The System is Broken

[TheDamagedDiamond]

I am financially dependent on my uBPD mom who has abused me emotionally and physically since I was a child.  My family was poor growing up, likely due to my mentally ill single mom's choices in addition to other factors outside our control. I grew up poor and am now a financially dependent adult.

In the last two years since I rose out of my suicidal depression, I have gotten medicaid and started seeing doctors for my health. Its the first time in my life that I've been solely responsible for my healthcare needs since I was booted off my mom's insurance because of my age.

• Every doctor criticized my weight and one said my diabetes diagnosis was my fault for triggering it.

• Despite the fact that my blood tests were good, the lab technician spent five minutes lecturing me about my body mass index and told me to "exercise until I smell bad".

• My primary care physician said that the man who raped me probably didn't believe me when I said "No" because I was smiling.

• I joined a writer's group. Everyone in the group was white and consistently made casually racist/classist remarks from the moment I walked in the door and wanted me to read stories they had written that were inherently racist (stories written from the perspective of white slavers and colonizers) or sexist.

• The nurse who took my vitals told me that "everyone gets spanking for being bad as kids" and dismissed when I said my mom had abused me as a child while doing my intake questionnaire as a new patient.

• The counselor I was seeing answered (non-emergency) phone calls during our sessions; her answer to my uBPD mom's lifetime abuse and the rape last year I experienced at the hands of a man she introduced me to was for me to get a job; she also called my writing "a hobby" (I am an independent author).

• The dentist I went to caused me unnecessary pain and when I told him he was hurting me, he insisted I hold still until he was finished.

• The podiatrist I went to did not examine my feet but clipped my toenails and told me he wanted me to "be healthier"; when I asked him what he meant by that he said, "You wouldn't be diabetic if you lost weight".

• My work program case worker I was seeing never followed through on any agreements to help me find work knowing that the city I lived in with my mom has little to no job prospects especially for someone who doesn't have references or a recent work history. I was let go from the program without receiving any assistance after I got no contact from new case manager when the old went to a different job in the county. I talked to the program manager about it and she said she would see what she could do. I haven't heard from the work program since. Its been three months or more since then and, yes, I called more than once and I did leave a message.

• I have been trying to rebuild my resume with recent relevant volunteer experiences but I have to HUNT DOWN volunteer coordinators.

Seek help? Recovery? Are you kidding? I'M TRYING! I'm doing the best I can.

I don't think I'm being overly negative or catastrophizing when I say the system is broken.

[Three Roses]

Hello and welcome to the forum, Diamond. I'm certainly sorry to hear how much pain you've gone through, and continue to go through.

OOTS has been an immense help to me. My diagnosis of CPTSD answered so many questions, and then left me with different questions; this forum has certainly helped shed light on this whole subject.

Thanks for joining!

[radical]

I agree with you,  the system is badly broken.

Abuse often leads the abused to have less status and resources, (financial, social, educational, personal, interpersonal, health etc....) Having less resources often leads to more abuse, more abuse leads to less resources, etc. etc.

I know a big difference between private and public healthcare, for example, is being treated with basic respect, as a human being with dignity.  There are so many other examples, they are everywhere.  Meantime your self-esteem and mental health snow-dives, which makes it so much harder to reach out.  With the vicious spirals some are left with almost no resources left.

And people wonder why we tolerate abuse.  Well, sometimes that is all that is on offer, and when abuse must be endured to just survive.....!!!!!!

Victim-blaming, racism, sexism, classism, heterosexism, prejudices about people who don't have jobs, who experience poverty, who have mental illnesses, who look different, who are isolated etc. etc.  At every stop we are more exposed to and more vulnerable to abuse, more damaged by the cumulative effects.  * some of us don't smile enough either.  It all goes round and round and round.

But  It's not your fault, and good on you for keeping on trying.  Few people can possibly understand just how hard that can be.

[TheDamagedDiamond]

I agree with you,  the system is badly broken.

Abuse often leads the abused to have less status and resources, (financial, social, educational, personal, interpersonal, health etc....) Having less resources often leads to more abuse, more abuse leads to less resources, etc. etc.

I know a big difference between private and public healthcare, for example, is being treated with basic respect, as a human being with dignity.  There are so many other examples, they are everywhere.  Meantime your self-esteem and mental health snow-dives, which makes it so much harder to reach out.  With the vicious spirals some are left with almost no resources left.

And people wonder why we tolerate abuse.  Well, sometimes that is all that is on offer, and when abuse must be endured to just survive.....!!!!!!

Victim-blaming, racism, sexism, classism, heterosexism, prejudices about people who don't have jobs, who experience poverty, who have mental illnesses, who look different, who are isolated etc. etc.  At every stop we are more exposed to and more vulnerable to abuse, more damaged by the cumulative effects.  * some of us don't smile enough either.  It all goes round and round and round.

