tbh one last lil irascible radical healthcare-for-the-people rant before I go to bed: I think narratives about the Genius Diagnostician often wind up serving as false propaganda about medicine, and about the abilities of the people who practice it.
in reality the majority of doctors are under an enormous amount of cognitive strain, and the layers of mystique around the profession and its artificial scarcity (limited by residency slots, mostly) are the things that insulate them, that prevent everyone else from recognizing that
and the information that’s available to doctors about things like antibiotic prescription, etc: a lot of it is available to all of us, and while it’s complicated as fuck, and a layperson can’t automatically be assumed to have the reading comprehension ability to understand it, it’s also not impenetrable, it’s not mystical; recognizing what parts of a paper you do and don’t understand is often enough to help you piece together the rest of it; it’s just dry science papers and manuals written in shorthand
so many of us who do have the capacity to read and understand such things wind up assuming that we don’t truly, because Doctors Know Things
but I’ve been burned enough times by doctors not knowing things I knew, and helped enough times by laypeople knowing things doctors didn’t, that I’m starting to see that the wall of that walled garden is not what I thought it was, and the purpose it serves is less beneficent than I once believed.
I ended up having a really interesting conversation with some people at the bus stop today. They were getting out of some sort of ‘clean and sober’ meeting and had starting saying how they were so bored because they didn’t have anything to do, and had to stay at home because all their old friends would pull them back. So I said something like, ‘So this is the time to do all the stuff your parents told you they didn’t have money/time for!’
“Whatcha mean?”
“You know, like when you were five and you REALLY wanted to have that toy or do that thing and you were like, ‘Please mom please I gotta have this I gotta go do this’ and they went ‘Hell no you think I’m paying for that do you want to goddamn EAT?’ “
And this light went on in their eyes. The lady is going to go check thrift stores for an Easybake Oven and I told her about Wilton cake decorating classes. The dude is going to Griffith Park and ride horses, because, ‘I always wanted to be a cowboy, and you can’t drink when you’re on a horse ‘cause you’ll fucking die!’
Fuck it. This is what being an adult is. Sure it’s bills and work and relationships, but damn it, it’s also time to do the things you LIKE.
I signed up for a free class/lecture on Water Gardens. I’m going. It’s time.
do u ever feel like you’ve accidentally tricked certain people into thinking you are smarter and have more potential than you actually do and do you ever think about how disappointed they’ll be when you inevitably crash and burn
Fun fact: Impostor Syndrome is ridiculously common among high-achievers, particularly women. If you identify with this post, odds are pretty good that you’re exactly as smart as people think you are, and the failure you’re afraid of isn’t inevitable at all.
and don’t forget this is one of the psychological barriers placed in by thousands years of patriarchy and male supremacy.
My computer science professor actually talked about this on the first day, it was really cool.
Fun brutal fact: in addition to the existence of imposter syndrome, being “twice exceptional” (also known as 2e) is also a thing. That means being intellectually gifted AND ALSO having a disability that affects your ability to succeed at study or work. Such as ADHD, autism, dyslexia, dyscalculia, etc etc etc. A lot of people believe that it’s not possible to be both, but it very much is.
Society tends to have very high expectations for how well gifted people will perform. Society tends to have low expectations for how well disabled people will perform. Society tends to attribute invisible disabilities, including mental illness, to a failure of willpower or effort or a bad attitude.
So if you read this post and went “no, but seriously, this is not just low self esteem on my part, people keep thinking I’m smart and then I keep crashing and burning and disappointing them and they can’t understand why I didn’t live up to their expectations, it happens again and again and when I tell someone how I feel and ask for help, they just tell me to stop being so hard on myself and that I’ll succeed if I have more self-confidence,” it is not just you.
(Also, one of the previous posts in this thread buried the lede a little. Imposter syndrome is ridiculously common in people from underrepresented groups in academia and other high pressure/high status fields, particularly women and people of colour. Maya Angelou did not only feel out of place because she was a woman.)
This essay also totally changed my view on the intersection of impostor syndrome and mental illness.
daydreaming is often a coping mechanism for people who are often lonely or don’t receive a good amount of love in their life, so they make people inside their heads that will love them so they can feel the right amount of love.
in addition, people often daydream about different kinds of love they crave in real life.
for example, lonely people will more likely to daydream about having friends, so they can feel like they aren’t lonely in this world.
people who have friends that constantly dissapoint them will more likely to daydream about friends that meet their (sometimes, unrealistic) expectations.
people who aren’t close to their parents will more likely to daydream about better parents that can love them more than their actual parents.
people who aren’t in relationships but crave them will more likely to daydream about it; either making their own partners or imagining their existing crush with them.
a lot of people don’t even realize the pattern until it’s pointed out. you might not daydream about yourself or putting yourself in those situations, but you still daydream about your characters having the love you crave in real life, because you can still feel the feeling.
– walking past your favorite snacks at the grocery store and not having the energy to even want them
– listening to your favorite songs and feeling nothing
– only being able to muster half a smile when your lover finishes telling a joke
– everyone asking you to speak up because your voice feels too heavy to raise
– getting irritated at things that force you to feign interest or participate in small talk
– knowing you’re kind of acting like a dick but feeling too drained to do anything about it
depression: hi you’re now addicted to anything that makes you feel better
During my first month with my therapist, I was given this worksheet to read and work on. She noticed that while I was talking with her, that my thoughts followed a lot of these. I wasn’t aware that my anxiety had brought me down paths of low self-worth and stinky thinking.
After a couple of weeks of talking with her, she gave me this worksheet to work on.
While, at first, I thought these weren’t going to work out, I was very surprised to see just how easy they were to use . My homework at that time was to identify which sort of thinking I used on the regular and which ones would best challenge them for me.
So, what do you think? Do any of the maladaptive thinking patterns sound like you? which ways would you like to untwist your thinking?
A reminder to all of the mentally ill kids seeking treatment and other people new to the psych system:
If you absolutely hate going to your therapist, you have the wrong therapist
If you feel like your therapist doesn’t understand you, has misdiagnosed you, or is focusing on the wrong things, you have the wrong therapist
If your therapist is too old to understand the things you’re going through, like cyberbullying or LGBT related issues, you have the wrong therapist
If you feel like therapy isn’t working for you, YOU HAVE THE WRONG THERAPIST!
I went through five therapists before finding mine. FIVE. Sometimes it takes a while to find someone who works for you, but you do NOT have to be stuck with a therapist you don’t enjoy seeing or you don’t feel is helping you!
I’ve been through over 13 therapists in my life- no joke.
just moving along like everyone else 