Thursday, September 25, 2014

Entry 65: How Did It Happen?

Feb. 11. 2014

put myself in that room: The room where I ended up experiencing one of those worst systemic violence based attacks that I think has happened to any autistic person in modern times. Honestly, that’s how I feel. Even though I was wary, I ended up making the gutsy move of posting the report on divergent voices, the blog in which I created for others, for these purposes. I omitted names, and in this my dad (a lawyer) said it was safe. I know its garbage, so I have nothing to hide of be ashamed of. I wanted to make it known, just how awful someone like me can get misunderstood and treated in the system, when they willfully try to “stick up” for themselves. It the principal of this, whether this was about me, whether it happened to someone else. I mean that.

I will be dealing with it soon, but not in court. I will go back to the beurocracy I think, and make an application to have to removed, because it isn’t true, and it’s not okay. I may contact my local MLA, when I’m ready, which will be hopefully in the fall. I feel that they would agree with me, based on all my evidence. I would hope that Canadian officials would support me in this. How did this even happen? This is he gist of how:

So yeah, I put myself in that room. I agreed to it, in naivete, when it was suggested that I "speak with her (omitting name), because maybe it'd be helpful"... but it felt like a setup, and was only "helpful" at nearly breaking my newly regaining confidence, still fragile and healing, battle-scarred soul apart...all over again. There was already a preconceived notion when I walked in that room.  That’s how it felt. An ignorant impression of me had been already shared with this psychiatrist woman. Yep, that's how it felt deeply, and it gave me this fight or flight defensive whence I felt the need to explain myself. This was all used against me.

The "assessment" didn't feel like a typical assessment at all. It was weird. I was in a vulnerable state. I describe it all in my book. I can't do it again now; it's too traumatizing to think about. Basically, it felt like an interrogation almost. I reacted too. I said some things that were badly used against me, whence they were misinterpreted and twisted around. This was especially because I stood up for myself when she attacked my autism diagnosis.

I lost my cool when she looked at me with callous eyes, and flippantly uttered “so, what makes you think you have ‘Asperger’s disorder, dear.” I then heatedly informed her that she clearly seemed to not know much about high functioning autism presentation in females. I got punished for that, who had the mere bow and arrow, and who had the machine gun.

I told her women with AS present differently, they can be very verbal; she wasn't listening. I was the stupid patient, how dare I, right? How dare I try to educate her? So I then said I told her I didn't want to discuss it anymore. I asked her to stop, as well as to stop asking me all about my past, and hence opening up old wounds and memories I wasn't there to elucidate about.

"Elucidate", actually, that's a word she used in her attack on me. She said, "Most of the time was spent 'elucidating' her (apparent) multiple medical conditions.” Well yes, that's because I didn't want to "elucidate" on what I wasn't in there for, and did not desire to do.  In addition, she asked me to describe the nature of my conditions. I described them to her, from my perception, in a way she was simply too ignorant to understand…particularly whilst holding preconceived notions.

I didn’t want to be on there for a “reassessment” which include opening up all my trauma, and I told her so, as I tried to explain what the true nature of my most current challenges are. She looked really pissed off. I guess she was angry she didn't get to do her "fun Thursday Freudian analysis" whence she is able to claim herself as a God upon. I almost felt a snake hiss throughout my body, and inside I shuddered. I felt Goosebumps while trapped in the room. Again, this is why I acted defensively.

These ignorant people are so quick to pathologize...sometimes it's just beastly. No compassion, no thinking outside the box with an open mind, no compassion at all. I am not a perfect person. I've had my challenges, some of which I am even ashamed. I struggled with addiction. I medicated what I then didn’t understand. I didn’t know how else to cope. It was not to illegal things, in my case. It was things that were pain and anxiety killers, that were legal too, as well as commonly accepted in society.

This of course was why it was so easy to access and lie to myself that I was just doing what everyone else does anyway. In addition, I used diet, exercise and food. It’s personal though, and I don’t want to elaborate too much.

I never thought I'd find myself defending such a thing though, and yet she said I lied about that too!  This part is laughable because everyone whose known me personally, and seen what I've gone through, particularly my husband, saw me in the midst of these battles. They are disgusted and outraged that she would suggest I lied about them.

I've been through a lot. I've made mistakes in my past, before I understood what was going on for me, let alone was able to process any childhood trauma. I tried to navigate through life, whilst hardship, half blinded in many ways, by my unknowing autism spectrum condition. I was, in addition, traumatized by my childhood and adolescent events.

I was unable to process much of what were both inside, and coming at me so rapidly. I felt like I was perpetually drowning; I grappled and dog paddled for dear life. I was internally terrified, running myself dry, and medicated on the occasions that I just couldn't take it anymore, in addition to the challenged with autism that I didn’t understand. It was a lot, and I felt like if I lost it, I would (like Rudy Simone said in “Aspergirls”) “wind up in a place I didn’t belong.” The thought of this terrified me, so I did a lot of blocking.

