"Have children and then the doctors might treat your painful condition properly."

I went through about 15 years of bullshit from late teens to early 30s when my endometriosis was misdiagnosed as depression/bipolar disorder. I had no insurance and got shuffled into the "Community Mental Health" system, which consisted of weekly therapy augmented by appointments with a "prescriber" every 2 months who saw me for 5 minutes then gave me a new head med to try. I knew it was related to my lady parts and saw several gynecologists but they took one look at my insurance status and mental health history and blew me off. At most I was offered birth control pills. I spent 2 separate weeks at 2 different inpatient facilities. At one I was given an unnecessary, UNREQUESTED pelvic exam in a room right off the nurses station with the fucking door cracked, because a med student needed practice. How's that for irony? (For the record, endometriosis isn't something that can be detected with a pelvic exam). I started self medicating because their shit certainly wasn't working. I had psychotic PMS but my periods were all over the place so I never knew when to expect the craziness. My therapist finally got tough and told me she wouldn't see me anymore unless I quit using street drugs. I told her to go fuck herself and walked away from CMH for good. I finally managed to get insurance a year or so later, saw an OB/GYN who specialized in menstrual issues who immediately scheduled a pelvic ultrasound, and 2 weeks later we found out I was just loaded with endometriosis. All the Prozac and birth control in the world wouldn't have helped me. I had 2 laparoscopic surgeries to remove it, but it kept coming back so finally, at the age of 31, my doctor granted me the hysterectomy I'd been begging for for 3 years. Im pretty goddamned bitter. My 20s were hell on earth because I was poor and uninsured and female and had "females troubles", which in the early 90's still weren't taken seriously by the medical community.

Apologies for the rant. Apparently Ive still got some underlying resentment...

/r/childfree Thread