Reading this blog, you may get a distinct idea I might desire anarchy. I do not, I simply wish to alert people to the problems of a broken system. I have had an odd obsession with fixing things for a long while. It seems to be one of the common traits of the decade, the critical eye and mind. While judgment is nothing new, I feel there has been a distinct increase in negative feedback with a sharp decrease in constructive criticism. This leads to this thought being scrutinizing, instead of a compliment. One would think having a critical mind is a good thing, and it is, should it purely be a layer.
Why I decided to ramble on this is thanks to an issue that has plagued me for a long time. I have mentioned ADHD plenty, but I am uncertain I have fully expressed how difficult it is to prove I have it to the ones pushing out the pills. Not that I could find any to diagnose me as an adult (Was diagnosed as a child just fine. Fling all KINDS of drugs at the kid boots. FLEE from adult boots.)
It is when they use my strengths to try and prove otherwise. School was difficult due to boredom. I would be interested in the material, immensely in a number of cases, but get bored out of my skull from reiterating the same material the thousandth time. So I began to suffer academically from my mind wandering elsewhere, namely the worlds that would eventually be detailed into my fictional landscapes. I would try to explain my issues, but most teachers reacted to me like a simply a rowdy child. The flurry of bullying did not help any. I began to adapt, I learned to spread my attention properly without losing the lecture. Teachers argued with me about it, even if I was minding my own business in the corner You know the types. See you doodling and call on you to prove a point. Problem is that when I proved I was listening I was being a smart ass or..SOmething.
Anyway, the point is how I eventually was able to start getting good grades… Much later on in college. To the point that in Morrison, sure it was a scam school but they still were pushing out the material and tests, was a school I managed to get a 4.0 in. Got a certificate and anything. Least for a period. See, at that same time I was (and am) still in my eternal struggle to be treated, given guidance, something from my ‘medical professionals’ that turned useless. 60 minutes of waiting after my appointment time only to get a ten-minute piece with someone impatient. Even less for someone who ended up pushing some terrible antidepressants on me. Including one that, even though I went there initially asking for help on ADHD… Though admittedly vague since at this point I had plenty of people accuse me of wanting to pop off and sell the medicine on the street. Instead of taking the fucking things for the fact my mind is like having a series of hyper children try to explain you different subjects that fascinate them all at once. It is disjointed, voices overlapping, chaos, madness, and eventually, one of the trains of thoughts get lost in the scuffle.
They instead look towards my records. Claiming ‘Well if how did you do so well in school if you had ADHD?’ Well, though I was certain I explained this (as well as you can with a medical ‘professional’ rushing you, having you take these written tests and then saying they tell her as much as looking at them through mud) it wasn’t easy. In fact, I wasn’t all that great at first. There was a period where I was fine and dandy… ish. That period I was on Dexedrine (hilariously, the one they will only give to children) before being shuffled through medications that you do ‘better’ but instead made me claustrophobic even in open fields. The academic achievement award I put on my wall isn’t up there because I consider it a trophy in standard academia, especially given the scam college that gave it to me, but as a milestone.
Even as doctors would refuse to diagnose, treat, or even give much guidance towards controlling my ADHD… I managed to get one of those. It had involved week after week of swollen limbs and organs. The stress of college does horrid things to HAE. Especially when stressing over affording your pot, and having to deal with that nightmare pre-legalization (in my state.) and more all culminate in one lovely festering stress god. Controlling your life through your blood, keeping you from going or doing certain things at the flick of the wrist. ONe moment you can plan to go for a 3-mile hike, the day comes and you have to cancel because apparently, your lower intestines are now the size of a golf ball, along with all the lovely little issues that likes to cause for the next few days.
So, yeah, it was a WEE BIT fucking difficult to do well. Especially with doctors like that trying to use my struggle as the hammer of justice against the drug dealer I am not.
This same rage can be spread so far with me though. Treated like a criminal because I use pot for my difficulties, to the point I have lost jobs or never been hired at all for a drug test because I wouldn’t take the things TRULY ruining my mind and body. To supposedly protect me from this green herb from destroying my mind and body. I haven’t hurt a DAMNED soul in my attempts to get my medicine, barring maybe ranting their ear off for telling me to meet them in a shady parking lot next to a bus station at 1 in the morning, leave me waiting for a few fucking hours to the point I search for them. Only to return to find my window broken into and my e-cigarette missing. My medicine would have been wonderful for the stress that caused, and the swelling that followed.
Against, it is fucking laughable the bad luck I have. Plenty that have had bursts of FAR WORSE luck don’t get me wrong. It just seems like I have dealt with a lot of uniquely weird and infuriating issues that made me feel disgusted, humiliated, hurt, or just… Confused. Most of which leads, of course, to the demon of Hereditary Angioedema barking in my ear. Then instead of some advisement, knowledge, or what have you… More often than not you get treated like part of a grander problem.
