I look at all the words I mean,
Not wanting people to come back right at me,
Reprimanding me for criticising health care professionals
(“They just want to help, it’s their job”
- Well that’s what I thought too,
So maybe someone should tell them to do their “compassionate” job right,
And to think, I wanted to be just like them
But better)
Criticising me for criticising the NHS,
It’s not about the NHS.
I’m not blind to see that this happens everywhere,
I was all for the NHS
I was
“Going to be a nurse”
And so so happy about it,
But they managed to take that from me too,
It didn’t encourage me to do better,
It just made me want to get as far away from them as possible.
So I thought, “don’t post it!”
And just as suddenly recalled that I should not hide this,
Even if occasionally in some twisted kind of way I do feel guilty, like it’s all my fault;
What they said, how they acted, what they thought,
Or just simply of their proposition that I’m ill because of myself.
After all, if I don’t speak out who will?
I think of those who do tell the world of their experiences,
And how when I read about it I felt understood, almost like there’s a place for me,
And how I wish I could be that brave,
Whilst knowing that I’m not.
They remind me that it’s not okay,
To keep being treated this way,
So why not speak out?
The side of me I taught to be nice to myself,
The one that challenges cruel thoughts, tells me that
Shouldn’t I deserve these rights? Shouldn’t I be heard without fear?
People like me have had things they need taken away from them by doing this,
But I never had them in the first place, so why not?
These health professionals have so much jurisdiction,
When it comes to our bodies and how we perceive them,
Even for patients who are headstrong and less vulnerable this can be volatile.
It will be painstakingly explosive.
I suppose optimistically I’d like to hope,
They don’t realise the power at their hands; their words, their treatment
That somehow makes it okay for them
To bruise the strong but delicate souls,
Which they manage to crush so easily, so mercilessly
(Instead of our symptoms)
But then I wonder, I just honestly wonder:
How it could be fathomable that they could look us in our pleading eyes and downright refuse us,
Undermine us, all at once as if we were a common inconvenience,
Like the whole point of their vocation
Is not to help people,
Not only when they need it most, but at all!
Sardonically, I laugh at it now,
How very hard I tried, and was happy to try, to be in this field also,
Because no matter what the cost to my current emotions,
I always told myself, just do this really well so you can be a nurse,
So you can help people.
Each time my life was hard I told myself it’s okay because the end result is that I’ll get to be a nurse to help people.
To help people.
It’s just so funny right? Because the nurse I saw didn’t want to help me!
And I know they’re not all like that,
There are good nurses, good doctors (I hope - I’ve heard if you’re lucky you’ll find one someday),
But I can’t stomach how you could go through all that effort to help someone,
To then be so inconsiderate and futile.
And around about here,
I tell myself again that I’m probably a horrible person,
Because I know not to paint everyone with the same brush, there are good and bad people in everything,
But if I have child one day in the distant future, would I want them to be okay with this?
With the ******* and insufficient “care” I’ve endured,
No. And I would even like to think I would scream it from the rooftops,
But I’m not that audacious or loud enough,
And frankly it’s scary,
Terrifying as hell because while you look at your health care system and see:
Trustworthy, compassionate and caring,
I see: fear and a hierarchy that will never hold you high enough to be heard,
Once one doctor’s said it’s because of your mentality
None of the others will look at you twice unless it’s to see into your psyche and not your physical body.
So part of me may half heartedly deny this when it comes to speaking out about this,
But this is not okay,
And this is not only for me to get the words out somewhere,
But for every other person like me, who didn’t get what they deserved from those supposed to help us,
It is not your fault,
And maybe one day in the long and distant future that we may or may not see,
(Because change takes a long time and not because we’ll die from misdiagnosis - that’s a bit dramatic,
Although accurate for some unfortunate people)
All of us together, we can make a difference.
This is a fight that I never thought I’d be a part of,
A war I never knew or acknowledged existed,
And one day, I want to say that I haven’t lost every single battle of this never ending war.
So I ended up writing a poem about a poem I wrote a few days ago. This shows my thoughts on posting that poem (‘Medical Trauma’) so I hope you don’t hate me and my opinions, but this is raw and real and the better part of me (I think?) tells me that this needs to be said.