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With a few visits to Jude under my belt about how to more effectively
communicate my health issues to doctors so they might take them
serious, the day had come: It was time for my next big
bottle of fat enzymes. This was when I needed to request a
prescription from my Community Health Clinic doctor, Betsy, so I
could take it to Denver and have it discarded by the Premier Medical
Center doctor as he replaced it with his own so I could pick
the bottle up at their pharmacy.
Entering the examination room to wait for the doctor I sat down at
the chair next to the wall-mounted desk. But this time, rather than
sit either straight ahead facing forward or leaning forward at the
edge with my arms collected in my lap or crossed, I made sure to sit
so I would be interpreted as 'seeming relaxed'. I sat slightly
angled to the left so I would be more facing the door than away from
it when the doctor entered; had I been slightly turned away the
doctor might see my left shoulder first and taken offense that I was
giving her 'the cold shoulder'. Seating angle in place, it was
time to position my arms. Both along the chair arms might be
interpreted as too formal, confrontational, both in my lap
might be seen as too pensive, untrusting. Both at angles
might also seem to unlikely, as if I were putting on a pose,
which I was but I didn't need to telegraph it. So I put the
right arm straight along the arm rest with the left forearm balanced
on the arm rest, hand facing toward the lap, elbow resting on the
adjoining desk. Head held up straight, despite how fatigued I
might feel, so I would look bright and engaged when the doctor
came in. I placed a mild smile on my face as too much of a smile
might be deemed suspicious and none at all, despite how my health
might be making me feel, could be interpreted as 'not being open &
welcoming' of the doctor as she came in.
I thus would now sit as I waited for the doctor.
At least one major hurtle had disappeared from my life, my
stuttering. Apparently with the year's decline in my mental
prowess, my mind no longer remembered that I was a stutter when I
spoke, and therefore I didn't stutter. This was good as people would
too often misinterpret the mid-word changes in pitch and moments of
stammering & hesitations as signs of being deceitful
rather than understand it for what it was. But now, without that
monkey in my mouth, when I spoke to the doctor it would be with a
'normal', more intentionally composed, voice so my words would be
taken as 'candor'.
Has anyone else noticed that to be deemed natural & honest
I was to be posed & controlled...? I
had noted this contradiction to Jude as he had recommended these
steps to me, but he explained that to be deemed as being 'yourself'
in society, you had to seem like 'just everyone else'.
And so the doctor came in and it was time for the next steps.
She would ask how I was doing, I was
to say 'fine' regardless of how I was doing as saying anything else
when first seeing the doctor could be interpreted as being 'a
complainer' and get one tuned-out for the rest of the visit. It
was only after affirming that one was fine, that one could then talk
of problems without it being seen as only talking about one's
problems. Now I was to lean
forward as the doctor sat down into the chair next to me at the desk.
While such a position would be deemed nervous &
pensive as the doctor entered,
now with her sitting, it would be seen as being close &
trusting. Whereas if I remained
sitting back as I had been positioned as she first came in, my
continued position could be deemed as distant & aloof
from her. In this way, I hoped
to appear to the doctor as her equal, and thus trustworthy.
If my doctor, Betsy, was to make statements about my health, or steps
to take, I was to repeat them back to her as if memorizing them for
myself. In this way I would show that I cared about what she said
and make her feel validated and more open to things I might have to
say, afterward. If she was to arrive to the room frazzled and tired,
I was to show empathy by noting 'it had been a long day, already,
hadn't it?' Or if she expressed frustration that I was back, I was
to reflect, 'it must seem like a waste of your time to see me again'
without adding the judgmental phrase 'given how little progress we've
made on my health issues' at the end.
I had been warned against
defensiveness. A person
who had been falsely accused of things would be defensive as a
natural reaction, but that quick leap to one's own defense could be
misconstrued as a guilty person trying to 'sell their story', not
'clarify the truth'. So if the doctor said anything about me 'making
up' my health problems, or bringing up any of the other negative,
bogus rumors that had been spread about me through the doctor
grapevine, I was to simply ignore those comments and not break eye
contact because even that
brief turning away of the eyes could be interpreted as turning
away from the truth of it. 'Yet
facing the truth of it
didn't confirm it?' I would ask Jude before hand and he'd say 'No,
by not breaking eye contact, you are staring down the lie.'
Should I feel the need to respond to a judging statement made to me,
the trick was not to tell the other person the truth of the matter,
but to have them conclude it by making a rhetorical question of it.
''Why would I keep coming back to this clinic repeatedly? Do I have
other options without income or private health insurance?'' ''Why
would I come here 'because I was lonely' when I have friends I visit
with and talk to on a daily basis?'' ''Why would I keep coming here,
to the clinic, and bring up my health issues?''
And with all these thoroughly considered & prepared responses,
the hope was I would be deemed spontaneous
& casual and make this and future meetings with
doctors successful!
But if it was successful this time, that wasn't clear to me as she
just ended-up giving me my prescription to take to Denver. Nothing
more.
Maybe her professional smile had been a touch more friendly by the
end...?
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