Talk to my doctor

I had about an hours sleep between bedtime and midday, and so phoned to cancel my appointment. I realised (because I was going to my dad’s house in a few days) that I felt I should go by a deadline (perhaps because I felt stressed and rushed about moving houses, which created this general sense of urgency).

Afterwards, I felt sheepish. That I had given in to fear, and was potentially giving up opportunities.

But I don’t blame myself. I think I was too ill to handle that extra stress. Stress is like water in a cup. If the cup is already half full and can’t accommodate the extra water, then it will simply spill everywhere. I was too full to deal with any excess.

(In this case, a half empty cup is the more positive perspective!)

Part of the anxiety is I don’t see the point in seeing the doctor. I am uncertain about them on every level. I would like to have someone to report back to, someone to work with and give me guidance. I feel I am doing many constructive things recently: I am going to start a cognitive behavioural therapy course, for instance, to help me sleep better. I have begun to do graded exercise, something you are supposed to do under supervision but that I am cobbling together from the advice that my boyfriend’s physiotherapist gave to him.

When I added this goal to my list I imagined bullet pointing my plan and firing them off one by one. Bang, bang, bang!

- Talk about sleeping tablets to help me recover from events
- Talk about pain and options for managing pain
- Anxiety issues
- To talk about management in general…

... and then I lose confidence. I lose confidence in them and in myself. I feel helpless around them rather than empowered.

The confusion is compounded by not knowing what they think about M.E because they don’t always follow the official guidelines. I looked at the guidelines recently and it began with this description:

The physical symptoms can be as disabling as multiple sclerosis, systemic lupus erythematosus, rheumatoid arthritis, congestive heart failure and other chronic conditions. ME places a substantial burden on people with the condition, their families and carers, and hence on society.

However my last doctor told me that M.E was a mental illness and doesn’t understand why I can’t accept that (he holds the highest position at the surgery). Again, it feels like there’s this secret knowledge that patients aren’t privy to.

This rant is like shaking dust out of a carpet.

I need other people to open at least some doors for me, but I have to put myself out there first…

Tonight I am wringing my hands about seeing the doctor tomorrow. It is “just” about M.E., but it dredges up so much fear in me that I might end up canceling anyway.

(Predictably I am a lot worse since coming back from Joe’s, and anything like this is just so much harder to deal with when you just don’t have the energy to deal with it.)

Dredge is a good word. It is like dread and sludge combined. That’s how I feel. The thick, emotional sludge of dread.

I would like to float just outside of myself and stay unattached from the situation, to be less invested in the outcome. But the years have built up such horrible associations with the place that my stomach twists, my fingers fumble over each other and I lose all confidence in myself.

I feel like a little girl in a maze, and all the goblins are about to come out. I feel like all the regrettable things that have ever happened there will happen again, so what’s the point? What do I say? What are they there for? (Seriously, what are they there for?) I don’t know what to do!

I will go with my list. I won’t fumble. I’ll keep my chin up and look them in the eye et cetera. My list has things on it about headaches, insomnia (can I have sleeping pills?), and a note to ask about a referral to a doctor at the local hospital (recommended to me by another patient).

But I dunno. Dunno dunno dunno dunno. They always make me feel like a simpleton, like I’m doing something wrong and they’re looking down on me shaking their heads and I have to guess the secret password, but I don’t know what that is.

I know that it could turn out to be okay, or neutral, even good. Everyone has a little pavlovian puppy somewhere inside them, and mine is scared of the doctor.