On the worst night that succeeded the worst day of my life, I found myself under your care. You labeled me a suicidal drug addict, treated me with the palpable distaste you thought such a creature deserved, and even went as far as to pull my parents aside in the middle of a crowded ER and tell them you had seen many disturbed junkies and that I would need to be ‘locked up for awhile’ for my own good.
Here’s the thing…
I was neither suicidal nor am I a drug addict. You labeled me as both without listening to a word I said. I know my body….a body that has been wracked with chronic health issues and severe pain recently. It has made me feel hopeless and depressed that the issues haven’t been able to be controlled by the usual means.
I have been in pain for 13 years
…And in those 13 years I have been on many opiates and NSAIDS. I have abused none of them…I take them when prescribed, as prescribed, despite the looks and the judgement that gets passed when asking for them. That’s 13 years I have NEVER had a problem with abuse or chemical dependency.
Yes, I was depressed. Wouldn’t you be?
The average length of my back injury flare ups were two weeks at the most. The night in question I found myself under your ‘care’ it was going on 2 and a half months of pain. I had stopped driving. My best friend had just moved out of state. My psychiatrist hadn’t filled one of my meds and I was in a state of DAWS.
I was in pain and under an extreme amount of stress.
You made no effort to empathize with me or help me in anyway after inacting a 51/50 and told me I would be held against my will until they could find a facility to transfer me to to see out the remainder of my involuntary hold. A man was brought in, drunk and high on meth, and his physical discomfort as he spit, screamed and beat the staff was attended to with far more care and concern then I was afforded.
I snapped.
…Not even as much as I truly wanted to, but I started yelling. Became ‘combative.’ My Mother seemed mortified at how ‘rude’ I was being, and I told her ‘I’ve been a good girl all day today….what has it gotten me? They still treat me like trash. This way at least I get to vent my feelings honestly.’ She apologized over and over to you, dear doctor. You said I wasn’t the first addict you’d dealt with and wouldn’t be the last.
People with real pain are not always addicts.
You assumed I was, though, much like the doctors I would meet in the subsequent days. And I was treated with disdain, and my private matters and your assumptions about them were let out for the world to see.
I have no way of proving this…
….I am sitting here in a lot of pain, but having taken nothing. Why? Because I don’t want to be treated the way you treated me..so I don’t want to go to the doctor or the ER. I sit here suffering because you confirmed for me the worst fears I had about being treated like a junkie and a mental case.
Next time someone comes in to your ER with pain and depression, please look at them differently then you looked at me. Please try and consider that they may be a human who is desperate for help, and not a con artist. Please try and treat them like a human. Please remember your oath. Please.
-TS
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