to remediate an emocorn
I very rarely visit the doctor's. Especially when it comes to GPs! It's quite ironic, because I study anatomy and physiology - I feel like I, of all people, should understand the importance of good health.
But, there is something very intimate about the notion of medical care to me: offering your body, mind, and existence up to something external to yourself, and saying "hello, here I am, and I am hurting, and I need you".
Sometimes, that intimacy does feel warranted - like when I was sixteen and finally decided that I had had enough of feeling awful all the time and sought SSRI treatment, or when I was eighteen and was referred to a short-term crisis intervention program by my school counsellor because she simply didn't know how to help me. Or when I was fifteen, and didn't understand the importance of nutritional fibre, and ended up in the ED getting an enema after being constipated for a week.
And of course, the intimacy being warranted on your end does not necessarily imply reciprocity. Entering the office, recounting the pains that have eaten away at you for years, and being offered a polite smile and a printed worksheet of knee exercises: like baring yourself before a lover and watching them try to school their face out of the repulsion that crawls in at the sight of you.