Dear Anita,

I think you are right, but even knowing that this might have its source in my mothers behavior its difficult to change my behavior, my fear of beeing seen or is a sense being proven as bad.

Right now I came back from the doctors and I feel stupid. Last month I had a problem with the other knee (not the one that was supposed to get an MRT). It hurt a lot, but I failed at getting an appointment. I overthought the whole thing so much, made mistakes at making an appointment and in the end only went today. One of the things I had debated was “should I get an appointment for discussing the MRT or to get the other knee looked at”. But when I finally managed to make an appointment the office lady said “don’t worry, you can just discuss both”. When I went to the reception the receptionist asked “are you here to discuss the MRT” and I said “no to discuss a problem with the other knee”. And then I met the doctor, he immediately discussed the MRT with me briefly and send me on my way. I feel stupid for not voicing what I really wanted and kind of second class, I think he would have handled a client with private insurance different. I mean I get it, if he didn’t work like this he could see a lot less patients, and get less money but also help less people. Appointments at another doctors  have much longer waiting times. But I am wondering if it wouldn’t be better. Or maybe one doctor for each knee? Sounds a bit crazy.

Sorry I just needed to write this somewhere.

Dear L,

I noticed that this was your first post here, so welcome to the forum and thank you for taking the time to register and post here!

Your post resonnated a lot with me, I am sorry that you had to go through this but it was good to hear someone else also knows what it feels like to be in this situation, and that its sometimes not as easy as “just going to the doctor”. I totally see where you are coming from when you wrote ” Which really means modify my life and who I am — quite a terrifying thought! “. I thought something similar “some time ago I could still go jogging and suddenly I can’t even run to catch the train? Where does that leave me? No sports anymore?” And that reaction of your doctor on refusing the steriods – totally strange. Yes even if the pain wasn’t as bad yet that you would take drugs, doesn’t mean that it isn’t bad or a problem. Asking for an MRI from that same doctor who ridiculed you (or any doctor) must have taken some guts!

Your way of dealing with this afterwards, gathering information, looking for other doctors who would do the surgery – that is a inspiration. I hope I can do the same once I have more info through the MRI.

• This reply was modified 5 years, 4 months ago by Lara.
• This reply was modified 5 years, 4 months ago by Lara.

Hello, I am back from the doctors. It was the same one I saw last time I went. I told him how the knee had hurt again and again and he examined the knee again, this time there was an angle that hurt and he said since this had gone on for so long it was time for an MRI without me even bringing it up myself. I didn’t mention the fall this time either, there was no good time to bring it up exept maybe right at the start, it all went so fast after that. So I have a bit of a bad conscience but I am also very glad that things are moving forward, even if only to get a diagnosis. Maybe in the future it will still be necessary to come clean and I can say something like “yeah I fell at some point in the past, but I thought it wasn’t so bad” ?

Anita, thank you for your reply here. It may sound strange but your new years wishes really moved me. I had felt a bit arrogant to say “I want an MRI” and there you are, wishing that for me. And as I turned out, I didn’t even have to fight for it, all I had to do was show up. You are right, my critic was in the way here.

I think its also a reluctance to be a bother to people. I am not a shy person who never asks for stuff (not at all) but somehow going to a doctor or other authority figure and say “I need X” and keep nagging until I get “X” is difficult for me. And in some cases I also look down on others who don’t have any problems in that aspect, e.g. customers that I work with. I know I shouldn’t but something about it just really gets to me, maybe its because I don’t have the guts to do the same thing.

Dear Annie,

as I said Coprolalia does go in the right direction, but for those with Coprolalia the involuntary aspect seems to be much stronger to me than what I do. I don’t swear or shout in public, for example (with a very few exeptions). But then these disorders often have a spectrum and maybe I am on a lower spectrum?

Keeping a log is difficult since I end up thinking “where to write it down”? I would never use my smartphone for that since I don’t trust google. Using a notebook there might be a chance of someone seeing it.

