#i've been turned away from several clinics & therapists before for the same reasons (that they weren't equipped for me)

[littleoddwriter]

Update:

it's been a little over 3 weeks and... I had to quit the clinic/leave early. which obviously derails the plans I've had completely. which is annoying and very frustrating and elicited feelings & thoughts I hate to have. but it was the right decision. this clinic was horrible for me and only made me more unstable with every day that I was there (didn't think that was possible, lol).

(details and a bit of a rant under the cut)

while, usually, it makes sense for things to get a little worse first before it gets better, this was not the case here. I didn't feel comfortable with the staff. the doctors and therapists seemed very dismissive and hectic to me. the organisation and communication were crap. (like... how the fuck do I have five doctors/therapists in a room with me, discussing what meds to give me, only for them to not have a single clue about that a week later (after not giving me the meds because they Forgot...) and not believe me when I repeated what THEY told me. only for the meds to have lactose in them (I'm lactose intolerant) and so of course I reacted (they KNEW I had an issue with lactose and still gave them to me. I wouldn't even have known what was in them if I hadn't looked up the package insert online...) like what the actual fucking fuck). I've been to 2 clinics before and it was far better there, which is great and I'm glad I had something to compare my experience there to because sometimes I thought I might be overreacting, but I explained it to both of my social workers independently and they both agreed that it was Not Good. I already felt that way on my very first day there, but decided to give them the benefit of the doubt and just wait and see for two weeks at least. but alas, it only got worse for me. I also sat down with one of the doctors and one of the therapists and my social worker last week to talk my issues and my fears through with them; but again, they just didn't even try to help. (basically, what that talk came down to was that "[they] can't do more than what [they're] doing already (virtually Nothing) and it's solely on me to make the best of it or quit otherwise". obviously, I know that myself. I was looking for some guidance and help. some sort of advice. maybe a recommendation for someplace else. just... something. i explicitly asked for it, too. and I would have gotten that at those two other clinics I went to before because they actually cared about helping me. just for comparison's sake. instead, I was busy explaining my issues (more than I listed here, and I didn't exactly say that I had issues with the staff because duh but y'know, there were enough other issues that came up anyway) three times to make them somewhat 'understand' and have my social worker reiterate how badly I've been doing and how much help I need and that I'm feeling very helpless and alone; even while I'm there.)

for anyone that ever considers going to a mental health clinic: you should feel like you can actually talk to somebody if needed. you should feel safe. you should feel like you'll be caught when falling. you should never feel like you have to manage on your own completely. mental hospitals are for support and management. the staff should be a shoulder to lean on, a listening ear, a guiding hand, a safe haven that you can practice in/with. if that is not what you encounter at the hospital, you should look for a different one (if possible).

anyway. I've been debating with myself for over a week whether or not I should actually quit and I couldn't really decide until this Tuesday. that was the first day I was back at the clinic after five whole days off (because of the holidays), and it was like Hell on earth. it only showed me that if I had to do this every day for 3 to 5 more weeks, I'd break down completely and can go to a closed psychiatry right after, which is exactly what I've been trying to prevent with this clinic, of course. that's how bad it'd been for me there.

something that's been frustrating me most about this clinic and the dismissiveness of the staff I encountered, though, is that they were very clearly not equipped for a patient like me (somebody with severe symptoms, several different disorders, unprocessed traumas, etc.), and that they should have felt responsible enough to tell me that when I came in for a first talk in December to be put on the waiting list for a spot at the clinic. the whole point of this first talk is to assess whether or not this clinic is the right space for me, if they are equipped for somebody like me. instead they just waved me through and now I was forced to have that realisation on my own and become increasingly angry toward the staff because it's very irresponsible of them. most other patients I encountered there had depression, anxiety, and/or burn-out and were already on their way to getting better. and this clinic helped them gain back control, learn to manage better, etc. and for a lot of them it helped them. that's great and I'm happy for them! but it's very clear that that is what this clinic is truly for. not for someone like me. and they know that, in my opinion, they should know that, at least. and they should have told me to look for a different clinic instead because this wasn't the one for me. (but from what I've been told by other patients they really just let anyone in there...)

my social workers and I are working on making sure I can find something else (not a clinic for now tho). hopefully, I can get stabilised with the different approach we've been looking into, so I can do the second clinic stay (at the one I've been to before) I've mentioned in my original post.

anyway... that's the update. I wish it was a happier/more optimistic one. but alas, maybe next time!

take care! <3

[alicec-666]

Okay, so, I did it... I wrote my first creepy story about my oc, and... Oof, damn, I hope, I'm not too late for this yes I am late af I know

Anywaaaay, here it is ^^

Sharing only here, so, please, no reblogging or claiming your ownership on it, okay?

