Tag / empathy

by Gabrielle McLean

Medical Mistrust

There’s an episode of Golden Girls in which Dorothy goes to her doctor to figure out why she’s been sick. After coming up short, her doctor suggests that maybe she’s simply lonely. Maybe she’s sad because she’s divorced. Maybe her social life isn’t full enough. She says that she’s so exhausted she sometimes cannot speak, but this makes no difference to him. He reluctantly shoves her off to someone else who does the same. He belittles her, tells her she is simply getting old, and suggests trying out a new hair color or going on a cruise. He shames her for coming to him at all, comparing her symptoms to the outwardly extreme conditions of his other patients, like not being able to walk or swallow or breathe. 

Dorothy eventually gets an answer and she gets to throw it in the face of the doctor who disregarded her. It’s a satisfying end to an all-too-relatable series of events. 

I’ve been exhausted for as long as I can remember. I get days or hours here and there where I experience what I assume to be normal life for most people, but it always sends me into a depressive spiral because instead of enjoying those fleeting moments, I am all to aware of what life could be like and it’s so beautiful that I don’t know how to handle it. Everything is constantly drenched in a sort of fog, and those few lucid moments are like being awake for the first time. I know it will fade. The fog will keep coming back.

I was told that I needed to go to bed earlier, to get off my phone 30 minutes before laying down, to pray. I’ve always been addled with nightmares in the times where I can manage to sleep. I was told that life is hard and it’ll only get harder. Life was hard because I was quiet. I needed to socialize more. Join a club. Toughen up. Children were starving in Africa. Eat better. Practice gratefulness. Exercise more. I starved myself of nothing but leaves and bananas and peanut butter, then exercised every spare second I had. I worked on a farm. I volunteered at church. I worked with children. I worked at a library. I was a photographer. I went to a Christian college and studied English, like I’d always wanted. I couldn’t have anything wrong with me because I was so active. I looked so healthy. I was doing everything right. Worry less. Focus on myself more. Rest. Life was hard because I was in a new grade level, a new school, I was getting bullied, I started a job, I started college, I got a boyfriend, I got new friends, I started another job, and so on. It was normal, I was told. I would naturally adjust. 

I never did. I got depressed, and somewhere along the way they put me on birth control. It was supposed to fix everything. Level me out. I subsequently turned into a suicidal zombie. I went from living in a fog, to being completely checked out of life.

I always mentioned my exhaustion to my doctors. I mentioned my most debilitating and consistent symptoms in hopes that it would eventually amount to some sort of a conclusion. I was typically met with a dismissive reply or told to try another brand of birth control pill. I wasn’t asked questions. I was too young to have anything truly wrong with me, so surely it was simply a phase I’d grow out of. It was just a bout of depression. But I’m 27 now, and though things have improved since refusing any more birth control, I am still living in that familiar fog. I still have lucid moments that make me cry. I have a steadily growing list of medical issues that I can’t bring myself to resolve because I have no trust that I will truly be heard. I believe, because it’s the only experience I’ve known, that I’ll be given the same generic advice that’s spouted to everyone else. Advice that I could, and did, get out of self-help books and Youtube.

I’m angry at all the years I spent half asleep. The youth I’ll never truly get to live because I was so busy trying to feel alive. To feel anything at all. The present and the future in which I may very well be stuck with no more clarity than I received up to the point I stopped asking for help. 

I’m still exhausted, so I’ll be told to go to bed earlier and think happy thoughts to avoid the nightmares. I eat well and I’m active and still can’t lose weight, but have I tried cutting out dairy? Gluten? Red meat? Drink more water. I have a long list of foods that I can’t eat without getting sick, so maybe I just shouldn’t eat those things. My hair is falling out, so I should wash it less. Or more. Or cut it shorter. I’ve miscarried, but that’s normal. It’s time to move on. I was assaulted and therefore panic every time I go to the gynecologist, but I need to woman up. They’ll once again ask the room, “What’s wrong with her?” The walls will close in on me and I’ll forget how to breathe and I will leave prematurely. I live in daily fear of the next time a cyst ruptures, because I blacked out from the pain last time even though they’re “not supposed to hurt that bad.” Because I clawed at my husband and begged for help that wouldn’t come. Because I’ll just be told to take Tylenol next time, as if I can predict it. As if that does me any good. 

It’s normal. Don’t worry, they’ll say. Everything is normal. Take birth control and come back in 6 weeks.

I don’t know when I will try again. Soon, I keep saying. Soon, because all I have are theories and fears and pain and I’m so, so tired. Soon, because I’m nearing the deciding age for having children. Soon, because I have a family I love and want to be around for. Soon, because I have no alternative. I know there is medical trauma awaiting me, and I don’t use that term lightly…but I’m terrified that I’ll subject myself to it just for it all to be in vain. That I won’t be heard or my theories will be wrong and that will be that. But I want to enjoy every second of my damn good life. I don’t want to be in constant fear. I don’t want to be too tired to do the things I love. I want to feel alive and be healthy enough to have kids. I want a body that doesn’t fail me at every turn and I want answers to a root cause rather than a temporary, surface-level reprieve. 

