Trigger Warning
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Trigger Warning
When I was thirteen I was a patient of Doctor X who turned out to be a pedophile. I found this out after he was charged, arrested, and convicted of crimes against two of his other patients.
As part of his grooming process he told me if I no longer wanted to take medication, I no longer needed to take medication.
Thankfully I decided to stop seeing him as well, because he was involved in many a dark and disturbing issue that affected my life.
Either way I haven’t been medicated for ADHD since I was 13. That’s a long time to struggle, but the problem is that I didn’t realize I was struggling, until it was too late.
Now that I know, and now that I am not being forced to take medication as I was when I was a kid, now that I have the power of choice, I am doing everything I can, to make different choices.
I think the reason I chose to stop taking meds back then was because they affected so much of my body, mind, and spirit, and closed me off from myself. I couldn’t explain this back then, but it wasn’t the right medication, and it didn’t help. It made me feel like a zombie and made me feel gross most of the time.
Now there are different methods of diagnosis, and there are different medications that doctors are willing to listen to the symptoms of. Now that I have a doctor who actually gives a shit, and is respectful to never be alone with me when I am undressed, I feel safe enough to say “Let’s try this…”
People don’t talk about abusive doctors enough. They don’t talk about the signs to look out for, they don’t talk about the issues that come with medical abuse, and they certainly don’t warn you about the healing process after you’ve realized you’ve been abused by a doctor.
More than once it’s happened when a doctor knew something I needed to know and didn’t tell me. For instance, my first family doctor didn’t tell me that Dr. X was an abuser until I was sixteen, that was three years of seeing him before I knew.
I have never struggled with my memory of my teen years the way I do now that I am older and consciously trying to remember what was done to me, and who did it. I struggle with dates, places, and names of people, but never faces. I know faces instantly.
Three or four times now I’ve seen one of my rapists in the paper, I won’t lie and tell you that I didn’t shed tears for them, I did. I shed tears for who they could have been, who they chose to be, and often because they died. But never because they were arrested again. That brought bubbles of laughter that I love having roll through me.
Doctors don’t listen to teenagers and kids the way they listen to adults, because teens and youth don’t often know how to communicate the way we learn to by the time we reach adulthood. They don’t know they can, or how to advocate for themselves, and that’s why we must be their teachers.
I don’t want to be ADHD, But I know I am. I also know that because I am, lots of people who could have helped punished me for being different, and because of that I suffered a lot of ways in a lot of areas of my life.
Things have changed now, however. First off I am an adult, secondly, I have access that I’ve never had before, and I have friends and a circle of protectors that are brand new to me, but not to the world of trauma.
I have supporters worldwide and I know that whatever the diagnosis, there are ways to help me navigate this world so I can be even more supported and successful in my future.
All in all, things look bright. I told you it gets better Devon.
Sending all my love,
Devon J Hall, The Loud Mouth Brown Girl
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