Thank you in advance!

And hope you enjoy :')

The Sarah's Mask (original story, pls, no copyright)

It was today's afternoon when it happened. Judging by the nine years I worked in this mental hospital, I can be certain when yelling you that the work that needed to be done got bigger every month, and most of my coworkers have coped with it as much as they could. We dealt with many troublesome patients during this period, and hardly any cases would be ofof what I could call "extraordinary". Certainly, there were many depressive individuals with an intent of self-harm or suicidal thoughts, or schizophreniacs that associated their world with ours in almost the same way, that is, with visages of silhouettes that weren't there or voices in their heads, you know the drill. Rarely so, but we also got an experience of working with the local criminals, who were on the verge of beginning a genocide on the streets or feeling joy through the sexual acts with other individuals, whether they wanted it or not, and whom we needed to check on mental stability during their process in the court. Not only cases, but the age range of our patients was rather normal too; from the young teenagers to the elderly people, whoever had troubles in their life and wanted to be cured, or were forced to by the judging society, those could join into our therapy whenever they wanted. And today was not an exception.

In the afternoon, while having a break, I was sitting onon the sofa in the rest room together with Michelle and Jim, talking about life and giggling at the fun situations, which we had before the work, similar to the ones of one being late to the job together with a manager, or mistaking a random person for your good acquaintance, you can name any of it. Anyway, it was through the laughter and sipping coffee, when I recall having heard a knock in the door. With a cheerful invite to come in from Michelle, I've seen how the door opened slightly, and behind itself revealed a peeking out face of Lucy, the psychiatrist trainee who has finished her studies over a year ago. Her face was rather worried, but I shook it off at first, knowing that the lady was known to be rather shy with the clinic's staff in general.

- Excuse me for interrupting, but if you don't mind, I would like to ask Mr Owen to come out for a moment, - her voice was trembling, and II noticed how she looked at her feet in embarrassment, but quietly appreciated her efforts of coming herehere by herself, which already made some progress in willingness to cooperate with others instead of always being on her own. Surely, in her 23 years, Lucy was one of the youngest workers here, nonetheless, she was very gifted with a wish to learn and improve.

- I will be just a second, - getting off the sofa and giving an assuring smile to the staring colleagues, I raised up and with a nod came up towards the young trainee and out in the hall, closing the door after myself in the process. Looking the woman up and down, I leaned towards the wall behind me and smiled softly:

- Is anything the matter, Lucy? As far as I'm concerned, you have been assigned with a patient this morning, correct? So, have you found out what is the case there?

- Yes, sir... I mean, no, sir-- I-I mean, - there was a folder in Lucy's arms that I noticed her clenching to every now and then, the folder with a printed surname on it "Junior". It was a patient that I have heard about only the previous evening, when a man from the register said that some odd looking adolescent came up to them and registered for the therapy for this morning, and, after leaving copies of her documents, has left shortly. From what we knew about this patient so far is that it was a female of age 20 with the blue tone coloured hair tied into a long pigtail, purple sports clothes and red shoes. However, what interested me the most from the register guy's description, was that this woman the entire time, through coming up to him and signing up for a meeting, has held an obnoxious foaming mask together with her. Long story short, we accepted her to have a meeting with Lucy, since both of these women were at their last years of forming their identity to the society, and could have something in common. That is why I was truly surprised when Lucy, now sobbing before me, said shakingly, - I... I can't do this, sir! She is not like any patients I needed to deal with before, she scares me.

- She is younger than you by almost four years, Miss Cadavre, - I said in a firm voice with a sigh, - And she is hardly any different from any other patients we had here so far, even though she does have quite... An extraordinary sense of fashion.

- You don't understand, Mr Owen, she is just something I don't think I can cope with, - noticing just now that her eyes kept filling up with tears, the trainee quickly wiped them with her sleeve, and looked at me again, - And it's not only her physical looks, she seems to be so... Unnerving. With her quick change of behavior or her murmuring something about hearing that "annoying voice" in her mind... Not to mention dozing off and talking to herself while I was trying to chat with her.

- I'm pretty sure there is nothing to worry about, my dear. Honestly, it may be nothing as serious as schizophrenia. - I shrugged, being fairly disappointed in the trainee's words, - It would be odd if you missed the classes about this disorder during your studies, Mrs Cadavre.

