Why is it acceptable medically to describe your physical trauma and pain on a scale of 0-10 when asked by anyone in the medical system yet when it comes to the mental illness caused by traumatic injury there is no scale? Or how have heard "Oh you can do things you must be ok."
A month ago was at the doctors office trying to explain how the incident in March 2019 Traumatic Brain Injury aka Concussion and the trauma caused PTSI, anxiety, and depression. And was frustrated as on top of getting what was explaining dismissed and as well as getting grief because well you know somehow was supposed to know in the Fall of 2019 what long term mental illness fallout getting left to die by a car would cause. Especially with a TBI and knowing from my own reading that it can take months for things to appear. And after was thinking how with physical injury like knee, back, and various other spots there is a scale one could use to explain. To date everything have been asked to fill out has been based around a scale of 0-10. Essentially the physical injury version of the Perceived Exertion scale athletes use for training and competition.
It was disheartening more or maybe equal to the the grief from the doctor as well as the dismissive attitude because reality of how we view mental illness and it's negative effects is pretty fucked up. There in my experience is only two levels viewed by everyone else of mental illness either ok or full bore bad day aka have to be having very disturbing dark thoughts to be taken seriously. And at least to me how we refer to things going wrong doesn't help us ask for help. The language is limited to triggered, bad day, spiraling, and dark thoughts which makes it way to easy I believe to dismiss things by a doctor when asking for help to for example access the local brain injury clinic.
Last fall without really thinking about it and connecting it had used volume settings. Volume like a TV or stereo system to describe how during a couple of events my PTSI and anxiety acted up. At the time I didn't clue into what was doing. Which was to try and explain how my mental illness varied in intensity and being "triggered" during these events. It wasn't till three other events happened in the last month that gave me a clue.
The first event was some interactions with my physio therapy facility that triggered my anxiety and PTSI. Which coincided with being required to again fill out those questionnaire to describe pain in certain joints and such. After I filled them out it was a few days later that event number two happened which was the doctor and trying to explain things. And after leaving was wishing could have had a way to refer a simple 0-10 form to better describe what was going on in my head. What fully drove it home what was wishing for was talking with a friend.
A friend has their own mental health issues and while hanging out recently was talking about this wishing had a scale to better explain things. And my friend commented that they hated the simple measures of bad day and triggered as not every bout of anxiety or depression is full bore bad day. As they described it, today's bout of depression could be minor yet 3 days from now could be worse. And that is not as easy as it actually is. True reality is more at least in my experience more like a scale of 1-10 with say a 6 being ok can go into a Tim's quickly with no crowd and get out but if a crowd best to avoid. Where as say a few days later it is closer to an 8 and no way am walking in it is drive thru as the only option.
That in the end is the issue. That there is no scale one can use when asked how it is going by say your physio therapist and you can say "Oh not a great day" and can easily be dismissed. Now imagine if the same question was asked and you can say "Well mental illness side today is around number 8 level". Not only would it be at least I think to have someone say "Ok, let's see what we can do to help with that". But when you also consider the long term it would make it easier to keep track of when is it bad and when is it middle ground how my mental illness was disrupting things. But cold hard reality is that would mean that the medical community would have to view mental illness like PTSI, Depression, and anxiety for example at the same level of concern and care as physical pain like a broken leg. And do away with the either or scale that isn't exactly helpful.
Reality from my own experience we need more then a 4 colour chart or pie graphs about the various symptoms. We need a way to express our level of how much our mental illness is effecting us that doesn't leave us hanging.
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