mylarocknrolla
New Here
Every time I try to talk about my medical PTSD in any mental health groups, it's ignored. If anyone does answer, it's usually misunderstood and often I am attacked.
I have a lot of trauma growing up into young adulthood. I had been diagnosed with PTSD from all of that (questioning the CPTSD). I feel after a whole adulthood of therapy, I'm mostly through that. But coupled with that was the medical neglect I had. My mother has spent my entire life saying that I was never sick. But I was neglected so it wasn't that I was never sick, it was that if I was it was ignored. I didn't get check ups. If anything was wrong they wouldn't have caught it anyway because I wasn't taken to the doctor. I started having major symptoms at 10 and that's when I was started being accused of hypochondria. Everything was downplayed and "in my head".
By 21, I had spent 4 days in the hospital while they tried to save my life. I did not have insurance and couldn't afford any more hospital visits, even after I couldn't walk and they thought I had a brain tumor. I had learned to ignore, downplay and avoid doctors and medical stuff anyway because it had been drilled in my head that I was just a hypochondriac.
It wasn't until 2016 when I almost died with blood coming out of both ends that things changed for me. Being in critical care, feeling and knowing I was about to die, and the doctors not having an answer as to why was terrifying. I spent weeks in the hospital at a time alone. No diagnosis. Eventually the GI doctor I was seeing said to go to Mayo and see if they could diagnose what was going on (I had progressive muscle symptoms since childhood as well). So when I was having a GI attack, I went to Mayo. They admitted me into their hospital while the hematology department did testing due to my neutropenia.
That evening the doctor, who I thought the whole time was a GI doctor, brought a room full of junior doctors (residents?) in to watch me fall with my backend exposed to everyone due to the fatigue I would suffer during these attacks. After that humiliation and violation, he came in and said I know what's wrong. He proceeded to tell me I had FND, a psychiatric disorder. I disagreed and he kicked me out of the hospital at 11pm at night with a referral to psychiatry.
I have encountered dismissing and gaslighting by medical professionals previous to this, but this is what broke me. I was malnourished, extremely anemic and seriously ill. I was having flashbacks to vomiting blood and being so sick. I was becoming afraid to eat because I didn't know if it was the food that was causing these attacks and I had been humiliated, insulted and dismissed. I became obsessed with how to prove I didn't have FND all the time. I obsessed how anyone would take me seriously. I did everything I could for four years to get that diagnosis off my record.
Eventually the flashbacks started to ease up, and I'm doing much better now. I've been in therapy for this now for years. I'm still not okay with doctors and my blood pressure spikes and I get very scared when I talk to them, but I'm getting better. And I'm not afraid to fire a doctor the minute I think they are trying to question my being ill or if they're trying to dismiss me. There's obviously way more to my story, but this is an introduction and I just tried to stay with the main points. I wish more people knew how prevalent medical PTSD is, and I wish people in the chronically ill and seriously ill communities were nicer to each other (and in general too). Thanks for reading
I have a lot of trauma growing up into young adulthood. I had been diagnosed with PTSD from all of that (questioning the CPTSD). I feel after a whole adulthood of therapy, I'm mostly through that. But coupled with that was the medical neglect I had. My mother has spent my entire life saying that I was never sick. But I was neglected so it wasn't that I was never sick, it was that if I was it was ignored. I didn't get check ups. If anything was wrong they wouldn't have caught it anyway because I wasn't taken to the doctor. I started having major symptoms at 10 and that's when I was started being accused of hypochondria. Everything was downplayed and "in my head".
By 21, I had spent 4 days in the hospital while they tried to save my life. I did not have insurance and couldn't afford any more hospital visits, even after I couldn't walk and they thought I had a brain tumor. I had learned to ignore, downplay and avoid doctors and medical stuff anyway because it had been drilled in my head that I was just a hypochondriac.
It wasn't until 2016 when I almost died with blood coming out of both ends that things changed for me. Being in critical care, feeling and knowing I was about to die, and the doctors not having an answer as to why was terrifying. I spent weeks in the hospital at a time alone. No diagnosis. Eventually the GI doctor I was seeing said to go to Mayo and see if they could diagnose what was going on (I had progressive muscle symptoms since childhood as well). So when I was having a GI attack, I went to Mayo. They admitted me into their hospital while the hematology department did testing due to my neutropenia.
That evening the doctor, who I thought the whole time was a GI doctor, brought a room full of junior doctors (residents?) in to watch me fall with my backend exposed to everyone due to the fatigue I would suffer during these attacks. After that humiliation and violation, he came in and said I know what's wrong. He proceeded to tell me I had FND, a psychiatric disorder. I disagreed and he kicked me out of the hospital at 11pm at night with a referral to psychiatry.
I have encountered dismissing and gaslighting by medical professionals previous to this, but this is what broke me. I was malnourished, extremely anemic and seriously ill. I was having flashbacks to vomiting blood and being so sick. I was becoming afraid to eat because I didn't know if it was the food that was causing these attacks and I had been humiliated, insulted and dismissed. I became obsessed with how to prove I didn't have FND all the time. I obsessed how anyone would take me seriously. I did everything I could for four years to get that diagnosis off my record.
Eventually the flashbacks started to ease up, and I'm doing much better now. I've been in therapy for this now for years. I'm still not okay with doctors and my blood pressure spikes and I get very scared when I talk to them, but I'm getting better. And I'm not afraid to fire a doctor the minute I think they are trying to question my being ill or if they're trying to dismiss me. There's obviously way more to my story, but this is an introduction and I just tried to stay with the main points. I wish more people knew how prevalent medical PTSD is, and I wish people in the chronically ill and seriously ill communities were nicer to each other (and in general too). Thanks for reading
