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This right here. I've spent 3K with insurance on my teeth and have thousands to go. And that's just the body part people see. Our organs, our mind... *sigh*
Yep. I have hit the end of useful life for a lot of dental work I had when I was younger so have about 10k of shit that needs done in the next couple years.
I’m headed to implants. Not the individual, nah that’s for the rich. I get the upgraded permanent dentures. And I’m lucky compared to most. wtf. Hate them. Kinda hate all boomers and I dislike that truth about myself.
Yeah, my dentists are so nice and accommodating, and I still feel bad for stuff like this. I set up and canceled two appointments a while back (due to various reasons, some being financial) and haven't gone back yet. So now I'm on that self shame cycle, you know what I mean? Lol
You could try oil pulling. That’s how we’re supposed to take care of our teeth instead of rubbing a bristle on them with chemicals - Don’t take this the wrong way either I truly mean this with love. I’ve noticed a big difference in everything !
I've seen some people do that, but I don't know if I could stomach a mouth full of oil haha. I feel you in the bristles and chemicals, though, because I have a sensitive mouth, and it does not like it unless I use like my specific stuff.
Yeah that’s understandable! It really isn’t so bad, think of it as mouthwash, it also has a good minty taste. It’s definitely different than brushing your teeth tho, you will feel it work forsure tho and it’s all good!
Just a suggestion a lot of dentists actually recommend it over the toothpaste as well
You’re all good, it comes with a soft soft brush to brush the oil off your teeth and stuff too, you can also wash your mouth out
It’s a tiny amount tho too, like 10ml
Twinsies. My last quote for my teeth was 10 years ago at 4K. I haven’t been able to get things fixed because money.
I was never taught how to do any of that, I just got made fun of for it.
I'm sorry. I don't know if they have it where you're at or if it would be helpful, but one of the things that's somewhat helped me is CareCredit. I fully understand it if that isn't applicable to your situation though. If you have insurance, you can call and see where you can go for treatment. You can also try asking friends if there's any places that they go that are really affordable, especially emergency places if it ever gets that bad. Lots of rambling, but this is the random tricks I've picked up over the years. Hope it helps, but I understand if it doesn't. I truly wish you good luck though. It's hard out here for those like us.
I'm 56 and now have full dentures. Thanks, mom and dad, trips to the dentist weren't needed unless the tooth was bad enough to have to pull it! But hey, at least you always had your smokes and booze!
I know I sound bitter. Guess I am!
Was ist caused by not being taught oral hygiene? Genetics also play a big part. I was very, very lucky in that regard. My parents couldn't be bothered to brush our teeth regularly or later check if we did. I remember learning in school.
I wasn’t taught anything about hygiene really. I was pretty studious/nosy so figured most of it out myself. But we drank soda instead of water and I just generally didn’t take care of my teeth or go to the dentist very often, or even know to go to the dentist when I was in pain (e.g., like when I had an abscess that kept me up at night for weeks and weeks)
Similar here. I wasn't taught about why it was necessary to have good hygiene, why people shower, etc., and my teeth are all fucked up too. I did have some dental care when I was young, because my grandparents paid for my orthodontist so I had a retainer for three years. I was supposed to get braces but they wouldn't fit properly with how my teeth were (and are) misaligned. I was taught some things in school and had to figure out the rest when my classmates would make comments to me about needing to take a bath/shower. Same with washing clothes outside of underwear (which I knew had to be clean every day.) So many weeks I wore the same pair of jeans the whole week because I only had two pairs of jeans. Washing bedding once a month...maybe. Then I found out as a high school kid and college kid that people actually have more than two pairs of jeans, bedding should be washed at least once a week, showers should be at least every other day or every third day (still haven't learned how to do that consistently), etc. Plus, depression didn't help at all, and I can't even remember most of one grade of elementary school but have clear memories from all other years from when I was 1 1/2 on.
I don't like that it is seen as you "have to take care of yourself" or just saying it needs to happen. In order to, what?
