Dearest Doctor by Brighid Aime

Dearest Doctor #2, don’t dollop me in shame (or throw me a death sentence for that matter).

Don’t tell me I need to be happy with just scraping by.
Yes, I can bear your diagnosis, AND I can still thrive.
The medical perspective is barely alive.
You’re supposed to help me heal.

Your drugs are like band-aids on bullet holes.
Stop acting like they’re miracles.
It’s sick how we treat people when they are distressed.
Like it is something that needs to be punished.

I am valuable, even through the mess.
These muddy waters, This challenging circumstance.
Which, Based on your stance – I’ll never “get over”.
here i am running for recovery, and there you go – throwing hurdles.

Well, I’ve come full-circle.

How about showing some compassion?
community, care ā€“ PLEASE become impassioned!
Not just for dosing, but for healing the soul,
For research, support and Inclusion –

Acknowledgement that yes, we are human!!

——– ——– ——– ——– ——– ——— ——– ———-

Dearest doctor #1, I want to thank you for the drama.
For what you said when I was in a state of trauma.
I will never forget, because when we met,
I was deep in my karma.

And you,
Did NOT see me.
You saw some sub-human creature
And you scoffed.

I did what I needed to protect myself,
All the while hoping that someone would help.
QUESTIONS YOU COULD HAVE ASKED:
What are you experiencing right now?
Can you let me in?

I guess I’d expected something from out of a movie.
Where the cop talks the guy down from 10.

Instead, they pumped me with drugs – another big win.
I just needed someone to talk to.
If you would have stayed, asked, cared –
I would have let you in. I would have thanked you.

But that’s against policy.

For me, the nightmare was real.
I was fully awake, when I heard your high heels.
I was petrified laying on the bathroom floor,
and the first thing the assigned psychiatrist said to me was:

“this is disgusting.”

Nothing more.

This is not how we heal from the rain.
I was lost in my mind, deathly afraid of past pain.
could you have opened yours, or even your heart?
Perhaps to Treat patients as more than a chart?

Mental distress can be ugly, your job is not easy to do.
Coldness and distance, your catch 22.
And that’s why hospitalization is fucked up.
Instead of compassion and love,

It’s about liability, shame, blame-shifting and profit.
Health should never be about what we put in our pockets.
Our care is corrupt.
I may have gone mad, but the system IS amok.

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Brighid Aime: Nature, spirituality, and the juxtaposed micro/macrocosms of the Tao are primary sources of inspiration. Experimentation with poetry, mindfulness and the arts allow healthy expression of fantasy. Weaving the unseen depths into consciousness is both a personal process of creation, and opportunity to connect polarities toward center.

Instagram: @belle.vivre

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Mad in America hosts blogs by a diverse group of writers. These posts are designed to serve as a public forum for a discussionā€”broadly speakingā€”of psychiatry and its treatments. The opinions expressed are the writers’ own.

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