As I’m sitting in this empty room, candescent lights too bright for patients with light sensitivity. Uncomfortable bland chairs and clean lines on the walls with matching paint. Your standard pictures of landscape and what ableist think are “encouraging” quotes. Phones ringing and papers being shuffled while you hear on repeat the receptionist greeting patients..I can’t help but feel 100% Lost.
From the moment I make an appointment to the moment I’m in front of the physician I’m teetering this line of “Man I Hope this person can help me!” AND “Man what if they don’t believe me and gaslight me and today is a waste!” Sitting with my notebook where I have written everything that I need to bring up and ask for so I can lead the conversation, I’m thinking of all the scenarios and ways each appointment will go down and I’m mentally spiraling.
When you deal with debilitating pain in any shape or form, it does something to you Physically and Mentally. When you deal with doctors who gaslight you into thinking your pain is in your head it does something to you Physically and Mentally. When doctors choose to belittle you because they don’t quite understand what is happening and why..each encounter, each moment you are made to feel it is “your fault” it plucks at your Hope Levels bit by bit, appointment by appointment until your feelings of Hope are so reduced it’s starting to Fade Away completely. Then with each visit you start going in with a “what’s the point” attitude. You become tired of the round about a they have you on. You become a whole different person who just wants some normalcy, a break and some gosh darn Validation that what you’re feeling IS REAL because IT IS. If it wasn’t present you wouldn’t even be in these offices begging them to believe you. You wouldn’t be teetering the fence of “Will they Help me or Dismiss me.” You become someone new who has such little hope your pretty much just a walking “half glass” empty kind of person, spiraling the possibilities of how your appointments will go. Instead of living your life and not caring about this. But guess what..my Hope is Fading as I continue to live my life with the pain I am while doctors go about their day seeing me as a “Young Anxiety ridden Healthy” person.
So next time you’re making an appointment, meeting a new doctor, fighting the doctor you have..remember it’s NOT in your head and the Hope you once had that is now Lost..just like your pain, Isn’t Your fault!! None of this is. Keep showing up, keep answering the calls..even if you’re Hope is gone, keep fighting..because You’re Worth it!!!
Until next time
-Belinda
@thechronicallyillqueen