Despite my experiences, I believe in nuance in everything. I don’t see all doctors as super villains to fear. I had one positive experience that keeps me from completely giving up. Doctors are obviously people, like everyone else. I don’t think every patient is a saint. I don’t even think I am an easy patient. My problems are complicated, I cry easily, I struggle to communicate, and I’m jaded. What I see is a profession filled with people so exhausted and jaded themselves, they can’t turn on the humanity when it’s needed. They can’t afford to care, because caring either hurts or wears them out further. I also believe there are doctors who choose the profession to be on a constant power trip, or they do the work so long that they get cocky. I believe there are good doctors, good patients, bad doctors, bad patients, and a whole lot of complicated in-betweens. 

While I have empathy for the in-between and pray for better working conditions for the good, what I can advocate for is what I know and what I know is that medical mistrust is rampant. I know several people with medical trauma that was either wholly induced by or at least not helped by the people who were supposed to care for them. People who were supposed to either have answers or help find them. I’m absolutely not the worst case of this. It’s not just me. It’s not just fear. It’s a lack of trust in a world that has completely thrown empathy and consideration to the wayside.

When my mother-in-law was diagnosed with cancer last year, it was not like the movies portray it. She didn’t go to her annual check-up or have a sudden medical emergency and get told by a watery-eyed doctor that she has cancer. She had to fight for answers for precious months while she literally wasted away. While she got thin, lost all energy, and became forgetful. She was fading before our eyes and her doctor refused to take her seriously. Her doctor treated her like a nuisance. The hospital turned her away. She didn’t get to have a Dorothy moment. No one apologized when she was diagnosed. She simply started her treatment just in time to save her life. 

Dorothy said it best:

“I came to you sick – sick and scared. And you dismissed me. You didn’t have the answer. Instead of saying, ‘I’m sorry. I don’t know what’s wrong with you,’ you made me feel crazy, like I had made it all up. You dismissed me. You made me feel like a child, a fool, a neurotic who was wasting your precious time. Is that your caring profession? Is that healing? No one deserves that kind of treatment, Dr. Budd, no one. Had I been a man, I might have been taken a little more seriously and not told to go to a hairdresser. […] I don’t know where you doctors lose your humanity, but you lose it. If all of you at the start of your career could get very sick and scared for a while, you’d probably learn more from that than anything else. You’d better start listening to your patients. They need to be heard. They need caring, they need compassion. They need attending to. Someday, Dr. Budd, you’re gonna be on the other side of the table, and as angry as I am, and as angry as I always will be, I still wish you a better doctor than you were to me.”

by Gabrielle McLean

Happy Easter

Jesus was:

  • Radical
  • Subversive
  • Gentle (until He wasn’t)
  • A listener
  • Logical
  • Helpful
  • Honest
  • Empathetic
  • Reflective

He judged those who caused direct harm to others. He never judged a person faced with a complicated decision, a lack of knowing better, a mistake. He understood that little in life is black-and-white; YOU are not simple. Your choices are not simple. Your life is not simple. The practice and understanding of individuality and nuance are essential to joy, to work, and most importantly to maintaining faith.

Remember often to be a Jesus in a culture that praises Pharisees.

by Gabrielle McLean

(Mis) Communication

I don’t understand the rules of conversation. Things that are unspoken and how to leave things unspoken myself. Understanding others, generally. I’ve spent a lifetime studying, hyper-focusing, trying to mimic communication…and yet something is always a bit off. The ins-and-outs of what is acceptable and pleasant are unclear – always just out of reach. As I learn, something changes. Every situation new and unique and more confusing than the last.

I’m always in the push-and-pull game of seeking genuine connection, but unintentionally being terribly difficult to get to know. Being an open book in case someone takes the bait, while simultaneously being straight-laced and quiet. 

My husband and I were just talking about this hard-to-explain phenomenon where, even when we seem to be on the same wavelength as those around us, so often is what we say still not “right.” Our honest efforts and bids for connection fall flat. We’ll fully digest everyone else’s words and formulate the kind of response we’d like to recieve. Yet, often, it still won’t land. The conversation falters, fades, pauses in a moment of their obvious “What do I say to that?”.

There’s a distinct memory of a time I was thrown into a lively group conversation where, as I sat awaiting my turn, I brewed a question that I was entirely certain would elicit a new wave of interesting commentary…but as I spoke, the energy changed. It got quiet. All eyes averted. No one knew how to answer…and that’s it. Conversation once again moved along just fine without me. Something that felt completely appropriate to the situation – something I was unreasonably excited to say and went on a whole mental journey with before vocally committing to it – was the only topic of them all that no one could figure out how to discuss.

I constantly crave fun conversation, and there I was – ashamed and unsure of how to handle such a wasted opportunity. A chance to be seen for the person inside that refuses to come out. 