But I can say that its happing more when I am agitated or thinking about old stuff. Recently there was this event of I group I am part of, it went very well the whole evening, I even made two announcements without shivering in fear. They were not very well put but it didn’t matter and everyone was smiling. Things went south only afterwards. We needed to leave this place at a certain time though people might have wanted to stay longer, so beeing part of leadership I said well don’t stress yourselfs but we need to get going. And they did they were really wonderful, packing everything up. But in the end there was a moment where everyone was still standing around and then looking at me for some reason and I was like “well off you go” with a slight military tone (half joke). And they did, but five minutes later I thought “yeah or you could have said Merry christmas and see you next year”. I was really down then worrying what people are thinking of me beeing so unfriendly. And then later I realized that we might not have needed to hurry so much. I spend the whole way back and the next day agonozing and shouting stuff. Was really tough and I think my brain was just burned out from all the socialisation and stress from acting “wrong”.

• This reply was modified 5 years, 4 months ago by Lara.

Hello everyone,

time really does fly by, sorry.

Dear anita, about your first question, “what beliefs were those”. From my mothers side I would say “The world is bad” . Tell her about something that happened to you on any day, I don’t have a good expample right now but lets say “And then there was this lady and she said ‘x'” where “x” for me was something strange but funny. My mother would automatically be angry and say “how could she say something like that to you! ” allways assuming the worst of people, not getting the fine nuances. It was allways a struggle to defend my view against hers. And then there were the times when I would say something she disagreed with, I don’t have an example there but I certainly remember the disgusted look she gave me, like I was the worst person on the planet. She changed for the better though, through theraphy that is why I wrote  ” I would rather have to go on no contact from myself” if I wanted to get away from the thoughts.

As for my father I thought about it but I think I was wrong, it wasn’t ingrained fear there. More of a feeling of not beeing good enough, though he would never admit to it or maybe doesn’t even understand. But not in the cliche TV-Show way, more subtile like I would tell him about something nice I did and he might say “thats nice” and then say how (a) that might have been done better or (b) how really this is not so difficult to do or (c) how cousin X just became proffessor. Super exhausting. Also the same for the future Me:”I will do X” Father: “ah thats nice (a) but shouldn’t you rather do y?” or (b) “Cousin X is studying now while beeing a prof” (I kid you not on this one) or (c) switching to a totally different topic. Its not as bad as it sounds sometimes he was genuinly interested, but I learned to keep special things to myself so they wouldn’t be tainted/ belittled by these kind of comments.

I don’t know I feel I am rambling a bit, sorry.

Dear Angie, you are the first person I met who actually has the same problem. Thank you for sharing this here as well!

” Nobody, under any circumstance, appreciates hearing, “Just kill yourself”. Indeed, they don’t! “You are the worst” also doesn’t really go over well for some reason.

A verbal form of selfharm, yes that sounds about right. Though no matter how often I say to myself “you are a bad person” I don’t really believe it, you know what I mean? But I often wonder if it doesn’t become more real with repetition.

You have allready found a bunch of interesting ways to deal with this! I think I will try that out, thank you.

Yes, I often feel not good enough. Not good enough at social interactions, not getting far in life though I had so many possibilties,  not having many friends etc. Sometimes I manage to turn this around and say “hey I had all this depression and fear going and still manage to do ….” though.

Your suggestion about thinking about people I admire is totally new to me, I will have to think about that one.

Dear Annie Moussu,

thank you, this is actually the first time that someone said he knows people with this particular problem. I knew of course that I was very unlikely to be the only one, but it was so difficult to find anything on this. Its very interesting to know

I guess you just pretended this didn’t happen when you overheard your friends? Frankly for me that would have been the best reaction of all if I had been your friend, simply not knowing that you overheard me, not having to worry that you think I am weird and need to be avoided.

Very luckily I don’t live in constant fear anymore, but I did in the past. Yes, it’s well possible that this habit originated from fear.

I have not yet tried to keep a journal. Maybe that would be a good thing to try. I am worried though that someone would find it somehow, but maybe I can just make sure noone will, taking good care. Thank you, this is a good suggestion.

When I read about OCD on Wikipedia for example, this just doesn’t really fit. Maybe compulsions “act compulsively so as to mitigate the anxiety that stems from particular obsessive thoughts” but I don’t say it for hours and speech is hardly mentioned in the article. But I am not a doctor.

I have been in therapy before and it can be helpful indeed. But I don’t want to start from zero again telling my lifestory, its exhausting (even though there aren’t any mayor trauma). I am not even sure a theraphist can help in this case.