I was in desperate need to be alleviated of many things; anxiety, overload, social and identity confusion, emotional pain, lack of ability to adjust to change, insomnia, and the list went on. When I'd reach the point where I thought I might snap and end up somehow I consider to be almost scarier than death itself (like a mental institution) I ended up reaching a point where coping was backfiring on me, and that's when I discovered my autism.

So, in lieu of this, how dare this woman knock someone who has worked so hard to recover and reclaim life, and is trying to be preventative in making sure that doesn’t regress. It's like Dorothy on The Yellow Brick Road coming across a road bump, crying over it, and then those cries stirring up a cruel attack from an black hearted evil witch, instead of a scarecrow or tin man helping her dry her tears and encouraging her to walk on. Strange analogy, I know. I couldn’t help myself I guess.

Anyone can imagine why I wouldn't want my rightful autism spectrum diagnosis to be questioned and attacked, after going through all of this. I wasn’t willing to hear that crap one more time, I'd had enough. I went in there, whence being told it would be a "good idea" to talk about how I was having difficulty adjusting to my complex health challenges, how I was perhaps over obsessing because I didn't feel supported by my GP, and how this was all causing me more pain and grief in which I wasn’t properly managing.

All I wanted was some help for that specific issue, not to be put through another entire diagnostic assessment that I did not need.  I was trying to say "excuse me, I already have a diagnosis I accept and identify with, and this is how I'm being affected as somebody with that diagnosis, as well as perhaps it's comorbid features; so can you help me and/or write something to my doctor indicating I need more support?" Not only did that not happen, but also the worst possible thing did...the opposite.

There’s one more thing. I said something to this woman that got her angry. The truth of the worst thing I said to that woman, the thing I believe "got me licked” I have not before uttered this. I hadn’t considered the magnitude of its importance:

So, there I was in that "interrogation" room. I could sense what she was doing, and again I was a cornered rat. I felt like a cornered rat before a hissing python wearing a superficial demeanor that I could see through. In the moment, I spat out what I did; it was because I saw the python before me. So then, in lieu of the building tension, I lost it completely. Only for a moment…. I just couldn't bite my tongue! I was too short, under the circumstances. It happened so quickly, but all I remember is flippantly spitting something out from my lips. It went something like this:

"Look, it's really different in females, not enough is known! I worked really hard to finally get my Asperger’s' diagnosis, and I did not come in here for you to go and take it away from me"

So that's it folks. I feel that could very well be why she did what she did. She perverted all the reasons why I said what I said (and if you've been through similar. you know exactly what I mean) into a "she didn't like being called on her facticous-ness." Well, all I have to say, in order to descriptively deem this, are a couple things. One is, people who are snaky, personality-disordered individuals themselves project that onto others and call the kettle black, and two: terribly ugly structural violence.

No, I was not there to defend my diagnosis, I was there to ask for help for my chronic pain and health challenges, whatever they are; "fibromyalgia syndrome" as it stands. So, I got frustrated when instead of being met with compassion, I found myself being interrogated. I reacted. I was tired; I wanted to go home by that point. I realized that maybe where I was just wasn't the right place for me, though I had honestly, truly and naively thought it was initially.

I was over loaded, I was tired of putting on social performances because at that time I was still in a phase of "feeling obligated" to "perform", and I did not yet understand another way to "be" with people. I still don't, but at least I'm in touch with how I can modulate this and understand my limits better. Even this was pathologized in her report, because... how dare I. Right? How dare I attempt to remind her that she wasn't being helpful, and try to describe how it is that I do need help.

It's truly unbelievable, how she takes my autism and makes it look like some horrendous and monstrous pathology.  Well, but it is believable considering her RateMyMD reviews, though.  This woman has done this to others. Regardless, to look at it like this is to look at it from a horribly sick angle infiltrated with cruel and destructive cynicism.

Psychiatrists who behave this violently really should not practice, because people get badly hurt.  This is not okay. Yes, people get so badly hurt like this when they are already vulnerable and truly in need of some real help.... but get proverbial smack upside the head, instead. I was trying to defend myself from getting hurt ever again, but how dare I.

Since I was not entitled to say "I have taken enough abuse from this system, I am not here to get messed with again, I just want some help for this particular issue" I got punished. I “got gunged” as my dad put it (knifed in the back.) I got punished for trying to stand up for myself...and some. Frankly, it seems rather sadistic.

