And I am starting to think they never will.

Went to see yet another doctor, Doctor Merhani, today. He’s a rheumatologist. I found out about the appointment yesterday afternoon.

Apparently, Doctor Chao, my GP, referred me to a rheumatologist last freaking November, and yet I only got this appointment in the end of May because someone had canceled at the last minute.

Jesus flying Christ. Healthcare has some fuckin’ problems all right.

Luckily, it was a simple and non-invasive visit. Having only a vague notion of what a rheumatologist^[1] is, and having been told that the visit would take one and a half hours, I was a little worried that I was in for some sort of very weird and/or painful and/or humiliating tests and/or procedures.

I guess the mildly weird stuff Doctor Madhani put me through, plus having to get my eyeball lasered by a very weird man, has me a little on edge.

But no, it was just me answering questions plus those by now super familiar “don’t let me push your leg down” type muscle strength exercises.

I was mostly seen by a resident, Doctor Xu, as it turns out. Doctor Merhani only showed up at the end basically to quiz his resident.

That’s kind of a weird name for a junior doctor to be, isn’t it?

“Is she a doctor yet?”
“No, but she lives here. ”

Their conclusions were predictably inconclusive. Nobody knows what the fuck is wrong with me. I remain a medical mystery.

Now fasten your seatbelts and roll up your windows because we’re going to Crazytown.

Because I can’t help but feel like this is all my fault. As if this is the ultimate doom-level expression of my inability to give people the responses they expect and now it’s going to put me in a fucking wheelchair some day.

With that comes the idea that if I could just explain things to the medical professionals the right way, a light would go on in their heads and they would know exactly what is wrong with me and be able to cure it overnight.

That is pure madness, obviously. At the very least it sounds crazy. In fact it sounds like typical “I’d rather think I was the worst thing ever than face the fact that the world is cruel and arbitrary and I have been the victim of massive injustice” thinking that all mistreated children, whether they are grown up now or not, fall prey too.

It might not be better to think you are heinous and it’s certainly not accurate to do so, but it’s one hell of a lot easier.

Because say I do fully forgive myself and place all the blame on the people who did (or didn’t do) those things to me…. then what?

I go on a five province killing spree?

I mean, I’m 51 now. Whoever did whatever to me is probably long dead or too fucking old to even remember me any more.

I could launch tirades against the remaining members of my immediate family, but I am not sure what that would accomplish.

And I can no longer blame it all on them, either. Sure, they should have paid more attention to me, but I was very shy and furtive and self-minimizing, so I did not make it easy. Most often I just wanted to scurry back into my hole.

And I often wasn’t really emotionally present anyhow.

So sure. Yup. A lot of what I needed in my childhood just was not there. Love, support, hope, guidance, discipline, expectations. I had none of that.

Nobody gave a shit what happened to me. I was never anyone’s priority. Everybody was too busy with their own lives to care about that kid – what’s his name? Who cares – who is around here for some reason.

I don’t care what happens to him as long as he doesn’t expect a share of my stuff!

But what the fuck am I supposed to do about it now?

More after the break.

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Change and grow

Optional viewing, included as a reference :

The above talks about how important it is to have a growth oriented mindset instead of having a fixed sense of self.

And that’s something I have talked about in this space before.

The dots that I had not quite connected on my own yet were that a growth oriented person knows that by challenging themselves and taking on difficult tasks, they can make their abilities grow as they themselves grow stronger and more resilient.

This is far healthier than being a prolapsed gifted kid like me who is still looking to recapture his glory days when everything came easy to me (in school) and I got praise for doing what, for me, were super basic things.

That’s the problem with never having been challenged by school. I never learned to overcome challenges because I never faced any. Everything was absurdly easy.

To the point of making me feel insulted, but luckily I was never dumb enough to admit that out loud to anyone.

Ergo, the idea of expanding my capacities never came up. I already had way, way more capacity than needed. Why would I need more?

But from the point of view of a 51 year old loser, I can finally see that what I needed was to exercise and strengthen my wherewithal and will and nerve and grit.

I needed to stop being such a pussy, basically. Not to meet some arbitrary standard of manliness but because pussies lead sad, pathetic lives.

Man up and be happier, son. Something your gym teacher (or drill Seargent or angry father etc.) is not articulate enough to actually be able to tell you.

The most important lesson so far from the vid is that it is possible to go from the fixed mindset to the growth mindset and the first step is to simply admit to yourself that it is possible to be better. Than you are not a finished product. You CAN improve.

And I think I am ready for that lesson. I am ready to reach out and grab greater inner fortitude and capacity in whatever form I can find it and make myself a tougher, stronger, more resilient, more capable person instead of the spineless vacillating puff pastry of a man that I have been,

Yes, I have always had amazing abilities.

But now I need to get the ones that let me use the rest.

I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.