But  It's not your fault, and good on you for keeping on trying.  Few people can possibly understand just how hard that can be.

It really does seem like a hole that just gets deeper and deeper, darker and darker with blocks and turns around every bend. Actually, thinking of it as a deep, dark hole makes me think of being buried alive and suffocating so I'm going to stop. I experience every single one of those things.

Part of me really just wants to give up, its all so tiring to keep exposing myself. How can heal or recover when the people who are supposed to help me keep making more wounds? My uBPD mom thinks I'm the crazy one and that I'm the liar (which hurts because she is my mother and I love her and she's the only family member I have left) and I'm constantly being plastered in people's labels and assumptions.

But thank you for this affirmation. Its hard but I can't see any other way than to die, stay where I am, or keep inching forward.

[radical]

It's a noble and honest path.  I don't know where it leads.
There are good people everywhere and we just have to keep our hearts open I think.

It can be too hard for good people to believe us, sometimes.  They are trying to hold their own faith together and sometimes that depends on blocking out the darkness in the world.  It's about what they need to believe.  Ironically it's easier to be able to hear us if we've come through to the other side.  If there is a happy ending, it becomes bearable for them.

I'm really sorry you are hurting, that others are not giving you the respect and kindness and caring you deserve.
I believe you.  Maybe the world needs us to keep inching forward.

[meursault]

I know how you feel about the rotten system, and just know it's them, not you.  You're doing awesome to keep inching forward.  I was at it, on and off, for almost twenty years before I found someone whom I could say: "That's what I need!"  Unfortunately, it was only a brief program, and took another six years before I found my current T.  There doesn't seem to be much choice but to try your best to advocate for yourself as much as possible, and realize the system IS insane, and IS broken.  You're not alone with this!!!

Meursault

[papillon]

Meursault is so right... try not to doubt yourself  when you experience the insanity of "the system".

As much as you can, in whatever form you need to, try to advocate for yourself when you're treated this way. Easier said than done, I know.

[TheDamagedDiamond]

It's a noble and honest path.  I don't know where it leads.
There are good people everywhere and we just have to keep our hearts open I think.

It can be too hard for good people to believe us, sometimes.  They are trying to hold their own faith together and sometimes that depends on blocking out the darkness in the world.  It's about what they need to believe.  Ironically it's easier to be able to hear us if we've come through to the other side.  If there is a happy ending, it becomes bearable for them.

That's really depressing. Even though I know its true. Honestly, I can't sympathize with "good people" who ignore the horror in other people's lives unless it comes with a happy ending.

I don't want to keep going through this. Even to get help or get assessed for cPTSD, I have to continue exposing myself to the very system that keeps wounding and scarring me. Or stay stuck in the same place with no way out and continued to be damaged by a toxic environment. I don't think I'll be okay on the other side of whatever happens. I'm at the point where its all too much.

[Dee]

First, I didn't read all of the thread, but much of it.  The system is damaged, no doubt.  However, when you find that one person, the one who gets it, it makes all the difference in the world.  For the first time I am starting to reclaim my life.  Without help I was revictimized.  I also got stuck in serious unhealthy coping mechanisms.

Sometimes it is hard for me to find the progress.  Yet I can honestly say that for the first time I am not actively a victim.  I suppose if nothing else that is something.  I am also not in danger of dying from anorexia anymore.  Yes the system was broken, but without navigating it I could seriously be dead instead of replying right not. 

[meursault]

I don't know where you live, or what accreditation professionals have available there, but I've found the people who have been helpful are trained as MFTs.  That's now my baseline of training for whom I'd be willing to see.  They are the only professionals I've found who believe me, who don't just look at me like I'm a pathology, who actively listen and respect what I'm feeling (other than psych nurses in inpatient settings).  I'm not just a problem to be corrected, and they are there more to encourage my own wisdom and understanding, not to foist theirs on me.  Sort of the only ones who honour and accept my pain as dignified, true, and worthy of respect.

I had seen a couple who weren't the right fit or were not really very good, but even they were better than the professionals who look at things through the lens of a medical model.

Help is out there, and everyone needs something a little bit different, but maybe this might point you in a direction which fits you beter than what you've found.  I think different treatment methods are secondary, and any competent therapist should be able to adjust their treatment to what works for you.  Their perspective behind it is what I've found important.  I've found the following are important there:  family systems based, trauma-focused, attachment-focused.

I've had to go the private route to find it, but it's helping.  I just thought I'd let you know what helps me, maybe it would be a better fit for you too.  Hard to find when you are at he whims of a medical or insurance bureaucracy, and it's largely the luck of the draw, so you have to keep trying until you luck into it, but I thought I'd mention this stuff in case it helps.

Like Dee says, that one person can make it all worth it (I feel like I've just started on that road).

Meursault