My misunderstanding of basic human nature isn’t fun. It’s not the manic-pixie-dream-girl, looks-hot-while-doing-something-silly, Ramona Flowers brand of non-conformity. I accidentally give people too many of my unfiltered thoughts, my brain shuts off at inconvenient times, and I stay up all night thinking about my friends secretly growing bored of me. My voice rises and falls in both volume and pitch as I tell stories I’ve likely told before. I replay my socially awkward moments on a loop and it never comes across as quirky, like I believed (hoped) maybe one day it would. I’m not Jessica Day, because this isn’t television and I’m not in a highlight reel. I’m, more often, an alien wearing a mask. If I pull it off, I am misunderstood. If I put it on, it’s glaringly visible.

Pang after pang of almost-connection, missed chances, frustration at what I lack. So I bend and break for a world that, mostly, doesn’t notice the effort. 

Because it’s not for a lack of trying. The lyrics I got tattooed on my arm say it all: “I’ve never been a natural. All I do is try, try, try.” It’s like saying, “Please understand I’m not like this on purpose.” Either I’m blank-faced, or a try-hard. Desperate, even. 

Desperate to be known as who I know I am. 

And that’s the issue: I desire something intangible and illogical – something that comes wholly unnaturally to me. I’ve never been good at being interesting or funny or a conversationalist on command. I go silent when upset or nervous, while my head screams at me to be normal. There is so much pressure in trying to cultivate (and maintain) friendships, family connections, etc. So much pressure in the unsaid and disappointment in saying too much. Because I know it’s in there. I know who I am at home – who I am when I’m comfortable – and I’ve always envied people who are the same everywhere they go. Likable people who stand in a group as an equal, not someone small and uncertain with a lifetime of messing up and misunderstanding looming over them. They befriend coworkers, bosses, strangers, etc. with nonchalance, and if there’s a lack of confidence – it rarely shows. They know, in a lot of ways unbeknownst to me, how to work the system.

I adapt and mirror and do what I can to be, from the outside, naturally likable. Easygoing. A potential friend. And it’s worked plenty of times, but the illusion shatters rather quickly. The second I open my mouth, all the holes in my safety net start to show.

I had an ex tell me that I act like a robot. Stiff movements and structured sentences and whatnot. He would get frustrated that I didn’t know how to have fun his way. I wasn’t anything like his friends, and it got harder over time to face that reality. I didn’t understand their jokes or know how to jump into conversations that moved at a mile a minute; conversations that would go on with or without me. I cared about my special interest too much, embarrassed him socially, and couldn’t participate in the silly things people who are comfortable in relationships are supposed to do. I took these things to heart and I really tried to be more free. Force it. Be normal. More like people my age, for the first time. I really tried to let go and be more like him, because he had that overwhelmingly likable trait I couldn’t pinpoint. I wanted to be enough because, back then, I believed no one else would get that far with me. I believed that in order to be loved, I had to pretend to be someone else.

Thankfully, when I met my (now) husband, I realized I just had to be listened to. I needed someone to notice my efforts before my shortcomings. I needed someone to look at me in total earnest when I’d say “I don’t feel like a person,” and tell me “you are a person.” I don’t have to be interesting by someone else’s standards because I don’t have to try to be interesting. I can exist without having to put constant thought into it. I can ramble and he listens. Participates. Whether it’s about something entirely made-up, something unimportant in the grand scheme of things, or something completely beyond ourselves. I can be socially awkward with him by my side and he’ll squeeze my hand. We do “performance reports” for each other on our car rides home. And, something incredible to top it all off, I make him laugh. Genuinely.

Often, I crave a form of this in all (or, at least, more) areas of life. There’s a desire for a little more than regurgitated simple responses to my conversational bait, like “oh, interesting,” or the dreaded “that’s deep” that inevitably shuts down any further discussion on impact. I crave something bigger than simple pleasantries. It would be so fun to know I could fall off the deep end and expect a cozy landing because of an inherent understanding of honesty, openness, and the acceptance of a little fumbling.

It’s all unnecessarily complicated living in the world as it is. 

To make myself clear, we’ve all had the introvert conversation shoved down our throats for years, and this isn’t that. The world could simply be a lot less divided with an ounce of open-mindedness. It’s not a divide between introvert and extrovert, man and woman, or any other harsh line between “right” and “wrong” that we’ve created – it’s people like me saying “I can’t function like you,” or “Your world is confusing,” and being met with some form of, “Have you considered trying harder?” Or, worse, a form of “Have you considered being more like me?” I did. Truly, I did. 

I had years full of mask-wearing and performing to show for it. I did all the daily rituals and cared about what I was told to care about and tried every trick in the book fed to me by people who naturally excelled in neurotypical nature. It nearly killed me. 

Societally, I’m tired of being the weird one for not inherently knowing how (or not having the patience) to navigate unspoken rules that were set in stone simply for the sake of being there – just to have something to do. Small talk is fine, but instead of it being a jumping-off point as intended, it’s too often a crutch. An exclusive boundary not to be crossed. 

Conversationally, I’m tired of uncertainty and unfulfillment. I haven’t improved much in pretending, no, but I have improved in saying “my way is worthy too.” And that has, finally, started to get me somewhere substantial. When my walls collapsed, I realized my strengths – which is worth a whole lot more to me than being understood. I quite like the unmasked version of myself: still fumbling, but with forgiveness. Patience. Acceptance.