Origin Stories

FND

TW: sh, suicide, chronic illness

FND

Hate to tell you this, Doctor, but you got it wrong somehow. I'm gonna have to ask you to take another look at that scan. Maybe your files are mixed up; double check that it's mine.

I read your reports. They use words like deteriorated and hyperarousal. I've heard those words before, but not about me. I've heard them in classrooms where they didn't apply to anybody. They were facts. They had no pulse. Is that what you think of me? Am I, to you, a set of facts? Do I have no pulse?

Doc, you got something wrong, okay? My heart is beating, my lungs are filling– Take another look. That's not my brain you're holding.

***

Doctor, I shouldn't be the one having to break the news to you that this isn't getting better anytime soon. You're the one handing me all these sheets of results.

Your tests tell me my mom isn't real and my father is dead and my brother isn't going to make it. Your tests tell me I'm beyond saving but that this will be over by January. Your tests are inconclusive and then say that I'm fine and then say that there is something very very wrong with me. Your tests are confusing me, Doc, but they're confusing you even more.

There is something wrong. I used to be able to put my socks on. It's not getting better. I've used the wheelchair more just this week than I did in all of last month. My dad is trying his best, and my mom needs help, and my brother started smiling again just a few weeks ago.

Screw your tests, okay?

***

Doc, please tell me there's something else we can try.

They can draw my blood again. I'll go back to that neurologist. I'll try exercising. I'll drink more water.

Please, just tell me there's something we can do.

***

Hey, Doctor. I think maybe it's time to pull my appointments out of your schedule.

I just... I don't know. I don't really think there's any point in keeping this up, you know? I don't feel any different. Well, I guess I feel worse, but I'm not about to tell you that.

Yeah, Doc, I think we should just quit this routine. I'll go back to cutting and crying and maybe I'll just kill myself. It's not worth all this work... for me or for you.

***

Doctor, my brother made me come here, okay?

I'm not interested in talking to you about my feelings or my sleep habits or my caffeine intake. Just run your fucking tests so I can go home. I'll be nice and polite. And I'll keep my mouth shut. But hurry up. I've got an unmade bed waiting for me at home. I just want to go back there and play dead for the rest of the day.

Are you kidding me? No, I'm not going to some inpatient unit. That's fucking ridiculous.

***

I'm scared, Doc. I'm really scared.

Can you tell me that lie again? You know, the one you told me six months ago. You said it a few different ways:

When you gave me the paperwork to get a handicap parking placard, you said, "You won't need the permanent one. This is just for a temporary."

When you put me back on sertraline for the third time, you said, "Four to six weeks."

When you referred me to the specialist, you said, "By January, you might even be better."

I kinda hate you for that, but I still want to hear you say it again. Tell me it's gonna get better. Tell me I have reason for hope. Tell me I can work again, go back to school again, learn to drive, take the stairs. Tell me I don't need a service dog.

I'll cry, but a little part of me will try to believe you. You're my doctor, after all. You must know something I don't.

***

I don't need to go to therapy anymore, Doctor. Can you take me off the list of people at risk for suicide, please?

She doesn't get me, that specialist. She thinks I'm traumatized. She thinks I'm gonna kill myself. But I've only come close a couple of times, and look at me. I'm still here. I write notes sometimes, but I don't finish them. I hold my all my pills at once sometimes, but I always take the right dose.

Doc, if you want to help me, find me a job I can do. No, not community service. Community service won't pay my student debt. I'm supposed to make the first payment in February.

***

I get it now, Doctor. You're only human.

I'll call you by your first name, if that's alright? Seems like maybe we've been in this together all along. Only, like Bon Iver says, you're holding all the tickets and I'm holding all the fines. Or maybe I'm holding all of it.

Maybe it'll get better, maybe it won't. But there are a lot of harsh realities being crammed down my throat at the moment, and I would appreciate it if a few of these empty promises would bear some fruit too.

What? 

Oh. 

Yeah, I still think about suicide. But I haven't decided yet if I'm going to do it or not. Ask me again next week, okay?