Coaching Myself

I regularly get my physical pain blamed on mental illness by care providers.

I’ve been denied care I didn’t even ask for because of this.

My very first appointment with this doc I was setting expectations, asking for a better quality of life, less migraines. He interrupts me to tell me he doesn’t want to give me an MRI because with my history of anxiety I wouldn’t deal well with the results.

It was so upsetting I froze. I didn’t know what to say. I tried to explain that my anxiety is under control. I even had my therapist at the time contact him to tell him how things were going for me. But the damage was done. He made a judgement.

My family has a history of a rare type of brain aneurysm. I have migraines more than half the month and it took me months to screw up the courage advocate for an MRI. Something he should have ordered on our first appointment because of my family history. I walked into the appointment prepared to combat him (verbally). I coached myself on my speech for more than a month.

I assumed I would have to ask for documentation of denial of care. Thankfully he did order it. After a 15 minute lecture about how they might find something that would upset me, but it would probably be benign.