- I didn't miss any, sir! But I do swear to you, this girl is not like those patients I've dealt with before, - she was shaking at this point, and she was right at some point; as she was a newbie, we didn't want her to deal with any extreme cases yet, so the most of her patients were depressive teenagers or elderly people with the trauma after losing their kids or grandkids in an accident, - I cannot explain it, but I can't work with her one on one in there! So, I was thinking if I could be replaced by someone else

- Absolutely not. Unfortunately, miss Cadavre, you are the only one left among those who have been given tasks with the new wave of patients, since everyone else is busy by now. - I made a small pause, and after seeing how her gaze dropped on the floor again, thought to self for a mokent, after which spoke up again, - If you're so worried, however, I could come to her together with you, as an observer. This way, I will note what your trouble with her may be, and could help you out.

The trainee quickly raised up her head staring at me with her shining gray eyes, which clearly showed the gratitude, after which she nodded with a delight, and a quiet "thank you" came out of her mouth.

After some twelve minutes passing by, both of us came into the room 042, the Lucy's cabinet, which contained of two chairs, a small sofa, a table and some shelbes on the wall where several documents and the trainee's personal belongings took their place. On the sofa or, rather, by it, there was a female in her dirty sports clothes, with a greenish-blue hair and hazel eyes, who was holding an odd black mask in her hands and rubbing it slightly. Even as we came in and Lucy sat down on one of the chairs, the patient was asas if unaware of our existence, being distracted by her own doing, and murmuring some odd sentences, somesome of which I could hear as "I know that you don't like it, but I want it to end once and for all", "We can't be friends anymore, you do understand it, right?", "Please, stop saying such horrible things to me...". Looking down at the worried trainee, then back at the female, I cleared my throat, trying my best to gain the adolescent's attention, and once I did, I peoceeded in greeting her:

- Greetings, you must be Sarah Junior, right? My name is doctor U. N. Owen, and this, - I gestured to Lucy, who gave out her best comforting smile to the patient, - is my colleague and the best therapist, miss Ca--

- I am well acquainted with miss Cadavre, thank you, - glancing at me, the adolescent sat right on the couch this time, putting the mask beside her on the small decoration cushion, and spoke up again, - It was the first thing we did on this meeting before... She ran out of the cabinet for some reason.

Junior looked at the trainee rather apathetically, after which proceeded to stare after me with her cold eyes, as I managed to get myself straight, not turning away from her. In my 47 years lived in this society, I was well aware of how most of the patients here and manipulators in general tended to keep an eye contact with their "prey", trying to break their interlocutor's confidence, and get an upper hand in the conversation. Looking back at Sarah, I continued:

- Right, so... Getting to the main point, miss Cadavre is going to ask you some questions about your life and troubles since you must have come to us for a reason. And, let me tell you, it's very... Appreciated of you to be seeking for cure on your own, especially since not many people can be managed to get to the thera-- Excuse me, but are you listening right now?

- She isn't, sir... - replied Lucy, both me and her staring at Junior who was now looking at the ceiling while hardly blinking, - It's just as I said before, this girl tends to be spacing out from time to time, so I couldn't talk to her normally.

Glancing at the trainee, and then back at Sarah, I noticed how something black begun arising in the air beside the female... The smoke? As it began rising higher, I just then noticed how the mask, lying like before on the cushion, turned it black as its eyes and mouth's holes began glittering with a weird yellow lighting, and I could swear that on the same mask, the mouth hole widened in an awful grin, after which the smoke, as black as was this piece of Sarah's inventory, has slowly spread through the closed cabinet. Unable to sense a thing, except for some odd smell of mixed gas and cotton candy, the only thing I remember is coughing while trying to breathe through the suffocating fumes and seeing how the Sarah's silhouette, beginning to get off the couch as if nothing happened, put the mask on her face, and stared back at me, with an amused laughter tricking out of her lips, and as its volume was increasing, I lost my balance sue to inhaling too much of the smoke and had a hard fall on the floor, falling into slumber.

Since that moment, at least three hours have passed for sure, since now, looking at the clock on my wrist, I can without a doubt remember when I came into this cabinet. Oddly enough, instead of lying on the cold floor as I think I was on before, I found myself on the same couch that Junior once was on. Not only that, but there is a track of almost dried blood on the floor before the Lucy's table... Checking myself on any wounds or bruises, though, not without a relief, I found out that didn't have any savage wounds or, furthermore, any bleeding spots. Miss Cadavre, on the other hand, wasn't so lucky. Right now, while writing to you about all of this story, my hands are trembling, as I can't keep my eyes from glancing at the pale lifeless body of this poor trainee. I don't know if that adolescent is still in the clinic now or what she had against Lucy, but one thing is for sure, I shouldn't have been so reckless to let the newbie take this woman in the first place... Especially not after what I found on her desk.

