Hypocritical Oath

My sister, a woman with no mental health or chronic illness diagnoses, goes to the doctor because she is having heart palpitations.

Doctor, listens to her heart, performs an EKG and explains that because the palpations weren’t happening during the test she doesn’t know for sure what’s happening and refers her to a cardiologist.

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Me, a woman with mental health and chronic illness diagnoses, goes to the doctor because I’m having stabbing pain in my chest and heart palpitations.

Doctor, listens to my heart, says it sounds fine and proceeds to admonish me for not having been to their office in a few years.

I explain about my chronic illness and that I had been seeing a specialist in that area on a regular basis.

He tells me that at the time of my last appointment my blood tests had come back positive for mono so of course I would have been feeling really sick at that time and that it’s dangerous not to have seen a doctor in so many years.

I stated that again I had been practically living at the other doctor’s office and started to explain that I did not have mono at the time of the blood test. I had mono in tenth grade and every time I have a flare Epstein Barr becomes reactivated in my system and that I test positive for mono most of the time. But I was interrupted so I didn’t even bother, it’s not worth the time and effort.

Doc then tells me that I really should be on medication for my Bipolar Disorder.

I say that I don’t have Bipolar Disorder.

He says that it’s in my chart.

I tell him that I know but I’ve never been diagnosed with Bipolar and as near as I can tell someone at some point saw my diagnosis of BPD and misinterpreted it as Bipolar instead of Borderline Personality Disorder, that I had been diagnosed with BPD but no longer meet the requirements for that diagnosis.

He proceeds to tell me that I know myself better than him but he really thinks that I should consider medication because Bipolar Disorder tends to get worse with time.

I thanked him for his opinion and again stated that I do not have nor have I ever been diagnosed with Bipolar Disorder and left, so glad that heart issues were taken seriously.

(Side note – Many doctors have mentioned the Bipolar Diagnosis in my chart and when I explain what happened they usually just move onto something else. This was not removed until I was pregnant with my son. My OB brought it up, I explained and he removed it. Apparently, any of those doctors could have removed it. None of them did because none of them believed me.)