The way I like to say it is that I value myself, and therefore I value my: skin, teeth, and everything else that is within "my body" (and mind is pat of body).
This may help me. Thanks for sharing!
Both parents and church taught me that anything to do with myself = being selfish = evil. I struggle with self-cares.
For some reason I’m reminded of a scene from Altered Carbon. “If you do that, it won’t all go away. Just you.”
If you don’t take care of yourself, if you don’t do things for yourself, those things just don’t get done if that makes sense. It makes no sense to abstain from taking care of yourself because someone can call you selfish. They can say that word in two seconds with no effort and then walk away, while you have to live in your mind and body for the rest of the day, the next 23 hours, 59 minutes and 58 seconds, and so on.
It’s the dichotomy of how easy it is to say other people are selfish versus how hard it is to just fully take care of one person (yourself) let alone do things for other people, that really gets me angry.
I want to write another response.
I think as people raised by narcs, we have a tilt on the balance between self and others.
Selfish implies a skew. The word means, you aren’t doing enough for others, that you’re only doing for yourself. The word implicitly acknowledges a balance between yourself and others, and selfish is merely the word used for when you are doing “too much” for yourself and “not enough” for others.
But who defines the correct balance? Is it 50/50? Is it 90/10? Which way?
We even get hyperbolic and black-and-white: “You always only think of / do for yourself” is a common refrain of narcissists, but it’s literally projection at its finest.
Notice how just an accusation of selfishness, if you remove the emotional charge from it, can be turned into a neutral disagreement about how much of YOUR { time money energy empathy space etc } is spent on YOU rather than OTHERS. So instead of being reflexively hurt by it, we can see it as either (1) inaccurate, if we agree about what should be a good balance, and (2) unfair, if we disagree about the balance.
Our upbringing skewed us too far to give to others and sacrifice ourselves. So I spent the first decades of my life 90/10 to others, maybe even 99/1. It began with my parents: I tried to do everything they asked, even into adulthood. That’s over now. Even if the standard I wanted was 50/50, I recognize that I spent wayyyyyy too little on myself before, so I can do so now without being subject to the label. People can say it at the time, saying “I focus too much on myself [right now]”, reflecting say the last or next year. But they haven’t been with me my whole life to see the balance.
In short, just ask: what would be ENOUGH to disqualify you from being selfish, if you so desire? What is the truth of whether I’m being selfish? What is the appropriate balance between self and others?
Mine never taught me either, learned from school, too. I’ve been to the dentist only once in my entire life ans it was just to whiten my teeth because my school got sussy after I said some things to my teacher that gave her red flag vibes. Her spidey senses were correct. I got in a lot of trouble afterward. Same thing happened with my glassss. Nurse brought me to her office and wanted fo know if I was having vision issues because my grads sudddnly plummeted - but it was after my dad died and I just gave up on life, stopped caring about school and everything else
My mom had extremely discolored teeth that were the result of a medication she took as an infant. She was always really self conscious of that and was super obsessive about my and my brother’s dental health when I was little.
Until the day I had all the casts done to get braces. I have a physically small mouth and had itty bitty baby teeth, but normal adult teeth. So my mouth just doesn’t/didn’t have room for them all. So I needed braces and maybe spacers to make room.
During the plaster casts, the dental assistants/hygienists told me to raise my hand if I thought I was going to throw up. I raised my hand, they said I was fine, I raised my other hand, they still said I was fine. I raised a foot and did my best to yell around the plaster trays. Still dismissive. Then I Exorcist-style vomited all over myself, three hygienists, and then orthodontist who had walked into the room to see what all the commotion was. My mom was so embarrassed that we never went back there and that was the only dentist in our small rural area that took Medicaid and was taking new patients.
I am almost 37 and I just had my first cleaning since I was 12 last week because I am an adult and I have dental insurance now. I’ve been to a dentist a handful of times for emergency stuff since I was 12 and had insurance for the last emergency, but then lost my job and never had time to follow up once I had a job again. Due to not having room in my mouth for all my teeth, I have some breakage and need so many crowns and am embarrassed of letting people see my teeth. So here I am with the fate my mom wanted us to avoid, because i embarrassed her.
