The ER and Instacare

In my last post I mentioned how the er and instacare can be a scary place for people with invisible illnesses and in my experience at least it can be worse with mental illnesses. People with mental illnesses sometimes can’t control their actions and usually don’t know why they are doing the things they do.

I’ve had problems with anxiety and panic disorder all my life. I do, say and think things that I don’t know why I do, say or think those things. Usually I know what I’m doing is ridiculous but I can’t stop. Some of my anxiety has formed into a self-mutilation not in the more traditional way like cutting.

It’s not something I talk about often or to many people. People don’t look at me the same way they used to when they know. I have something similar to tricotomania (the hair pulling illness) but instead of pulling out my hair I pull out my toenails and sometimes my fingernails I do it rarely. I’ll pick and bite at my nails all the time. I usually don’t really notice when the picking and biting turns into pulling. By the time I do it’s usually too late and I can’t stop myself. Some of my doctors believe I have some form of ocd too but they can’t agree on it.

One day I pulled out only part of my thumb nail but couldn’t get myself to do the rest. And because I don’t do it very often to my fingers it really hurt. My toenails are more or less numb to the pain now but my fingernails are not. So my mom took me to instacare.

For me going to instacare because I pulled out my thumb nails is humiliating. The whole event is awful from checking in to waiting for the doctor. But sometimes you can get a good doctor that doesn’t judge you just treats you. This was not one of those times.

The doctor came in and asked how I got the injury. I’m very shy and didn’t want to say I did it to myself. But I did end up telling the doctor. I usually have a good sense of people and thought she wouldn’t judge. But when I told her I could just feel waves of judgment from her.

Then she decided to be sadistic about the whole thing.

She took one of those long que tips that has one soft end and one wood end and then she used the wood end to push at the part of my skin that had bubbled up from the hole in my nail. It really hurt so I started squirming and finally said “that hurts” her response was “good maybe next time you won’t do it”. To add insult to injury she wouldn’t give me painkillers she would only give them to my mom because I quote “we don’t want to reward that type of behavior.”

When I left the er I felt humiliated and awful. My mom was very upset that she treated me that way. I cried the whole was home thinking how could someone be so awful. I never wanted to go back to that instacare in case I might see her again. People like her should not be in health care profession.

But overtime I began to get angry instead of just upset. How does someone like herself go to work and get that way with no implications? Well then karma kicked in. I got a call to review her performance. Apparently I wasn’t the only one she had been mean to. I would like to say I was the bigger person but I wasn’t I gave her an awful review and in my comments I said “I didn’t understand how they could employ someone so mean to sick people.”

I’ve been back to that instacare many times since then. But I never saw her again. Sometimes I wish I could see her again so I could tell her she was a shame to the wonderful medical industry she was in. but I would be too shy to say that even if I did see her. 

I encourage you to comment. What are your stories about the er/ instacare good or bad.

From the girl who has everything,

thanks for reading.

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