I know, I know, here I am talking about health care again, but it’s something that’s played a massive role in my life the past year. I’ve just had issue after issue and although I’m certainly thankful none of them have been dangerous or severe, it has been an onslaught of health issues. At this point I’m well aware my pain threshold is pretty low. I can get caught up in small issues until it drives me crazy and I know that I can’t handle too much. But that’s just how it is, I need all my energy to keep my mental health stable, so when something disrupts that, it really messes with my head. Right now I’m still dealing with something personal and the doctor has not been a great help. When I say doctor in this case, I’m talking about my general practitioner. You know, step one when it comes to health issues. They’re supposed to either prescribe you something or send you onward towards the next doctor who’s more specialized in what’s bothering you. Pretty good system in theory.
My doctor and I are not on the same wavelength. It’s not like he’s unfriendly per se, but I generally need someone who puts me at ease. That’s something I highly value because whenever I’m dealing with a physical problem, it ends up affecting my mental health greatly as well. For this particular reason I’m going to a dentist that specializes in people with mental health issues. They take their time to calm you down when it’s needed, they have extra patience with you and all in all just more time so you’re not as rushed. It works great for me and over the years I’ve gone from being mortified of the dentist and just not going to one, to now going to regular checkups and even getting cavities done. It took a while, but all my old weak spots have been sorted out now and my teeth are a lot better off.
With my current health issue I’ve gone to the doctor three times now, each time being sent away without a clear solution. This time the doctor said to just wait a few weeks and then he’d send me on to a different doctor. I don’t think my doctor understands my needs. I understand that from his perspective they’re probably understaffed and he hopes my problems just resolve themselves. But that’s just not the case. I’ll keep coming back, because my anxiety will just get the better of me and the problem is not going away. For someone like me it’s much better to immediately send me to the right place. I’ll worry about the problem until it just keeps getting worse and worse. Eventually the panic will be worse than the health problem.
What I need is a doctor who can calm me down. Some doctors are going to be better at calming down patients than others. And I’m not the kind to be cross with a doctor either. I get nervous and very timid at the doctor’s office and end up not being able to properly get my thoughts across. Communication is hard, and a doctor is intimidating. My old doctor was great at this. Unfortunately he retired. I often felt like he was similar to this doctor in the sense that he’d just let you do some blood tests and sent you home without an answer. But he always managed to do it in such a way that I felt relieved and I felt like my problems were coming across and being listened to. For me that’s extremely important. I think the issue with my current doctor is that he’s not an amazing communicator and I’m a terrible one, so it just doesn’t work.
I have nothing but respect for people working in health care, so I always feel kind of bad thinking about it like this, but at the end of the day I am paying for these visits (through health care costs) and if it doesn’t work for me, then that’s not good either. I’m probably going to try and find a different doctor, perhaps see if I can find one who is experienced at dealing with whiny people like me. For now though, I’m struggling with my health again as has been a constant throughout my time doing this blog. My life after covid should be picking back up in mid-august and overall I’m still optimistic about the future, but I really hope this issue can get resolved before I have to start teaching again. I can’t really stand the idea of going back into life at full speed while feeling unwell, that’d be a tough pill to swallow.
And that’s really all for today. I initially wrote another post for today but it was really bad so I decided to just air my thoughts instead. To make up for it I’m planning to do five posts again this week instead of three. Hopefully that’ll stay for a little while, at least until I finish talking about all of Bleach and the new season of Made in Abyss. Those will become nice temporary series on top of my normal writing. I hope you’re enjoying those and if not, there’s always a new chapter of the Hesitant Hero on fridays! Thanks for reading.
Opal Kaharis 