Yesterday was a bad day. I had woken up after a horrible sleepless night feeling exhausted and groggy. My type of neuro-spice is that I over sleep and it take a tremendous amount of effort to actually get out of bed. On any given day.
But this particular day I was excited to finally get some help diagnosing officially and getting me started on the journey of medication for ADHD that’s been negatively impacting a lot of my every day life.
11:00am rolled around and I logged onto the portal to fill out the paperwork prior to my 12 o’clock appointment. Great! I was all set! Only….the appointment time said 11 to 12!! At this point it’s now 11:17 so I quickly press the join session button and silence. No provider.
Before everyone jumps down my throat and says “yOu WeRe LaTe” yes, I know I was late. I own that and it shouldn’t have happened. What I had written down vs what was in the portal was an hour difference. That’s not why I’m upset.
During the remaining 40 minutes of this appointment I messaged the provider, called them and also texter them a number of times. With zero response. No follow up, no automated message, no checking in to make sure I was alright. I figured “Fuck, I’m late, what a fucking useless piece of shit I am. Why even bother? It’s not like I’ll get better anyways. Yeah I don’t blame them for not caring enough to reach out, not even people close to me do” and on and on the spiral of shame, guilt and worthlessness. So after the 40 minutes of me sitting in the video call, looking at my ugly mug feeling this way I decided to do the “healthy” thing and instead of drink I went for a walk. I was kind of calmed down by the time I got home and was ramping myself up to take care of business when I saw an email saying I had a message from the provider.
“Our appointment was at 11. Check your timezone next time” followed by a $200 invoice.
Ouch.
Talk about a slap in the face.
From there, I got angry. And I mean like, really angry. Because this shit always seems to happen. I’ve had many providers remove the compassion and the personability from their souls and just clock in and clock out with no consideration for the other persons feelings. And when you live with a chronic mental health disability it makes those encounters feel like you’re in outter space with a leaking oxygen tank and the other person has the tape that’ll patch the hole but they’re inside the spaceship.
No compassion. No empathy. No inquiry as to what happened. Just a cold email, insincerity and a fucking invoice.
I understand they have a job to do, but when this becomes a pattern it makes people like me not want to go find help because dealing with the shame and all of those other negative emotions unbearable. We realize that the people “helping” us don’t actually care and that we’re just dollar signs.
Our medical system is not built for people with mental disabilities. It’s not meant to help heal us. And I’m getting really fucking tired of hopping from one person to the next with the hope that someone will take me seriously enough to finally listen to me and help.
Correct, not every provider is this way, and there are those who care. I LOVE those people and wish we could clone them. But it’s not the majority which is the unfortunate reality.
So, take this as your sign to yell, scream, cry and allow yourself to be angry that this is happening. You’re not wrong for feeling upset that our system failed you. You’re not wrong for wanting to be treated like a fucking human being that is worthy of love (because you ARE), and god damnit, SO AM I.
I just want people to be kind and understanding.
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Thank you for listening. BRB, I have to go pay an invoice.
~ Next Life Loading