The interview was almost set up in a way where I could be prompted to spit out the kind of words that could be used against me. This is so easy to do, to an aspie, who says things in direct, literal context when prompted with a certain kind of questioning especially. How many aspies before me have been falsely accused and framed using this tactic? I bet many.

That's how the questioning was literally set up. Furthermore this woman is actually known for doing this to people. She has done this before; I have read it on the RateMyMD website under her reviews, which were very poor, despite her surrounding staff thinking the world of her. Once she closes that door, the fangs come out, particularly if you challenge her.

How can society give and perpetuate these kinds of people the power that it does? Well, I know why, but this must change one day. The hierarchal-structured healthcare and "helping profession" systems need to at least start being regulated by much higher quality standards for human ethics. They should not be allowed to enact this kind of severe structural violence; and they should be called on it if they do. Otherwise, it's not only abusive, but highly corrupt.

Yes, why would the system let such a person work and act as "help" among people whom are already so vulnerable and challenged as it is? Maybe it’s because she can easily manipulate her way into making any of her actions acceptable, simply because she holds a "doctor" title? Again, that is based in a worship of hierarchy so severe that it is completely illogical, and therefore (once again) absurd. Yes, that's how much power people give to hierarchy.

People and systems allow these "professionals", in fact gives them a license, to be as narcissistic and insidiously cruel as they want to be. This is just wrong, yet it's everywhere. It needs to stop. It starts with talking about it, and people sharing experiences. This is why I've created the communal blog in the first place.

As a side note, I do know that if you stroke this woman's' ego and let her be a God, she will often treat you so well, and flatter you so much, that you'll think she's super wonderful. She's not the only doctor like this, not in the least. Many are, it's like being in the movie Patch Adams. Most of her staff and coworkers in that entity think she's great. She waltzes in like some sort of idyllic Joan Crawford, dressed professionally crisp, calling everyone "dear" in a manipulatively warm voice. Yet I saw the snake in her eyes, and I felt like a cornered rat in that room.

Even when she tried to compliment me on my purple scarf, by uttering "you look lovely in purple, dear" I felt a sting from her energy. I felt violated, because her energy did not match her words. So the cornered rat reacted, when she could instinctively feel an attack.  I’m very sensitive to underlying currents. Then, the rat was met with a cold-blooded python, which engulfed and smothered her attempt to defend herself, via the razor sharp pen. There are many snakes working in this field, doing these kinds of things to people.

One day, I would like to see her held accountable somehow; this is warranted justice.

I know I sound tough, but I am hurting. This sickens me. My frozen tears are turned inward most of the time, so I can “keep on.” Truly though, this thing has been doing me damage inside. It’ll take a whole lifetime to work through. 

So, I have been trying hard to rise above, though I’ve been burned for sure. I now don't freely talk about all of my symptoms, anymore.  I have no trust. Not after how it was “described” that I described them. She lists as she "heard" them, and in addition written back out in a twisted way that is supposed to incriminate me.

However, it doesn't necessarily work with those who are smart, because the description she ridicules into pathology is pretty well a description of classic fibromyalgia syndrome and perhaps other nonspecific autoimmune challenges to boot. It's not really all that "sensational" although she says, "she went on, 'elucidating' (there's that word again) about her multiple medical conditions"...Oh please!

She writes I say I have IBS "my whole life." Yes, autistic people have gut issues since early childhood, and even as babies (colic.) How does this make me seem "factitious", and more importantly, why the hell would I want to "fake" the embarrassing symptoms of my IBS? FMS itself is a systemic condition that affected multiple areas! How is this "factitious?" It's not.

All I can do is keep believing in myself and in Spirit. I basically have to detach a lot. It's the only protectant I have. Autistic people, and those with trauma, are good at doing this because we actually can get overloads of emotions and feelings about things, and they can be very intense. So intense it can make us sick, so we develop this "thing" where we can cut off, when there is no choice.
However, this tactic has a lot of negative, backfiring effects. It disallows from processing trauma, it's almost like the brain is in "freeze" mode, which is part of a trauma reaction. Later can come the blocking and flooding: the PTSD. This thing had unfortunately re-triggered much of the PTSD I was working so hard to overcome, in a really brutal way. It's going to take me a lot of rehabilitation to recover from this.

So, I've been trying to keep level and move forward, regardless. I did have a bad meltdown after learning what I did in that endocrinology appointment. I was devastated; I was knocked down again. I was being told that surely the report couldn't be affecting me that much, but then, my worst nightmare was again confirmed. One can imagine how this could make me feel. I have to get up and move forward. I have to prove my case eventually. It's not just for me; it's on behalf of all that get misunderstood like this...especially autistic people. The reason why I'm sharing about this is because of awareness, not attention as could be assumed. That is the truth, and there is now nothing more to say.

Scarlit-Rose Ashcraft
aka "Rosie"









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