I feel as if I am trapped in this box,
Where everyone else has put me
But I know I don’t belong.

Suffocated - they make me feel it,
I can’t stand existing inside this bubble:
The walls are thick, there’s no way out,
It’s the home of the unfound,
Where they put people like me who they can’t make sense of,
Patients they can’t diagnose unless it’s with the term “functional.”
I know there are others,
But I feel so alone,
Isolated from being understood
By the only people who are able to help me.

They won’t help me,
I try to fight back, I try to scream
Either no one hears me, or they take it as a mark of insanity.

It’s hard to speak up,
When you know the process all too well,
You walk in, they repeat things that hurt you (psychosomatic), and then you walk out,
Though you don’t know how,
Because inside you’re torn down again,
Answers aren’t found and each time is worse,
You’re still struggling but they insist
That you’re as healthy as you’ve ever been,
So once again you’ve been missed,
By professionals trained to catch out illness.

Every time your reality trips you down again,
You repeat the words they told you:
“You’re fine,”
You tell yourself you can do it
-But not out of encouragement,
Instead of disdain, because when no one acknowledges you
Why should you not question yourself?
We are taught from a young age these are the people you should depend on and treat with respect,
So even when they toss you aside:
Remember to say “thank you” and walk out with a smile,
Seeing as they believe that you really are wasting their time.

This is what nightmares are made of,
Except when you’re both asleep and awake
It’s always still there.
It’s hard enough passing each day this way,
But without an ounce of recognition,
I wonder why I should even stay.

I don’t want to do this anymore,
But still I have to knock on doors,
Basically asking people to reject what I live,
Constantly trying to prove that I’m sick,
To countless people who don’t give a ****.
It’s already too much effort existing like this,
Yet I have to get out of my bed to prove it,
Even though each time they write an essay about me being fine,
Or maybe a few words because I’m such a waste of time.
I face what I fear everyday because my health’s at fault,
Yet they say it’s not really at all.
It’s been a year and they still have the audacity to tell me,
It’s because I’m not coping mentally.

Maybe I am a mess psychologically,
But I want you to know, it’s only because of them.
I would be stable, I’d be perfectly fine,
If they didn’t keep coming around telling me my efforts are wasted,
That I just can’t deal with my mind no matter how much I already put in,
So clearly I will just never be fixed.
It’s what they’ve told me though, it’s all of their responses and words,
That made me question my sanity,
That dredge up all of my anger for them,
Because not one bit of acknowledgement did they spread.

So here I lay,
Stuck in this box where no one can see me,
I can’t fix myself because - it wasn’t my state of mind that was broken.
I’ve been here for four-hundred-and-seventeen days,
Where I try to imagine a future where I’ll be safe,
But the trauma of looking for a diagnosis I know will stay,
Because they told me it was only caused my trauma in the first place,
But the only kind I’ve experienced
Is the kind they inflicted whilst I was already suffering.

Who is this young girl,
Thinking she has the right to be in my office?
I pretend to be nice,
I do all the tests,
After all, I can’t risk her suing for neglect.

I comfort her, by telling her it’s stress,
Indeed yes, this is all in her head.
I let her tell me all of her symptoms,
She must be a hypochondriac because how else would she have come up with all of that?
Nevertheless, so she can’t say I haven’t done my job,
I send her for an MRI and EEG,
I also use my favourite words:
I tell her it’s nothing sinister.

I can’t believe she’s wasting my time,
She has anxiety, her brain is all fine!
Now that I’ve ridden her off of my list,
I can move onto to patients, who are actually sick.
She walks in looking young and healthy,
Does she really expect me to believe her?
She’s too young to be sick, and all her tests say are that she needs a psychiatrist, not a neurologist.
I give the advice I’ve learnt from my medical degree, “just get on with life and do whatever you were doing. Go to university, you’ll be just fine! You can’t keep relying on your family forever.”
Poor them, they must be really fed up of her,
She’s just too lazy to make her own food, to get out of bed, to go alone to the toilet unaided.
Yeah, she can still go to university, it’s not like she needs 24/7 care in case she falls down the stairs!

I tell her she doesn’t need those crutches that she uses,
I tell her she’s wrong about social anxiety, although she says it’s much better and I’ve only known her five minutes,
She’s just stressed, her diagnosis is functional.

Six months later her MRI and EEG are normal,
But I already knew it would be,
I advise her doctor to sort her out with a psychiatrist, even though she’s already seen one because I don’t get paid to actually listen to people.
A year later and she’s trying to get another neurologist appointment?
We can’t be having that, let’s make her referral disappear!
She’s told an ophthalmologist she’s having temporary loss of vision, flashes of light?
Who even cares? It’s just in her mind.
She’s chased up how her urgent referral hasn’t be fulfilled in a month,
I guess I’ll have to write her doctor a letter then,
I’ll say it’s just migraine auras because when I saw her she was fine.
She’s only pretending to be disabled,
After all it’s functional so she must be pretty messed up inside.

I’m a doctor so people know I’m smart,
So I get good money,
I don’t need to actually believe my patients and look for things that are not obvious to see.
I’ll make sure she feels like she’s going crazy and will never be helped or believed.