| OCR Text |
Show 91 enough thought that there were actually differing opinions, evidently strongly held, concerning how I should be treated. I had no idea that sides were being taken and lines were being drawn. I only knew in whose presence it was safe enough to cry. I am feeling violated. I am seeing myself gather the bed sheets higher around my body and simultaneously understand the futility of this symbolic act. "Of course," she is saying, "I may never be able to convince them of that." She is explaining the potential psychodrama played out by medical people dealing with patients who do not go home quickly, who do not heal ever, whose treatments are always new and untested. She is telling me that sometimes doctors and nurses, out of the futile desperation of righteously wanting to fix it all and who realistically cannot always fix it all, sometimes blame the patient for this failure. In truth, she is saying, it would seem that no one is to blame. In fact, she is confiding, sometimes, in the midst of this frustration, patients get labeled. Actual red flags appear on charts. Pejorative terms like "borderline personality disorder" or "splits the staff" are scribbled in the notes. Faith sits down again next to my bed and stops speaking to let this sink in. I feel shot-gunned through the stomach, broadly injured and nauseous. |