Now here is why I am typing this. This is the little cliff-notes bit of knowledge I want to make sure so many know. The thing I want to scream at the world. I just haven’t yet figured out how to do so in a short and sweet manner:
When the world has beaten you down; when it has slammed your cheek and face against the curb and you have the yank yourself up. If you, at any point, attack an innocent party in some way… If done right, don’t count venting, passionate ranting… When you begin to treat them as part of a problem they never had anything to do with you have a very high chance of becoming a part of that person’s bad day. A story about their bad life.
I am certain none of the people I rant about were out to get me. They were trying to protect their careers (especially thanks to the deserved scrutiny the prescription business is getting), trying to go on with their lives, trying to assist others, or maybe just a little spacy. I am no better at this than anyone else. I have had days where I am so angry I am a walking demon.
I try to be conscious of it. I try to fix my situations quickly, try to contain my rage and leave it for rants on the internet where I don’t use names. Specifically, because I try not to remember the names of my darkness. It is the good things in my life I like to assign names and labels to. They’ll stay longer in my memory. And, theoretically, the darker elements would stand out so strongly.
I don’t even know if the medicine will be any better than the medical marijuana. Thanks to having to buy from specials, I can’t quite get exactly what I need. The strains work, I am still figuring out the…er.. ‘Dosage’ if you will. Though the best part is no fear of overdose. Of frying my mind. Of becoming an emotionless rock.
I’ve been through many flavors of hell. Physical, emotional, fictional… I have studied horror for ages and tried to think of every traditional and pop culture monster from multiple angles.
Yet still, nothing terrifies me like the idea of being trapped in my own mind again. Going through the entire process of getting and finding a medicine. After years of hoping and praying, only to instead find yourself everything D.A.R.E warned you about when it comes to the medicine that ACTUALLY helps me. Mind you, I stopped taking it for a period for fear it wouldn’t allow me to properly judge the effects. Minus when an HAE attack happened. Was my ONLY pain relief. As I am sure you may have gathered, I’d be opposed to opioids or any other pain medications that my fry my mind. It might be due to ADHD causing my dopamine productions to be faulty, but marijuana has proven oddly helpful.
Pot never made me feel like I was melting into the couch. My mind still was working on something in the least. On some of those medications? I… ‘heard’ them in my minds eyes. They were murky, in a haze. It was like you were expecting to watch Death Note but got the Netflix version instead, on a staticy channel. On a tv where half the screen is broken because some alcoholic asshole punched it.
I would just sit there. I’d hear the outside world like it was in another room. See it through constant tunnel vision. My thoughts all restrained. I truly and completely felt trapped inside myself. COuld move around otherwise fine, I just had so little energy to do so. Motivation, which already is a concept I struggle with, now seem just… Missing. I wasn’t just lacking it. I suddenly seemed devoid of the piece of me that care or ever felt such things.
The final story I think I’ve mentioned, but I surely will never get over. Two, technically, but they are short and connected. Disability requires a comprehensive packet on your health to be filled out. I, of course, checked it first. Even after explaining in detail and there being plenty of resources, such as official websites, for them to consult… They got EVERYTHING wrong. They even put, under how it affects me, nothing more than ‘When he is not having a flare up, he is a perfectly healthy 20-something male.’ Which, given the packet is about my DISORDER not those brief stints when I am not having a flare up… Not only that, they ignored me entirely and put that the Epi-pens works on me. When not only did they not, they just seemed to make the whole matters a hint worse thanks to suddenly feeling like I had been hit by a bolt of adrenaline.
Maybe this is why the last denial letter I got(what feels like a year ago since I filed for that appeal) claimed that while they recognized me as disabled, I could stand it.
The lot of them are probably why my sanity feels like it is dwindling. It is almost like they are trying to gaslight me. If this is true, all they are managing to do is give me confirmation the lot of them are incompetent and incapable of handling my medical care.
The worst part is all of this seemed to snap something in me. That 4.0 began to gradually drop. Now I am pretty sure I never let myself dip down below 3.0, but still… I stopped caring for that perfection. What was the point? If it was justing going to be used as a tool to cut away my personal achievements… I figured the one piece of paper was enough. I figured I shouldn’t try so hard. All it lead to was pain and agony, then judgment for it.
I never seem to keep that thought for long, since here I am. Whining to the internet in the hopes that maybe, just maybe, my words can help pound away the problems in this machine. CLear the rust and stains. Maybe then they’ll stop making me feel like such a broken cog.
So… Do you see the problem?