Do you ever not know how you feel? I have that weird feeling sometimes and it sincerely bothers me. I think it’s because I am so used to emoting that it irritates me when I can’t figure out how I’m feeling. When I can’t determine what I’m feeling and why I’m stumped. That’s the thing about feelings is that you can’t break them down on a logical level. They are free flowing globs of slime and they do what they are going to. Maybe it’s not fair to call feelings slime. When I think of slime I am reminded of “You Can’t Do That on Television.” And if you think about that show, you’ll remember that the slime was preceded by when someone said: “I don’t know.” So maybe my analogy about feelings sort of works. If you don’t know what you’re feeling you’re covered in slime. I’m a fucking genius. It’s like you don’t know what you feel and you’re rewarded by slime. That’s sort of awesome.
But feelings aren’t slime; they are created by your mind. Everyone’s mind is different and I know this because a neurologist confirmed this when I got a brain MRI once. After the brain MRI, I was told that I had an incidental finding on my brain. I asked what that meant and she said: “everyone’s brain is different, but I can tell you that it’s not a brain tumor.” As someone who experiences anxiety, this bothered me. I was irritated because it says in my medical chart that I take medication for anxiety and it would have been nice if she had considered that fact before she went ahead and told me there was something unknown on my brain like a UFO. Unfortunately, there are a lot of doctors in this country who have limited or no bedside manner. I often wonder why this is and what I can do to help make that better. I think one step towards making that happen is encouraging people to tell stories like the one I just mentioned so that they recognize that a lack of consideration or bedside manner for patients is extremely common.
Dude, if you see that someone has anxiety, why the hell would you tell them that there’s something unknown on their brain but it’s not serious. I guess legally they have to tell me that, but it still, till this day, bothers me. I think about it often and this happened in 2011. I mean, to be fair, I do live with chronic anxiety and I can develop coping mechanisms to deal with that obsessive thought. However, I often think about the motivation for why she told me that and the manner she said it in. I’m certain she didn’t have a malicious intent and it was mostly just thoughtlessness. But this is the same doctor who told me that I had to just “calm down” about my physical symptom of neuropathy. I was mad at the time, but now I can laugh about this because she probably doesn’t know what a panic attack is.
I’m not sure what the point of this post was, but I am curious if you’ve ever had a bad experience with a medical professional.