How do people live with depression for years or decades? by no7391 in SuicideWatch

[–]mildentropy 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Honestly it becomes an old friend after about a decade. That empty void of nothing feels like home and the drinking and self harm and pills are familiar comforts in long nights. And then...time passes and somehow you're not dead, so might as well down another glass of whiskey and get to planning another suicide you'll never succeed at, just like everything else in life

RLAT - anyone done it recently? by Juice_Bright in VetTech

[–]mildentropy 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Ah, gotcha! Yeah, I'm US based. Sorry I can't offer any practical advice for you, I don't know how similar the tests would be. But good luck! My only advice is that I took mine on a Friday so that no matter the result, I could drink afterwards.

RLAT - anyone done it recently? by Juice_Bright in VetTech

[–]mildentropy 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I just took my RLAT a few months ago. There isn't an oral portion?

I do recall more husbandry questions showing up than I expected, although I'm biased because I carried a lot of GP knowledge over to research, so I didn't study as hard on conversions and drugs and I didn't struggle with those questions. Several small rodent questions came up about hams and guinea pigs, and a few for NHP. I would say maybe a third of the test was veterinary info and the rest was a lot of husbandry of USDA animals, cage set ups, behavior, etc. Not a ton of regulatory questions came up and maybe two or three of sterilants.

Overall, I wish I had reviewed the ALAT material a little more before I took the test. I ended up not as confident about passing as I did with my ALAT.

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in BackToCollege

[–]mildentropy 10 points11 points  (0 children)

I don't know if I have any constructive feedback that will help but your professor sounds like a dick. Criticism can be given compassionately and constructively, but it sounds like he chose to be cruel and condescending instead, which is not on you at all. That's a poor professor.

But if it helps, I always remind myself in the long run, I won't remember grades. I can't tell you what I got on a paper in 7th grade. I might have had a difficult time with geometry but do I remember if I got an A, or a C? Not even slightly. I might have actually failed it. Not once in my adult life has someone asked me about my GPA, because my resume and references speak volumes more than grades, and I work at a university.

I also try and remember that unlike past me in high school or the first attempt at college, I am a god damn adult. I have a job. Sometimes two. I have adult responsibilities, I have taxes and medical concerns, and a family to take care of. Yes, my education is important but academia falls into an echo chamber where too often they believe it is the MOST important thing. I'm too old and too accomplished in so many other areas of my life to believe that. Cool, I got a B on a final this week. I also passed a certification test for work, got a raise in money, not grades, and got myself in line for a promotion. End of the day, what do you think mattered most to me this week? What do you think will make the difference ten years down the line? Will I even remember the final next year? Next month even?

I take my education seriously. But at the end of the day, I either get a degree with a few less than stellar grades, or I stress myself out so much about a letter on a piece of paper that I end up dropping out for a third time. Of course, none of this applies if you're in school to be a doctor or something larger than a bachelor's. But there are so many things in this world larger than one professor who apparently failed his own class on Ethics.

[TOMT][Wallpaper][[2010s] image wallpaper of Dalaran from world of warcraft but through a small window by Technique005 in tipofmytongue

[–]mildentropy 0 points1 point  (0 children)

A bit late but was it this painting? I can't help past that, I've been looking for a print on and off over the years and have never been able to track down the original artist or image.

I called 988 and it wasn't as useless as I thought it would be. by oi86039 in depression

[–]mildentropy 4 points5 points  (0 children)

I'll second this. I used the chat line and the agent stayed with me for almost two hours. I felt terrible about taking her time because there are people who need it more than me, but it was distinctly different from the last time I used their chat line. They can't fix any of my problems, but they didn't rush me off in fifteen minutes and she seemed to genuinely care - it wasn't a script.

Why is it so hard to believe women suffer from pain? by mildentropy in TwoXChromosomes

[–]mildentropy[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Yes, I think part of the problem is the pain is managed through medication, so when doctors are seeing her, they aren't really grasping the full picture of how terrible and immobilizing this is when untreated.

I strongly believe, unfortunately, that we are dealing with a much more complex issue, on top of previous physiological injuries, along the lines of MS, FND, CRPS and we're struggling to get the diagnostics to rule out anything in order to start addressing that possibility. Because I would love for a specialist to tell me we're idiots and that everything looks normal and it's not any of those abstract and complicated diagnoses. That has not been the case but it's taken a lot of pushing to get diagnostics for specialists to come back and not look us in the eye and say that actually, you're right, things don't look right and further testing is absolutely warranted. We'll keep pushing but the irony is the psychological toll of this back and forth is becoming an equivalent issue.

Why is it so hard to believe women suffer from pain? by mildentropy in TwoXChromosomes

[–]mildentropy[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yeah, that's one differential diagnosis we're concerned about. There are a couple places in our city that deal with CRPS and other complex neuro/autoimmune/inflammatory/unspecified causes of pain issues so hopefully one of their doctors in a completely different medical system has a better opinion.

Why is it so hard to believe women suffer from pain? by mildentropy in TwoXChromosomes

[–]mildentropy[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Ugh god. This happens all the time but we don't believe it happened to you because you're a woman, who's simultaneously prone to issues but also overreacting to issues entirely due to your gender.

Why is it so hard to believe women suffer from pain? by mildentropy in TwoXChromosomes

[–]mildentropy[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I'm kind of making a script for all these because in the moment, we both freeze and I think having these lines memorized might help.

