#maybe it’s cuz I was called a hypochondriac as as kid about my pain that makes me embarrassed to go to the doctor | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

ironiedevivre · 4 years

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alright let’s sum up my week. all of this is pulled from my various blogs & voice memos cuz i remember none of it

monday. it was raining. i went home........? no further notes.

tuesday. went to the movies, fell asleep. qmmunity meeting was good tho i think? oh! yes! the new people! we exchanged phone numbers! i won CAH and i wish i knew what the winning card was (i know i played “selling crack to children” but in response to what???)

wednesday. ...frustrated. don’t remember why but i think that’s part of it? my memory is so shitty and my attention span is nonexistent and i keep fucking up. could also just be politics and ableism. (actually maybe that’s it? forever pissed off at dr for never actually listening to me. you get used to being in pain all the time but it’s fucking infuriating because no one should have to. and when you’re fat, Black, and afab, your pain being ignored or explained away as “psychosomatic” / “stress” or “anxiety” or “depression” or “fat” is the norm, and they don’t even bother considering anything else -- or actually helping you find solutions, regardless. doesn’t matter that i can’t walk sometimes or take care of myself properly or find and keep a “normal” job that i like so that i have money to try to fix the other things, i’m Just Stressed and need to keep taking the useless anti-depressants. RAAAAAGE. they call you a hypochondriac while ignoring the fact that you avoided seeing doctors for over a decade til you couldn’t anymore because none of them ever bother to listen anyway so it must not be important)

thursday. there was the qpoc meeting. and it was really good. discussion of identity, and visibility & hypervisibility, and people/spaces where you feel like you can be your whole authentic self without having to compartmentalize, and what it’s like to have to watch your privileged friends have a life you’re denied (how they’re able to be married with kids and careers, while you’re 30-something and floating through life poor af and still trying to find a way to be grounded and whole... literally all of my qpoc friends are experiencing this. it’s not just me. it’s every single one of us. there are just so many more pieces to put together, so much more trauma, so many more challenges. and as much as others think they understand intersectionality, they just don’t.)

friday. ....oh. made money. bought groceries. otherwise kind of vaguely sad suddenly? “painfully visible and entirely ignored.” i just kind of exist..... quite likely related to thursday’s meeting.

saturday. sleep. movie night. but mostly sleep. again extremely frustrated with inability to pay attention & constantly messing up projects because of it. took all day to make a bracelet (with a fairly simple repeating pattern) that should’ve taken an hour tops.

sunday. lockpicking! fun! i was good at it! i can do handcuffs on both hands!! fast!! noticed no anxiety all week. just spacey af and SUPER clumsy. apparently anxiety hides that very well... jammed my thumb in the sewing machine, broke a needle, couldn’t remember where i keep the replacements, forgot several other items on the shopping list, had to go back out and get everything.... found more things i made that i forgot about entirely. and forgot about AGAIN until rereading that post now....

monday. i recorded something so must’ve been something... oh. same theme - no one actually listens, they just assume they know what you really need better than you do...

tuesday. slept in quite late... spent most of the night (and previous day?) watching & liveblogging thai series. meeting had a bunch of new ppl from another place.

as much as i’m one of the “quiet”/less talkative people, i feel quite comfortable (with the exception of talking about dating... speaking of that series! it’s a romance. and i love the romance! *swoon* but the only part that made me think “omg i’m so jealous i want that” was when it was all the friends goofing off in the kitchen while cooking together. everything else is “it’s nice, but i don’t need that and want is a strong word.”

and it’s always been that way for me. i feel things very intensely. (too much, imo, which is why i actually really dislike romantic feelings....) as long as i have my super close-knit group of people who are cool with cuddling and physical clinginess, i’m good. anything else is extra. welcome, i guess, or negotiable, but just not a priority... i’m not aromantic, and very “well technically, but it’s complicated” on the ace thing. as far as emotional intensity goes, romance and friendship are the same. soulmates are soulmates, what you do with them is whatever. (...and the more i think about it, i wonder if it’s because i don’t understand wtf “sexual attraction” means that it’s just optional all around? it’s just behavior, not like. related to feelings in any way. entirely separate from any emotional attachment altogether.)

...do i really just not want.... the “traditional” monogamous romance technically fits the boxes of “intense intimate friendship” but something about it still just doesn’t feel right.

queerplatonic sounds like heaven to me....

and now the sun is up and i’ve spent several hours contemplating, and going back to ranting

and now i’m sad. because my back hurts. and it means i can’t lace a corset tight enough, and i’m going to want to use the cane today. but i have to Perform Abledness and pretend i’m not actually disabled in any way lest i make someone Uncomfortable and because otherwise i will be accused of faking, which i can’t even counter with a Real Diagnosis because i’m pretty sure my dr thinks it isn’t real anyway and i ~Must Want Drugs~ or something, and isn’t that all just fucking hilarious... yeah, that’s definitely why i was so pissed off all week. i remember there was something on twitter... buried now, i’m sure, but. ugh. that was it.

and being honest w/ drs about having anxiety so i finally could get treatment for it turned out exactly as i worried it would - renders everything else invisible. you don’t get properly treated because of it, whether via your avoidance or theirs....

rage.

