Wednesday, March 28, 2012

the personality dilemma

when i had typed the post's title i instantly thought, well are you right in stating this?
I was to talk about how prejudice around personality causes many sick persons finding it difficult attending doctors.
When i was referring to 'personality' in this context i was thinking more of 'difference' in the context of society's norms.
Society has a set of givens.  we have the 'extravert' and the 'introvert' but what if we have the 'depressive,' the 'manic' the 'hysteric' the 'sulky' and so on?
When does society say that a person has erred too far over on one side of the divide to be given much attention to?
That is, ignore and move on to one of society's acceptable people.
Not every one fits into the basic standard dress size.
Anyway there are always variations on the theme.
so what makes a person acceptable?
Is it...beauty, wealth, or just plain 'normal' or just plain 'plain.'
Does a person have to be a cardboard cut-out, that is, lack all personality to be acceptable?
Or does a person manage to overcome the difference by being different but wealthy or different and from an influential family?
because certainly if celebs say it all, they get it all, and mostly because they have the wealth to buy them just about everything, even if they are wild, drunken, rude, hysterical and everything other than plain plain.
Walking into a doctor's surgery is not for the faint hearted any day, for anyone.
Some seem to get away with the task better than others.
Many don't have to put up with the rudeness.
i have seen this.
I see it too often.
I also see and have seen how some people do have to put up with rudeness, being left until last in a clinic or being shunted to the 'virtual wards' on the side near the laundry baskets.
i will say which bracket these individuals belong to, they are the individuals who stand out from  the  accepting society's norms.
we have as i say the drunks, but here the POOR drunks.
we have the mentally ill, again the POOR mentally ill.
also those who are Not from high society families or who have the support of family who are high flyers.
if you have been rubbished by the family of origin and do not have them supporting you then well, you are also a complete gonner.
they have documented that to be poor and sick means you die younger and sooner.
That has now taken off a sizeable proportion of the people i happen to know.
so if they die off then i can quake with fear.
but mostly the persons who get it between the eyes of hostility are the persons perceived to be mentally challenged, that is, mentally ill or been in the mental health system.
this is all across the board and in not only holy ireland which is my country but all countries.
but being in Holy Ireland i have seen horrible things done to people here.
try this for size...i know a person who was not treated for physical presentations until psychiatrically assessed..that person was myself.
yes, i sat it out until i was and i was many times and all times found to be mentally sane.
what the sender to the shrinks saw was at varience to what the sender perceived or realised.
they SAW tram track slash marks on this person's body.  they immediately percieved madness.
well they were found to be wrong by the shrinks.
the shrinks had never seen me as mad or having a mental illness.
Tram tracks on flesh is not from madness, but say that to the ill informed.
Tram tracks means many things.  Abuse can cause it, neglect, vulnerabilty and also feeling isolated in crowds or not liking oneself, or not being able to express oneself adequately to be heard sufficiently for things to change.
it never is about madness.
but i have seen also mentally ill persons being so badly treated it beggars belief that medicine is about healing not destroying a human being.
You would rather think it would be more healing to lift up than slam down.
A doctor has the ability to do this in such a differnet way to most.
they are after all , the gods to keep us alive.
we depend on them to do this, keep us alive.
they then are 'God.' and believe me they chose to act it.
making judgements that are divine is their supreme skill but in the hands of humans it amounts to ignorance.
Tell me why anyone should be treated badly just because they are different?
tell me please why these people with difference too, should be less believed about their own feelings and bodies than those who have the money and the beauty and the sanity?
because when a person describes how their body feels, most if not all will say it as it is.
why would anyone say less or more, when they go to a doctor for help?
it is very few who are feigners, very few.
again the gods decide that a person with tram tracks are, and they get shunted to the side.
Every time.
they also get treated badly at every turn in medicine without exception.
there may be an individual doctor who will decide to believe you and i have had one or two, but one or two does not mean absolutely everyone.
we started on this blog about personality, and it is so all embracing, all consuming that it goes to the heart of what being a sophisticated species is.
the way to 'take animals' out is so much more sophisticated than the arrow or the mallet.
you simply treat them with rudeness and shunt them away, also shut them away.
the voiceless many as known particularly in this country when we shut more people away behind bars for being different than any other country in europe combined at the time and we are talking about a period of time, the 50's.
Irish people i feel, are far more prejudicial than most would be led to believe.
i put it down to being too long the under dogs.
i see it now having rebound again, just as we began to show hints of tolerance, i believe we may revert back to the dark ages.
mostly economic decline will see a hardening of attitudes, another 'survival of the fittest' tactic.
at the end of this blog i will say one thing clearly.
I DO NOT want to be the Plain PLAIN>
i do not want to be a shrinking person who has no say on matters, who has to grovel, who has to be 'important' in economics or beauty in order to be treated well.
i want to be myself, which is, DIFFERENT, by virtue of birth.
i have not wealth, status, age, beauty or sex gender on my side.
but i have Spirit, Spunk, Laughter, Hilarity and uniqueness that is particularly my own, and my own style.
does this sort of 'difference' along with my pain, my past, my vulnerability and my inability to withstand abuse mean that i am led to the slaughter each and every time i am found wanting by one person and another, those who are the 'acceptable beautiful people' of our society?
when society can be judged as truly sophisticated, humane and reaching out toward difference, then we can say we are nearer the God of Life than the God of destiny, the doctors.
and i see too many of them - for my sins.

2 comments:

lou said...

Ann I faced it in a simple way, post opp was asked by staff nurse to ring my 79 year old father and tell him to pick me up at 11am I still hadn't anything to eat, I told him 11.30 and asked for food. I was answered by snotty staff nurse the she would get me something, she finally brought tea and bread, I said I don't drink tea and wanted coffee and that My father was coming at 11.30 as she wanted everyone rushed out of the hospital. I said I don't drink tea and was not impressed by the medical model of staff no empathy except a head Doctor heard and took me too another room and brought me decaf coffee, when I said thank you with hesitation he went and got real coffee from his stasff canteen and brought it to me , I said how can they categorise peoples likes and dislikes and he smiled in agreement and arranged for me to go out an alternative door wehere I didn't have to encounter the old fashioned witch. so some people do treat patients with empathy but unfortunately the Bio medical model with the consultants God I am and stuck up nurese exists in Ireland except for the few who read up on modern medicine in an attempt to get out of the medical model and look at the whole individual person.

lou said...

Ann I faced it in a simple way, post opp was asked by staff nurse to ring my 79 year old father and tell him to pick me up at 11am I still hadn't anything to eat, I told him 11.30 and asked for food. I was answered by snotty staff nurse the she would get me something, she finally brought tea and bread, I said I don't drink tea and wanted coffee and that My father was coming at 11.30 as she wanted everyone rushed out of the hospital. I said I don't drink tea and was not impressed by the medical model of staff no empathy except a head Doctor heard and took me too another room and brought me decaf coffee, when I said thank you with hesitation he went and got real coffee from his stasff canteen and brought it to me , I said how can they categorise peoples likes and dislikes and he smiled in agreement and arranged for me to go out an alternative door wehere I didn't have to encounter the old fashioned witch. so some people do treat patients with empathy but unfortunately the Bio medical model with the consultants God I am and stuck up nurese exists in Ireland except for the few who read up on modern medicine in an attempt to get out of the medical model and look at the whole individual person.