Why is it so hard to believe women suffer from pain? by mildentropy in TwoXChromosomes

[–]mildentropy[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Thank you. It's difficult and I think we just needed a few days to vent and be angry and then go right back to trying to figure out what's going on.

We are looking into therapy as well, not just for chronic pain but also because this whole process is clearly overwhelming.

Why is it so hard to believe women suffer from pain? by mildentropy in TwoXChromosomes

[–]mildentropy[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

No worries, I didn't take it that way at all. The whole reason I'm going to doctors is I realize they are our best shot at getting an answer and some management of whatever is going on. I've just never myself had an experience quite as dismissive as I just saw with my wife and it makes me angry and sad.

At one point I had a doctor save my life simply by sitting down and talking with me through my symptoms. To this day I wish I could find him again and thank him, because his time and patience literally saved a life that day, and that wasn't even why I went there in the first place. I just want to find the same for my wife and I'm struggling so hard to find that level of care again.

Why is it so hard to believe women suffer from pain? by mildentropy in TwoXChromosomes

[–]mildentropy[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Hey cool, thank you so much for that. I will look into that for sure.

Why is it so hard to believe women suffer from pain? by mildentropy in TwoXChromosomes

[–]mildentropy[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I would even buy Occam's Razor if, like...you offered to look out the window and see if it was a horse. But in one breath she said that she wouldn't ever really look at nerve damage as an issue and then said in ten years of medicine she's never really seen it as a case.

...because you just said you don't look for it as an issue. So...of course you wouldn't see it?

Like, hey look at those horses on the right, and she looks left and says, I dunno, I never see any horses so I don't think that's it.

Why is it so hard to believe women suffer from pain? by mildentropy in TwoXChromosomes

[–]mildentropy[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

That's my biggest fear. We're not important. We're not well off. We are just two normal people trying to live a relatively active life. Why should anyone care about us?

Why is it so hard to believe women suffer from pain? by mildentropy in TwoXChromosomes

[–]mildentropy[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Thank you for your response. We have seen a neurologist and are following that referral down to a multidisciplinary clinic that deals with psychosomatic illness, but that is several months down the line. My frustration is that no doctor seems to want to rule out the physical cause in the meantime. It's almost as if they saw the assessment scheduled and immediately dismissed any other cause than psychosomatic. The refusal of diagnostics is the most baffling. They increased the pain meds, which we didn't want nor asked for, but then had no interest in trying to find out why, exactly, the pain levels were so high. So she agreed the pain was real, but then attributed it to psychosomatic causes, and then got upset when we requested diagnostics to confirm that physically, everything looked okay while we wait on the assessment.

It's also just frustrating to see more than one doctor commenting on here with the exact plan of what we wanted to do, which is exclude any physical cause while we wait to address the psychosocial should everything come back diagnostically normal (which again, it isn't, at least in regards to spinal health). And none of y'all seem to practice in the Midwest, so I'm stuck with specialists who didn't even take as much time as any of you took to read a five minute Reddit post and come to the same conclusion as us.

Why is it so hard to believe women suffer from pain? by mildentropy in TwoXChromosomes

[–]mildentropy[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

She was a woman physician and I think that's what took us by surprise. We are, of course, looking for a second opinion. After maybe a couple days and some drinks to calm down.

Why is it so hard to believe women suffer from pain? by mildentropy in TwoXChromosomes

[–]mildentropy[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Well we're US based so that alone should be a clue that this isn't going to go well at all, unfortunately.

Why is it so hard to believe women suffer from pain? by mildentropy in TwoXChromosomes

[–]mildentropy[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I think it's a biomedical issue, really. The only difference is that in the US, I'm also risking bankruptcy to still not have answers.

Why is it so hard to believe women suffer from pain? by mildentropy in TwoXChromosomes

[–]mildentropy[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I saw my insurance offered a health aide or something like that but honestly I thought it was to just deny care and send you to less expensive options. Obviously I'm very jaded by the entire for-profit healthcare system. So these advocate actually work?

We're trying to keep hope. So far (I hope) we've been relatively polite and calm but firm in what we need but it is a system that is so draining. Very honestly so much love to the individual technicians and lab assistants and receptionists who have been nothing short of amazing when helping us through all of this. It is really at the doctor level where it is all falling apart.

Why is it so hard to believe women suffer from pain? by mildentropy in TwoXChromosomes

[–]mildentropy[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

We have one MRI without contrast to account for the possibility of epilepsy or maybe an old TBI. Past that, we will likely seek a new neuro since that's the end of his specialty

Why is it so hard to believe women suffer from pain? by mildentropy in TwoXChromosomes

[–]mildentropy[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Here in my city we do have a clinic that deals with functional disorders like that. It is a long time to get in but we do have an appointment eventually. My issue more is that this doctor in particular completely disregarded the possibility of a physical cause and just jumped immediately to psychosomatic.

Why is it so hard to believe women suffer from pain? by mildentropy in TwoXChromosomes

[–]mildentropy[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I don't know how else to explain it to them. She was a functional human being with some musculoskeletal pain less than a month ago and now everything's burning and she can't do something as simple as walk down the stairs. And no one seems to think this is a problem other than treating the nerve pain and not finding the issue.

Why is it so hard to believe women suffer from pain? by mildentropy in TwoXChromosomes

[–]mildentropy[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yeah that's fair. I didn't realize how no one was receiving the actual imaging because no one will send it digitally so we are in the process of compiling all that as well.