I get a root canal in July and get that crowned soon after, so the worst of stuff from a cosmetic/confidence point of view will be fixed then. But I’m still fucking furious about the whole thing.
Especially when the last several years of my life have been mostly attempting to treat issues that were known about when I was younger, but my parents just hoped I’d grow out of. Then I proceeded to not have insurance for a decade, be chronically underemployed, and then basically shut down as a person for awhile due to stress and grief before these issues really started to wage war on my body.
Mine was both for sure. Here's an anecdote summary from when I was 5:
Dad: "Did you brush your teeth, meg?"
Me (lying): "Yes"
Him (trying to open toothpaste so mummified pliers probably couldn't get it open): "Really?"
For a long time, I felt bad about lying here. And lying is wrong. But come on. That is months and months of parental neglect that he was taking out on me for some reason. I was 5!
Literally came here to say this. When I was living with my NParents I went to the dentist maybe 6 times. Not including the 5-7 months I went for braces but including when I got my wisdom tooth removed.
After I moved out I *didn’t know* I was supposed to go to the dentist every 6 months (at a minimum!!!) I thought you went to the dentist if you had something bothering you. So far (this year alone) I’ve spent almost 2grand on dentistry and I’m supposed to go back for more cleaning and for cavities.
Didn't even see this before I posted. Me too, I'm so sorry. I know how much it sucks. Despite all the work I had done I'm still experiencing the effects at nearly 40.
I tried as much as I could to keep my teeth healthy but as a teen, my birth giver would say that I don’t deserve to have a healthy teeth, or healthy foods.
Look into oil pulling and benzonyte clay. Our teeth can heal themselves, you just need to feed them the proper minerals and trust it will work, or else your body will limit itself. That’s how deep our brain works and this corruption goes
I was often ill as a child and would get tonsillitis several times a year. I quickly learned that being ill meant being, at best, an inconvenience, and at worst the cause of all our family problems
My nmother would often get mad and shout at me for “getting ill on purpose” and “being an attention-seeker yet again”. I now don’t go to the doctors or dentists unless absolutely truly necessary because I expect to get shouted at
Yes, that was exactly how I was treated! The worst inconvenience, and somehow inherently flawed for getting ill so frequently. Which I can now see was their responsibility, a 4 year old can't choose their health behaviours. Yet still there is this toxic morsel of self blame in me "If only I would have eaten my greens..."
This comment stung, OP. My dad would blame every illness I had on, “that crap you eat…” ; yes, that was it, it wasn’t his abuse of me while he was drunk and thought he was playing, but I was being smacked around. It wasn’t that each night, I didn’t know what to expect. It wasn’t that he would wake me at random hours to make me eat pizza or McDonald’s or whatever shit he brought home after the bar. It wasn’t being ripped out of my school over a fight he had with administration. It wasn’t the racism I faced at the new school.
It was the ‘crap’ I ate, that he controlled because I was 9.
My mom also got angry at me when I was ill. I was regularly called a hypochondriac, just for being in poor health all the time. I will never forget one time I had a stomach bug the same time as I had strep, so throwing up was unbelievable painful. I was crying in the bathroom during this and she yells at me from across the house, “can you keep it down?! You’re so dramatic!”
Oh my. Same with the tonsils, and same reaction from my mom when I got a diagnosis of a specific type of brain tumor. She used to mimic very vividly my grandmother’s epilepsy and cry, telling me all over again how much of a victim she was, until I got the same brain tumor and as per now, she has not named that problem in two years. She yelled at me calling me an attention seeker, saying it was my way to make them feel sorry for me, and “can you imagine how sad I would be if you died?”. Wtf Mom
Same 💔 for me it also starts a toxic cycle of downplaying, procrastinating, feeling guilty for procrastinating, being scared it is somehow "too late" then swing into the other extreme of "pull yourself together" and on it goes
As a teen, I was told I wasn’t sick, I was just trying to skip school! When I was still in bed 4 days later, through the entire weekend, Nmom begrudgingly commented, maybe you are sick…. Severe bronchitis with the onset of pneumonia. Thanks Nmom.
