Diagnosis: Fat and Anxious

September 02, 2023

Every Disease Any% Speedrun

Content warning for: descriptions of anxiety and panic, medical environments and symptoms, (possible) medical malpractice

Over the past two-ish months I've been dealing with some "apparently" minor health issues.

One of them was "not harmful in the current state but it can progress and get bad if left unnatended", and I've had the thankfully very minor surgery to take care of it yesterday and am currently recovering. The other one... The doctor didn't know what it was, kinda. He had an idea, but it wasn't "bad" enough for him to start any specific treatment aside from giving me 2 antibiotics that fucked up my digestive system.

Said doctor was pretty good, though. He actually examined the affected area which hasn't been a guarantee in past doctor visits I've had. But this isn't really a post about good doctors I've met, as you might be able to guess by the title of this post.

The Timeline

It started about two or three years ago during the pandemic in a particularly stressful college semester. I was laying in bed late at night, scrolling my phone since I couldn't sleep, when I felt something snap or crackle in my torso and my vision began to darken. I was able to jolt awake with no other symptoms, but that sure did startle me! After whining for a whole night and day with my parents, they finally agreed to take me to a hospital.

Here's a brief summary of the events that followed throughout the rest of the year:

• The hospital took my heartbeat and blood pressure and said it was just anxiety.
• After whining some more, I went somewhere that actually did an EKG. The result was normal. Just anxiety.
• I proceed to have a series of heart palpitations in the following days with some more trips to the hospital where once again, I was just anxious.
• In the meantime, I've been through three therapists:

1. One of them was one of those kinds that believes your brain starts rotting if you don't eat only organic food. My mom was in the room with me, and they chatted between themselves mostly and only briefly mentioned me or my condition.
2. One of them was like an acquaintance of my mom's friends or something. She was sort of helpful at first, she did help me break out of one of my bad habits (unrelated to the ongoing health issues) but somehow couldn't believe that things won't magically get better/are harder to fix while I'm living in a bad home environment. She thoroughly scolded me for... not having the mental energy to lead a study group?
3. The last one was one of those "most therapists are full of shit I can solve your issues with Science". He gave me the weakest anti-depressant there is and ignored anything I told him about my emotional status. Tried to sneakily do an autism test with me with some very cool totally relevant questions such as "did you sit with your legs bend back in a W shape when you were a child?".
4. I also had a test session with a therapist that was actually a self-proclaimed "alchemist" and wanted me to drink metals and boasted that one of his patients had completed the "lunar serpent ceremony" recently.

• Needless to say I didn't find a suitable one and am currently untreated for whatever condition I actually have. One of the hospitals diagnosed me with "panic syndrome" and that's what people stick with nowadays but I don't buy it. Panic attacks? Sure, very often, but it's not an isolated fucking panic syndrome that's causing them.
• Eventually I did land an appointment with a cardiologist and he did Holter and gave me a medicine that made me have nightmares that my heart had stopped. Normal.

I still don't know what that was about. I've had a situation this year where I suddenly felt extremely strong palpitations and difficulty breathing and extreme dizziness for a couple seconds in class, but that might be because of an anti-inflammatory I was taking at the time.

Said anti-inflammatory was prescriped by a general doctor who I came to because I found two lumps in different parts of my body. He gave me antibiotics and anti-inflammatory which seemingly didn't do anything. I eventually consulted the proper specialists and they resulted in the things I mentioned at the beginning of the post.

Like I mentioned, one of them gave me antibiotics that fucked up my digestive system. And now, after surgery, I am taking a new antibiotic that is not indicated to be taken unless there's no alternatives, because it has a 1-10% chance of giving me a specific colon infection/inflammation.

I also have about four different symptoms that are very scary but not severe looking enough to be investigated unless I spend all my time and money pursuing the proper specialists right out the gate.

Fat and Anxious

I am fat. If you go to the doctor, while being fat, there is a very high probability they will chalk your symptoms up to being fat and will refuse to do a proper examination. It is that simple.

I also have anxiety. If you go to a doctor, while having anxiety, there is a very high probability they will chalk your symptoms up to having anxiety and will refuse to do a proper examination. Combined with being fat, it is very unlikely to get a proper diagnosis.

Granted, recently I've started convincing myself that the maybe heart related string of incidents was indeed anxiety and panic from not being taken seriously by my parents and doctors, but the inciting incident that made me almost lose counciousness wasn't. None of the doctors examined my spine or torso aside from heart exams, with the only suggestion being that I accidentally compressed a vein or a nerve... while laying down motionless in bed in the same position I sleep every day?

We only have like 2-3 hospitals in my city and I've been to all of them at one point or another, and all of them know I am fat and anxious. I will not be taken seriously by them ever again unless I am either uncouncious or screaming in pain or visibly bleeding or rotting or dead.

That's pretty fucking scary! Even though I have 4 unrelated symptoms that surely are NOT anxiety or fatness related, I cannot get them looked at because I am fat and anxious and they aren't visible or making me scream in pain. I was particularly concerned when I found fucking lumps on my body, beacuse you know what that might be (one of them wasn't, other one pending but probably isn't either) and that if it it what it might be then it's good to get it checked early.

Which is impossible for me as long as I live here. And that will be my foreseeable future because I am too fat and anxious to go through with moving out.

They'll look at my corpse and mock it and weep saying, "she should have seen the signs early!". I did do that.

Let's see if I catch the very likely colon infection, and let's see if the second lump turns out to be anything, and let's see if the four unrelated symptoms aren't so unrelated after all and kill me in the most gruesome way possible.

I'm tired and it hurts.