After reading this entire letter from her, it's clear to me that not only has she got a major peek of mental instability, but she is also needed to be secluded from society no matter the costs. This is why, even if I can't do much for you from my current spot now, please, I beg of you, be very wary. And if you ever meet an obnoxious girl in the sports costume with the dyed hair, and the foaming mask - don't come close to her, not under any circumstances. Or the consequences of this encounter may be inevitable.

[tyrantosaurus]

Ugh. Okay so for quite a while, I was struggling with an issue with one of my arms where at random, I would wake up some days and if I tried to straighten my arm, it was complete, fall on the ground in the fetal position, painful. The first time I just sucked it up for the day because we figured, hey maybe I just whacked my elbow. And it went away the next day, so I was fine.

Then it came back. My parents took me to a walk in clinic (and my mom had to help me dress myself because I could do pants one handed but I couldn't change my bra or put on a clean shirt.), and when the doctor didn't find anything specifically wrong with me other than the pain I was experiencing, they signed it off as unimportant or made up. They didn't even give me a prescription for some painkillers.

It went away the next morning. When it came back again, I wasn't willing to deal with the pain of getting turned away again so I went to Emerge. Eventually they took me in to get an xray. They found nothing wrong and sent me home. No painkillers or anything. But I was fine the next morning.

Eventually it was about a fifty fifty chance each morning that I might not be able to straighten my arm from the pain. I lost a job because I was unable to work so often.

We managed to get an appointment with my family doctor. She sent me for a CAT scan. (Because my doctor is wonderful and even though I wasn't in active pain then, because it's impossible to schedule what days a random ailment will hit you, she believed me and wanted to get me help.)

I never heard back about my CAT scan after it was done. So I have to assume that it was clear.

At this point, I don't know what I'm going to do, I've been out of a job for months, but I can't get a manual labour job again unless we figure out what's happening.

It took my Physical Therapist, poking at my elbow and bending it and stuff for most of an hour before we figured out what was happening.

She straightened my arm out in one angle, and then hmmed and asked me to relax my muscles as much as I was able. She gave a huff of satisfaction and told me, in no uncertain terms, that the connective tissue disorder that my mom had recently been diagnosed with was present in my joints too. What was happening was that at night, I wasn't just stretching my arm out across the bed while I slept, I was hyper extending it. I relaxed, and so the muscular tension keeping my too loose joint in place was gone, and my joint opened up enough that when I woke up and everything tensed up and pulled together again, a major nerve was getting caught in the joint.

The reason I was better the next morning, was the same thing in reverse. I relaxed, my elbow joint loosened, my nerve came out of it, and then when I woke up, I was often lucky enough that the nerve stayed out of the joint.

The necessary prescription- Physical therapy to help strengthen my joints. A good amount of sleep if my Elbow is doing the mean thing again (enough that I relax and my nerves get freed again.) And - two highly cute and very soft stuffed animals, that I tuck under my arm while I sleep so that if my arm is loose and relaxed while I'm asleep, it doesn't go fully straight and hyper extend because the stuffed animals are pushing up on the inside of my elbow and keeping gravity from straightening it. (Also I just like to cuddle things while I sleep, so when I have something in my arms, apparently my unconscious mind tends to get a hold of them and stay using them.)

In sum total, I suffered for many months, losing a job and being unable to find a new one, all because I needed a good nap and something to snuggle. And it was only because my PT who I had for unrelated issues was willing to look over my elbow for most of an hour that we ever figured out what the problem was.

My doctor did her best, I don't blame her, but it took months, several examinations and two very annoying tests, and despite it hurting so much so often that I kept seeking an answer, not ONCE did any of the doctors offer me pain meds. Because my tests kept coming back clear so they figured I was faking it for the pain meds.

Because I was a young adult. If I had been in my fourties or fifties, I fully believe that they would have given me medication to at least alleviate the pain. And I wouldn't have asked for any opioids or anything, but just some acknowledgement that I was in pain and a prescription for some really strong tylenol would have been just. Incredible. Because it would mean that they weren't ignoring my problem just because there wasn't a clear answer and it would mean they weren't assuming I made it up.

And I don't live in the states. I live in Canada. Thankfully it meant that this journey didn't cost me anything other than my pride, time, and job, but other countries aren't immune to shitty doctors, or people with serious pains crying in the hallway of emerge because the xray came back clean and the doctors will only do something to help when they actually believe you have a problem.

exactly.