...my alarm goes off in an hour. might as well stay up, i guess.

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two-calicos-in-a-trenchcoat · 3 years

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Ive been thinking

Not enough people talk about how shaming people for being hypochondriacs can cause people from seeking out help for things

Like for one thing just don't shame hypochondriacs. Even if there's nothing physically wrong, there's obviously something that's going on mentally that needs to be addressed. And then hypochondria is kind of weaponized against disabled people.

Like. I grew up with 2 friends who had chronic health conditions from a young age. Teachers. Other students. Even my other friends. Sometimes even my parents. All of them would accuse my 2 friends of faking being sick for attention at times. Or that maybe it was "just" their anxiety making things seem worse than it actually was.

And then I have a cousin who IS a hypochondriac. She takes anxiety meds to manage it now. But I had to grow up hearing family members talk about it as this inherently negative thing to point where it felt like they saw it as like...a moral failing I guess? And idk if that's how they were meaning it but its how it solidified in my head from a young age. And then some people around me had a tendency of thinking anyone with an anxiety disorder is automatically a hypochondriac and isn't actually sick if they say they are.

Add in my lifelong fear of going to the doctor and you got a teenager that doesn't tell anyone theyre in pain.

And thats not to say that I never brought it up EVER. I would occasionally mention something casually or jokingly to friends only for them to be all "okaaaayyyy, grandma." And while that maybe should've told me that the pain I was feeling wasn't normal, but in my 15 year old mind it turned into "well it must just be my anxiety making me /think/ I'm in pain and I should just shut up about it."

Or like....when I worked at subway and had shifts longer than 4 or 5 hours I would be in SO much pain. Like enough that I would lay down on my friends couch after work and not be able to move for a couple hours cuz of how much pain I was in and this bastard had the fuckin audacity to be like "everyones in pain after an 8 hour shift. Stop being so dramatic." Like. I would need help standing up because I could not make my hips or legs cooperate. And hed be wanting to go work out on the ellipticals.

And I get that its frustrating when someone complains about pain but won't get help but when the only reaction someone's gotten when they DO reach out for help is dismissive or disbelieving or even anger at not being told about the problem sooner, it gets really hard to /want/ to reach out for help. (Honestly the anger one is another big one for me. My moms been guilty of that one in the past. Just remember that if your kid doesn't tell you about something until its really bad part of the reason might be that they didn't realize it wasn't normal until it got to that point.)

I'm not really sure where I was going with this (fuckin adhd) but I guess just....be careful in your criticisms and how you word things when it comes to health(both physical and mental)? Like obviously you're not responsible for other adults seeking help for things or not but like....your kids might be internalizing those things and then not come to you when somethings wrong.

Also im really appreciating how my moms been starting to unknowingly work /with/ my pda profile (pathological demand avoidance) instead of against it. Like part of my problem with going to the doctor is it was always framed as something that /had/ to happen. Something that I had no choice in. And that definitely affects my ability to ask for help because I'd complain about something as a kid and my mom would automatically be like "well you gotta go to the doctor then" so that definitely makes me avoid bringing up my pain to my mom sometimes.

But lately when I bring it up she frames going to the doctor as a suggestion.

And recently my pains been getting pretty bad and I brought it up and she was like "well you dont need to be suffering like this. How about after next week, you'll know if you have to go into jury duty or not and you'll have already had your bert nash appointment so you won't be worrying about that anymore...how about we fill out that paperwork for heartland and then maybe I'll call pretending to be you and make you an appointment?"

Like goddamn i know what she's doing but its fuckin working lol

#when i have some kind of money coming in im gonna sign up for one of those text based therapy apps #like one of the biggest reasons therapy has never helped me is cuz it requires me to /speak/ to someone #a doctor i could text would be nice too tbh #and i know a big part of this is fear that theres something irreparably wrong with my health #or that its something that requires invasive treatments #and like logically i know its better to find out for sure #personal #and i dont always google all my symptoms cuz it just overwhelms me and worsens my anxiety #also most of the time googles just like 'ITS CANCER!!!!'#and i dont really want to entertain that particular theory unless a dr decides we need to look into it #because thats just gonna give me more anxiety and make me even less likely to see a dr if i let myself even /consider/ that

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