Medical Complaints Are Symptoms of a Larger Problem

I’ve been thinking about the last year of my writing on Loud Mouth Brown Girl. There’s been lots of talk about how tired I am, and I wasn’t fully prepared to actually step outside of myself and look at the constant complaint about my exhaustion as a symptom.

To be clear my life is not bad, I am on disability while I sit here and write and share my experience with the world, so I have the time to heal, but the problem is that I’ve not been healing, I’ve been just noticing symptoms of something I don’t know how to diagnose.

I’m not depressed, I promise. In fact, life is pretty good actually, it’s just my body is wiped out, mentally and spiritually, I’m doing okay but physically, I don’t feel like I’m healing, BECAUSE of the exhaustion.

The other day my mom told me to stop self-diagnosing myself, but if I don’t know no one will because very people are listening. I know now what’s wrong with me. I haven’t been going to the doctor, because I’m tired of hearing “this is nothing, that is nothing,” when it’s clearly something. I have a brown spot on my hand that didn’t use to be there, I have severe exhaustion, I have a host of symptoms and I don’t know what they mean altogether.

BUT because of my mental health issues, my doctors just chalk it up to me being crazy or “psychotic,” honestly I wish I was exaggerating.

The other day I told my Psych nurse how tired I am, how I feel like my executive functions aren’t working, and she told me to exercise. *sigh* I can barely bring myself to breathe some days, I don’t have the motivation to go out and fucking exercise when all I want to do is sleep. SOMETHING IS WRONG AND NO ONE IS HEARING ME.

This feeling of desperation is something a lot of patience with diagnosed “mental health issues,” go through. I know this because we’ve been talking. They aren’t feeling heard by their medical professionals, and so we talk to each other, and we share stories of medical malpractice that should be worthy of lawsuits, but often go ignored.

Because Doctors go to school for a long time, and pass and get authorized to cut people open, you think they actually would know a thing or two about people, but in all honesty, doctors spent so long studying books that they didn’t really learn HOW to study people. In short, Doctors can be idiots.

Every single time I would give my former doctor a list of symptoms, she’d have to look up the symptoms in a book, while right in front of me, to know what to prescribe, does this sound like someone who paid attention at school?

I may not know cannabis inside and out but that’s why I don’t ever try to prescribe it without saying you should talk to a doctor, but the truth is I don’t really want to tell you that. I want the legal right to be able to tell you that I think you should go out and smoke a joint with some people you feel safe with just to see what happens. Don’t drink, don’t drive, just stay home and eat a brownie. But see, I’m not allowed to say that, because that would be an endorsement.

The doctors say that medical cannabis isn’t helping me, but look at what I’ve accomplished in the last five years. Two books, one out and one on the way, no wonder I’m so fucking tired. My entire life has been on this website, and I wouldn’t change it for anything in the world, but I’m exhausted.

I cannot consume any more negativity. All I want to do is cry and it never feels like they’re my tears lately.

It feels like someone I don’t want to be is trying to take over my body and force me to feel shit I don’t want to feel. I know what I went through, I know how horrible it was, I know I survived it, but I’m ready to move on, and I’ve said this before only to be dragged back by a sign that they’re still out there.

Every time I see one of them, I am dragged back to that place and I’m tired of going there, so in my head, I’m trying to go elsewhere, and then I get lost behind what is real and what I wish was real, and that’s why I’m so fucking tired.

Constantly trying to find my way back to sanity that is acceptable to every single human I’ll ever encounter is an exhausting impossibility. But those with disabilities are constantly trying to do that and it ends up overwhelming our systems and we no longer have an executive function. So good days are spent smiling and watching television, while bad days are spent crying and being miserable, and there’s very little in between.

It’s called Bi-Polar disorder, one minute you’re up and the next you’re down, or that’s what they tell me, but apparently, that’s not what I have, apparently I’m just “psychotic,” but they can’t fully define what that means precisely. It “could mean a lot of things,” *sigh*. I’m tired. Are you tired?

This is how so many doctors keep their patients sick, they exhaust us with half-ass diagnoses, and then leave us completely a mess with medication. I know this because we all watched the King of Darkness Ozzy Osborne go through this.

But the moment that we stop taking our medication, they drag us back into the hospital, call us crazy and tell us WE’RE out of control even though they’re keeping us insane with these pills. Do I sound like one of the Trucker Convoy supporters? Cause I feel like I do.

I DO AGREE that everyone should listen to their doctor, but I also think we should be doing our own research so that we’re aware of what we’re taking.

One of the side effects of my medication Rexulti, which I use for anxiety, is suicidal thoughts. This is why yesterday I took the time to tell my mom I was having them, not because I’m going to kill myself, pfft, but because I’m also not stupid.

When I was in the hospital one of the nurses was handing out pills and she kept saying “these will help with your thoughts.” Every single time she said that I laughed. I didn’t even have words to describe my thoughts back then. That was five years ago.

I KNOW I am not going to kill myself, never gonna happen, but I NEED My mom to know I’m thinking about it because she’s a part of my inner circle.

Knowing this is a side effect of my medication tells me that I need to talk to my doctor about it, so I can work out those feelings and acknowledge them when I am ready instead of just assuming that I’m depressed. No, I’m not depressed, but I’m tired, and that tiredness as much as it hurts, is also invigorating because it tells me that I am working hard.

It tells me that I am still alive, and it reminds me to take care of myself body, soul, and mind, so that I am checking in with my circle, and that I am moving forward. I’m not hiding it, I’m not afraid of the tired, I’m inspired by it. But that doesn’t mean I won’t honor it by sitting around and watching television if that’s what I need to do.

Sometimes we just need to be potatoes.

But when we can get the work done, we’ll work ten times harder when we can. SO don’t lose hope, it’s still happening.

Sending all my love,

Devon J Hall