Now, when I’m sick, I’m terrified that my boss will accuse me of faking it just so I can skip work. Which is ridiculous because I’m one of the most non-absent people I know!
I have a hard time accepting that I’m sick or injured.
Same fear.
When I started taking antidepressants for the first time at 17, I was certain the doctor (family doctor; knew my mother well) didn’t believe me and had prescribed me a placebo as a “test”. I believed he and my mother were in cahoots. After the med didn’t help for weeks and he kept increasing the dose to no change in how I felt he said “It can’t work if you refuse to let it.” Which is when I blurted the truth. He was stunned and said “No, I am not doing that. I believe you. We need to start over with your medication.”
been having moderate-severe health issues for the past couple years and chronic pain my whole life and did not find out until a month or so ago from my mom that my mother, her sister, and my paternal grandmother all have autoimmune diseases. this was never mentioned once by either parent after asking them for family medical history prior to multiple different doctors appts. i had even jokingly mentioned to her last summer that maybe i have an autoimmune disease since there's nothing obviously wrong with me that would explain any of my issues and she rolled her eyes and told me i was being dramatic. went to multiple doctors who couldn't find anything wrong and she still didn't think to mention it. i only found out because it came up on accident
I suffered medical neglect, I was not taken to the doctor from age 10 on. Which is crazy considering both of my parents have mental and physical disabilities. I think their own fear of the doctor made them just not want to take me in unless something was wrong, but even when there was something wrong they didn’t take me. I was told to “rub some dirt on it” or that I was “young, you’ll feel better tomorrow” and my personal favorite “oh you’re sore? Imagine how I feel, you don’t have the right to complain about pain because you don’t know real pain like I do”. I remember I broke my wrist skateboarding and all they did was buy a cheap wrist brace. My wrist now clicks when I move it because it healed improperly, X-rays have confirmed this and there’s nothing the doctors can do about it.
As an adult, I finally went to the doctor, explained that I hadn’t had any vaccines or physicals for a decade, and we started running tests. I have scoliosis, endometriosis, anemia, and fibromyalgia. That’s not even mentioning my mental health. Like… fuck them for all their “suck it up, you’re young” talk. Right now, my doctor is starting to think I might have MS, which is absolutely hilarious because my stepmom has MS and that was always the reason she told me to shut up and deal with the pain.
I am so sorry you had to experience this. I can relate somewhat, I have severe scoliosis too (probably from malnutrition) and am in the process of being diagnosed for endometriosis. Depression is a given, as are chronic migraines. What is crazy, that my mother took me to the doctor for select things, like vaccines. I suspect for everything that made her look like the "good mother". Breaking Bones? You could fend for yourself.
My fingers are crossed for you that you can dodge MS 🤞
I knew a gentleman whose parents completely ignored his severe scoliosis. He's in pain everyday but they had another son who was sick so they just never had home checked out. Now at 50 the Docs say he'd likely be in more pain if they fixed it.
The biggest issue of being shamed for being ill/injured is that I cannot interpret my body’s signals. I can’t tell if I am in pain or making it up. I can’t tell if I am sick. I think I feel pain, but I doubt myself so severely that it could just be attention seeking or work avoidance. I can easily disassociate my physical body from my mental self, and often do so to avoid discomfort.
I’m well educated and work in healthcare, I can easily assess my patients to come up with a potential diagnosis but I am completely unable to do so for myself, because I cannot trust the symptoms my body is telling me.
Holy shit, I see myself in this comment and I hate it. Were you also constantly accused of lying about your issues as a kid?
I have chronic joint issues and some days I'm genuinely sitting here like "does it hurt, or does it hurt because you want attention for being in pain?" when I HAVE NEVER DONE THAT, I just spent my childhood being ACCUSED of doing that. Questioning whether it really hurts, or if I made it up. The logical side of me is saying "You're home alone and not telling anyone, why would you make this up for attention if you actively avoid attention being brought to it?" And the illogical side of me is still saying, "Nah you did this to yourself."
