I have SO much sympathy for you here. I have PTSD due primarily to forced and improper medical care and can't go to a doctor alone. When I moved to where I am now, I had to use a clinic that didn't really meet my needs and had a VERY coercive "consent" policy that required giving them permission to do whatever they felt necessary (including hospitalization, even if you weren't there for psychiatric reasons) or they wouldn't see you (which, as far as I'm concerned, if your only choices are, "Let us do whatever we want or get no care at all," that's not remotely true consent, but that was the exact problem, my medical coverage hadn't been switched to this state yet, so it was "sign the form or go cold turkey off your 'do not cold turkey off these' meds"). My mom ended up moving out here, too, and one of the things she was supposed to do was help me find a more suitable doctor. Well, the clinic worked fine for HER, so she didn't want to "rock the boat" by taking me somewhere else. My now-ex offered more than once to get me an appointment with his doctor, but the timing was never right. I wasn't going to turn around and go straight to another stress-fest right after I'd gotten six months of refills, you know?
So fast-forward to a couple of years ago, when they had to do some department shuffling after an overseeing doctor left and they brought a new nurse practitioner on. My mom saw her before I did, and I SHOULD have been smart enough to realize that when she was saying, "Don't worry if (X) happens, we'll figure something out," she actually meant she already knew it was going to happen, and I needed to just keep my mouth shut and smile and nod like a good girl, because that's more important than anything else (she's pressured me in the past to agree to medications she knows I won't and CAN'T take and just throw them out once they're filled, because it's better that I have incorrect records and have to fight even harder with future doctors about why I'm "no longer" taking them than to be a potential problem now by saying no (I say no anyway, because I'M the one the fallout from that shit is going to fall on)). She also swore up and down that the new practitioner knew about my issues and the accomodation plan I'd had with the previous guy.
Probably not surprisingly at this point, the new person triggered my PTSD by first pressuring me to enroll in the mental health program as a show of "good faith" in order to continue getting a medication that I take to help me sleep, NOT for mental health reasons, because it's one of the few things I don't have terrifying reactions to, but which that particular clinic reclassified on and off, with differing stories as to why every time, as only prescribable for mental health patients (as in, it was THEIR in-house classification, and had nothing to do with any of the official regulations about it), and after that was finally dropped, switched to pushing other things on me, to which I said no. Repeatedly. Which was ignored until I had a full-on breakdown and was in there sobbing and screaming because I wasn't being listened to any other way, and my mom physically dragged me out to berate me because I had "embarassed her" by "throwing a tantrum" and "people were going to think she didn't raise me right".
...I'm an adult in an all-purpose clinic that caters to low-income and disabled patients who is CLEARLY HAVING A MENTAL HEALTH CRISIS, not a toddler in Walmart who didn't get a toy. But obviously the first reaction anyone who sees it is going to have is, "Look at that brat, her mother must not have taught her any manners whatsoever," and not, "Holy shit that bitch is crazy." It was also 100% preventable. All she would have had to do was tell me, "They're changing policies again, so this might be a good time to go ahead and see about switching to your friend's doctor." She wouldn't even have had to be involved with it herself. But for whatever reason, that didn't work for her. Better she hedge around it and hope I'd "behave".
On the way to our next appointment (she generally made both of ours for adjacent time slots for convenience), I was told before I even got all the way in the car that if I embarassed her again, she'd move back home and leave me here to fend for myself, and when I reminded her that I HAVE PTSD, her response was, "Oh, they probably don't even know anything's wrong with you." Which, uh... If a place I need an accomodation doesn't know there's something wrong with me, that's kind of a problem in itself (and very much NOT the case in that instance, though I actually did find out shortly before I moved that my records at our doctor back home were ridiculously incorrect - I have a physical disability, but my chart said I was there for a "mood disorder", and when THEIR new partner came on, she verbally assaulted me both because I wasn't seeing a specialist for it (I don't need one, since I'M NOT BEING TREATED FOR A "MOOD DISORDER") and because my mother (who yet hadn't gone full-on crazy and turned on me like she has now) was with me and as an adult, I should have been on my own).
(I hate doctors. -.- )
On the way to the appointment after THAT, I told her I was already having a panic attack (I wonder why
), and she came back at me with, "So was she, but if I embarassed her..." I ended up going non-verbal because shutting down was the only way I could "control myself", and then I got shit on for that because I wasn't answering the "easy questions" at check-in.
I go to my ex's doctor now. With my ex. Which probably says it all. -.-
(And we're white trash. Her side of the family is from FLORIDA. So there's no cultural component here beyond generic Southern "manners" and lingering issues from her own childhood abuse, but even with that... This is a woman who basically Jerry Springered me during the midlife crisis she had when I was in high school and my early twenties, spent a few years hanging out with crackheads and getting DUIs, and even after she resumed what passed for sanity for her at the time, remained an EXTREME hoarder who's gotten us evicted at least once (and I'm starting to wonder about some of the moves that were supposedly for other reasons), has had multiple citations here since May alone, DID NOT ATTEND HER COURT DATES specifically so that they'd issue her new summons and she'd have more time to try and get into half-assed "compliance", continually ignores boundaries, invades my privacy, and steals from me, but I'M the sole embarassment because I'm publically crazy (and I'm not even saying I'm not; I'm just saying she needs to put some damn curtains up in her own glass house because no one wants to see that mess). I know some of her shit now is because she's probably sliding toward dementia, but that doesn't even begin to cover all of it, and I am just...so fucking done. -.- )
