[DoreenMichele]

Oh, good lord, they tortured her and assumed she was just stubbornly "behaving badly" because "crazy."

I'm appalled but a lot of the elements of her story are all too familiar. "You are just crazy" is a common accusation for anyone doctors can't readily diagnose and it's a horrible, horrible experience.

[LorenPechtel]

Yup, this is par for the course. The docs are going to think psych over zebra. That goes on until you get lucky and find a doc who actually listens and understands--and I suspect for many patients that day never comes. Especially if you don't fit one of the already-diagnosed rare problems.

[jmole]

I felt this in my bones.

I’ll tell a doctor that almost anything I eat makes me feel bad, and when I don’t eat anything at all (which of course is not sustainable), I have amazing amounts of energy and can actually think clearly.

Then I get the look. I can see the thought process in their head: ...must be an eating disorder... Immediately followed by, “has your weight changed recently?”

[DoreenMichele]

Yeah, I have a genetic disorder that impacts gut function. I wasn't properly diagnosed until my mid thirties.

I was a bag of bones as a child because of it and teased because of that. I have belly bloat as a side effect and have long had to deal with the negative attitudes about weight in the US.

Etc. Ad nauseam.

[unanswered]

Every person involved should be criminally charged for kidnapping and torture. But they never will be, because they're just "doing their jobs" and "part of the system", and the main purpose and function of "the system" is to isolate its cogs from responsibility.