Obesity Due To Excess Calories
That note from my original consultation with my doctor, “obesity due to excess calories,” is the only mention of my weight in my medical record. I’ve been seeing her for 8 years. Nothing she’s been told about my weight or my related mental health issues appear anywhere in the 8 years of medical records she’s kept.
Nothing about my lifelong struggle with disordered eating that began at age 8.
Nothing about being put on a diet by my mother for the first time at age 11.
Nothing about the long term abuse of stimulants and starvation as a weight loss strategy beginning at age 13.
Nothing about the disordered eating being a learned coping mechanism for my Complex PTSD. Noting about food being my first addiction that preceded a myriad of others.
Nothing about the fact that at that time, at 44 years old, I was only 10 pounds heavier than I was at 13 years old and 2-inches shorter.
Nothing about the hundreds of pounds I’d gained and lost, or where I was in that cycle on that day.
Nothing about the possible connection to my long-term, recurrent, major clinical depression.
My doctor didn’t say a word to me about any of. it. I saw her for 8 years. My weight and my mental health fluctuated wildly during that time.
In eight years she never asked me about my weight or my mental health. I tried to tell her. But she apparently didn’t think any of what I said was even worth writing down.
There’s no mention of my mental health in my medical records. Not the inpatient treatment or what led up to it. Not the 8 different combinations of psychiatric medications I had been on while seeing her. Not the misdiagnoses or correct diagnosis.
Nothing.
And when I tried to get help. When I was so sick that i almost died and couldn’t work, and applied for help from the social security system that I’d paid into my entire life, it was those records they referenced when they denied twice to help me.
I think our doctors are killing us.
