Doubts

Dear Dr. W,

You don't know me well. You don't know I've continued working on no sleep, while I was horribly sick, or after burning myself on the steamers.

You don't know that I'm a damn hard worker who would never take advantage of the system for employees who get injured on the job.

Nor do you feel what I feel.

So do not tell me when you touch my tender neck and I jump I shouldn't feel that. How exactly would I time it?

Do not ask me why I'm not better. You're the doctor, you tell me.

Do not tell me what it should be, and why it should be better.

You don't know this but I have one vanity in life. My hair.

So when I come to the Doctor's office with bedhead it means today my arm hurt too much when I tried to brush it.

You don't know that getting dressed caused me discomfort and pain. That I am underdressed for New England weather because I struggled with my jacket and gave up.

Your dismissive nature and tone, the disbelief in my symptoms.

You know I am on Zoloft.

You know thats for anxiety and depression.

And you have the gall to demand of me why I'm not better, like I am preventing my own recovery?

You have failed your hipppcratic oath. You very nearly sent me into a depression episode with your doubt and disbelief.

You don't know me. No one has diagnosed me. I cannot drive until I understand what my injury is. I long for the independence I now lack.

So, Doctor W, I hope we never face each other again.

Or else it will get awkward when I refuse to talk to you. Because I do not trust you.

I have given you no reason to doubt. Me. The opposite cannot be said.