I Am Not Compliant
I Am Not Compliant
October 20, 2024, 11:27 pm
Filed under: anger, Healthcare, resistance | Tags: carrots, compliance, cream puff, diabetes, doctors, Healthcare, medicine
My doctor had a trainee with him so he kept telling her things about my treatment and the way he viewed what has happened to me. He heaped praise on me, saying how he wished all his patients were so compliant, how I did everything he told me to do, what a good patient I have been. I wanted to puke.
Now, the truth is, I have done everything he’s told me to do but not because I’m a good little girl who does what she’s told but because I want to get better. If what he’s telling me is the way to do that, then that is what I’m going to do. And believe me, I’m not just taking his word for it. I confirm these things in books, in articles, in web sites, in subreddits. So I guess, really, I do most things he tells me, within reason. For example, this doctor said that carrots were like potatoes and I should limit them now, in this world where I have to control my sugars. This sounded weird to me. So I checked it out. It’s not true. Carrots are on no one’s trouble list, sugar-wise. I eat them. I do not hesitate.
I’m not compliant at all. I just want the best information and advice I can get and I do that. Framing my active involvement in improving my health as compliance makes me want to find a box full of glass medical equipment and smash it, methodically, with a hammer.
I’m sure compliance is how they frame things in medical school — particularly in diabetes care, the treatment of which is so intertwined with what a patient does about it. Probably more than many other areas of medicine, improving outcomes for patients depends on them doing a lot of things they probably don’t want to do. These are things like giving ourselves injections, sticking our fingers with needles, cutting back on carbs, reducing sugar, etc. I can see why this might get seen as compliance. But I think this a terrible way to frame it and it is probably one of the reasons many people don’t have the willingness to take these crappy things on. Nobody likes to be told what to do. And someone getting up in your business as much as diabetes care can be in everyone’s business is infuriating. I can easily see this emphasis on compliance making people mad enough to rebel and insist on their own personhood by eating or drinking stuff that might not be good for them. I passionately hated being seen as compliant, even while getting praised for it.
After my appointment in which I heard, multiple times, how compliant I am, I went and got a cream puff at the bakery down the street. Praise me for obedience and my inner rebel comes out immediately. Now, that said, — I’m not self-destructive. I did get a salad before the cream puff. And I did skip most of the pastry of the puff — so I was really just taking more of a risk than I have in a while. (Taking risks, by the way, has been encouraged by my doctor, so it’s not actually as rebellious as it felt.) But I can feel the direct line between my fury at my compliant reputation and that (delicious!) matcha green tea cream puff. (BTW — my blood sugar didn’t really go up too much when I ate it. NBD.) I’m sure this doc did not want me to leave his office and go get a pastry (see my first appointment with him) but hearing about my compliance did exactly that. I am not compliant. You tell me something stupid, I’m not going to do it. I’m an active participant in my care, okay? Don’t infantilize me.
But, I will say, as much as I hated this narrative and as much as I wish there were kinder, healthier, less insulting ways to talk about patient participation, it has been weirdly helpful to think about being non-compliant in regards to my own care. Because I’m angry about it, I have experienced a kind of loosening of my program. I was pretty strict when I first got diagnosed and even when I was told I could begin to experiment a bit, I was still pretty fearful to venture far afield. But now, when offered something risky, I think, “Are you being compliant right now?” And I’ll try it if I want it. I really thought coffee milk bubble tea would be forever out of reach for me. But I’m non-compliant. So I tried some because: only one way to find out! Results? Should I have it every day? No. Was it fine? Yep. A-okay for a special treat. Would never have known if I hadn’t been angry about compliance! So — I guess there is some good that comes along with this bad. I eat carrots. And cream puffs sometimes. Take that!
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Originally published at http://artiststruggle.wordpress.com on October 21, 2024.
