I had a typically frustrating and hurried visit to my doctor this week. He's normally quite good, but a lack of empathy and understanding does sometimes come across. I wrote him a letter this morning, which many sufferers from invisible illnesses, such as ME/CFS, anxiety, depression or chronic pain may be able to relate to. I haven't decided whether to send it yet! Anyway, here it is...
Dear Dr -
Thank you for your help and support yesterday regarding my
concerns about my anxiety and diazepam intake, and also for reassuring me about
the other matter. I’m very grateful and in fact I was a lot less anxious
yesterday as well!
I appreciate you as a doctor and all the help you’ve given
me and the work you do. As you know, however, I sometimes feel frustrated by an
apparent lack of empathy and understanding of me and my chronic illness, and I
felt that way yesterday as well.
I readily admit to having difficulties sometimes in
managing my anxiety, and that my fear of anxiety feelings sometimes encourages me to take a diazepam tablet for the sake of immediate relief; that was why I
came to you yesterday for help and support. As you said, I am not addicted but the drug needs to be managed carefully. But that doesn’t mean that I don’t
try my hardest to manage my anxiety in every other way I know as well. You
suggested that I use distraction; well, I do that as
much as I possibly can! I mean, I have a book to write! I love music, watching
tennis, doing photography (landscapes and animals, mostly), socialising when I
feel up to it, having sex when I can, playing with my cat, breathing in the fresh air of the downs, paddling or even
swimming in the sea when I’m able to… I also practise meditation and relaxation
and breathing techniques that I learned from a charity supporting anxiety
sufferers (these same techniques also help my chronic pain, and were a vital
part of the pain management programme I attended this summer). I do everything
I can to manage my anxiety constructively and to try and get better. Yes, the
temptation to take diazepam is there and I may give into it a bit too often at
times. But I am the one who has to live with a condition which frightens me and
causes great distress at times. And I feel sometimes that you don’t always give
me enough credit for what I do to help myself which such a difficult condition.
I have several friends who manage worse! (although as a fellow sufferer I fully appreciate the difficulties they face and that their anxiety is more severe and disabling than mine).
Perhaps it is partly because, when I come to see you, I
tend to be worried about something and therefore come across as quite negative.
Maybe I seem passive and not always giving myself enough credit, so you don’t
see that positive side of me. I did however explain all this to you in an
earlier, longer letter which you kindly read.
I also feel a need to correct a possible misunderstanding
of yours regarding my ability to get out and exercise. I’m quoting you as
accurately as I can remember. When I said that it’s more difficult for me to
distract myself by going out and exercising because of my frequent need to
rest, I think you said: “There’s always a reason. In my case it’s because I’m
working. In your case it’s because you get a little bit tired.”
If I was a sufferer from ME I would probably feel insulted
by that! But Dr -, I do not suffer from fatigue and I am generally no
more tired than most people. I actually have a lot of energy and wish I could
do a lot more than I presently do – as indeed I always did in the past. I often
feel resentful of my frequent need to rest, which results not from chronic
fatigue but because I have a chronic pain condition! My resting is not due to
laziness or lack of motivation but because I am trying my best to follow a
pacing programme which I learned years ago from an expert in managing chronic
pain. The leaders of the pain management programme I attended taught the same
thing: little steps forward, a gradual increase in activity interspersed with
rests when needed to avoid incapacitating flare-ups. My chronic pain is only
severe during flare-ups, but it is disabling at present because there are
limits to what I can do. Those limitations are not due to being tired! I am not
tired, I am not fatigued, I have a neuropathic pain condition which is
notoriously difficult for anyone to manage.
It’s possible that I’m over-reacting to your comment,
because I hear so many similar comments elsewhere. If that is the case, then
I’m sorry. I don’t usually hear them from health professionals, however, and I
think that’s why I find it especially frustrating. Please excuse me if I am
over-reacting but I kept thinking about it yesterday and it really affected my
mood quite badly.
I am writing this, really, not just to get things off my
chest but because I believe it might be helpful to you in understanding my
condition and situation. I hope it does not bother or offend you that I’m doing
this. I do appreciate your work as a doctor and you have of course been very
helpful to me over the years.
I also understand that you must have a huge number of
patients, and that it may be difficult to remember what I have told you in the
past and therefore the details of how I manage my condition. I fully admit to
my difficulties sometimes with medication and that I need to be a bit tougher
with myself sometimes, as well as the fact that I have never yet really been
able to overcome my fear of pain and anxiety and therefore my tendency
sometimes to need a ‘quick fix’. I was badly traumatised by my experience with anxiety three years ago, and would do anything rather than go back to that. But because of that, I also do much that is positive and
constructive, especially as I have two difficult conditions to manage, both of
which tend to worsen or trigger the other.
Thank you for reading this, and I hope you understand and
accept my reasons for writing to you about this.
With best wishes
Michael Bentley
