YOUR DOCTOR KNOWS BEST!!!!
I wish I had had good experiences such as those you've obviously had.
Unfortunately, my experience is that a good doctor is hard to find. I don't mean a fantastic, empathetic, clued-up, pragmatic, doctor. I mean just a good, competent, doctor who treats patients as individuals, and tries to understand a bit about the person he/she is seeing.
I understand that in a lot of clinics and hospitals the doctors are overworked, and it must be a damn stressful job with an enormous amount of pressure and responsibility. I mean, I can only imagine what it's like. I'm not a doctor.
But from the other side, being a patient or being a carer for someone seriously ill, I've had some terrible experiences with doctors giving dangerously misinformed advice, being abrupt and even rude to patients. This last part I found really upsetting to watch when my father was dying from liver disease. He was literally breaking down, mentally and physically, was confused and scared, and at times he was difficult to handle - because he didn't know where he was, what has happening, etc.
I understand that doctor's and hospital staff have to deal with this every single day, and that has to be hellishly stressful. However, seeing doctors treat my father like a waste of space and time and being pretty direct about their feelings... and social workers who had been supporting my mother through it, suddenly dropping their professionalism and just talking about a sick man like he was a piece of trash who had brought his own demise upon himself through alcohol abuse.
Well.... I guess I can see both sides but I won't ever forget those people and their words, or my mother's tears when the social worker told her to stop being 'unrealistic' and hoping for recovery. "Just face it. He's not leaving the hospital. He's got maybe two days, who knows?"
I've self-medicated for years - and particularly in the last few years I've gone all out - and I know I'm not going to make it to anywhere near my father's 53 years of age (I'm 34 now). But after going through that experience, I'd rather do my own thing. I'd rather die at home, OD, whatever, than go through that system where people can be treated as a number.
Doctor's don't always know best. There are a precious few out there, for sure. But I think people have to be responsible for themselves and try to understand their own bodies and health as much as they can.
![:\](https://bluelight.org/xf/BL_Images/Orig_Emoji/wrygrin.gif "wry grin :\")