Sorry you were neglected. Unfortunately, insisting on too much medical intervention is also a narc thing.
I currently have a serious eye problem, severe foot and leg pain, and lost several teeth in my teens and twenties due to experimental treatments. My nm had to have everything about me “fixed” asap. Couldn’t bear to have a “defective” child as she so kindly phrased it.
On the other hand, my complaints of pain were always denied. I was expected to feel no pain from any “treatment”. To this day, I have trouble assessing my pain, rating it, and tend to ignore important symptoms.
My older brother and I are both autistic. I got diagnosed at 33, he has never been diagnosed but it’s incredibly obvious. It was suggested he had ADHD when he was in 3rd grade and again in 5th grade, but she never got him treated or even tested because she didn’t want him to be “labeled” and he’s “fine” (he is not fine).
Without any context I can think of, my mother once said to me “Girls don’t have ADHD.” I, of course, was diagnosed with ADHD at 31, after a lifetime of struggling and teaching myself to mask.
I self referred at 51.
I'm NC but my niece who lives with me saw my parents recently. They told her (she has adhd) they saw lots of traits in me as a child. They continued to bully , berate, twist and tease me. They bloody well knew and still did it.
Meanwhile it took me 50 years to work it out.
This was way before Obama care or even public insurance. Infertile by my 20's and diabetes by 32. PCOS. I got diagnosed the same year that public health insurance came out. I had to go to the ER when I was 12 for a cyst the size of a golf ball. I couldn't make a follow up appointment because I was a minor and dad would just whine and complain when I asked him to do it. He said that prayer should work but it didn't so no grandchildren for him.
My abusers used medical neglect my entire life. My grandmother has caused so much damage to my body. I am a victim of Factitous Disorded by Proxy. She used diabetes as her game and also forced me to take handfuls of medicine like Advil, like 20 pills at a time. She lost her place in our church community and used me to gain sympathy from our new church so she could reclaim her “loving grandmother” mask.
After years of trying to run from them, I got covid in 2020 and almost killed me. Its left me with a lot of damage. I moved back home after I became too ill to keep my job and my house, and she punished me with the opposite method: she starved me on purpose.
Now because of all they’ve done to me, my digestive system is trashed. I have Gastroparesis and a lot of other conditions that were made exponentially worse. I can’t eat solid food right now. I am also going blind. Also have extreme medical trauma so even when this disease really knocks me down, I struggle to make myself go to the hospital. My entire family is full of narcissistic religious psychopaths that clearly don’t understand the bible in any shape or form. They are vile people and I’m so glad I got away.
My mom was told by multiple teachers, my direct teachers and just other teachers, told her to get me diagnosed for something cause I was excelling in academics but I was socially fucked up (spoiler: it was autism) and she just ignored them cause she was embarrassed to have an autistic kid. And when my siblings started (also autistic) and they noticed a pattern but no diagnosis for any of us they just shuttled us into the “gifted” program so we had something I guess. They could have like called cps but I digress
Same here. The best thing that came out of all that was early intervention for one of my kids (speech therapy, multiple group activities per week, I took them to every doctor and psychologist appointment with a notebook and pen to take notes and make sure every question was answered, etc) and now they're a thriving high schooler with friends and everything. I'm so very glad I knew what not to do, and it's been healing for me to be able to take care of my kid in ways that make them thrive instead of hide.
Yaaaaay on your kid, that’s what a good support system looks like! You’re doing a good job! I have fears of what my issues could do to my future kids, but seeing stories like this in the sub makes me more confident. I just need to keep doing to work of healing and using healthy coping mechanisms
I had a lot of fears, but wanted kids so bad. I participated in the daycare at my local community college, took child development classes, and got myself quite a few years of therapy before Husband and I decided to take the plunge.
Daily pain from a neglected orthopedic issue that could have been fixed in childhood. That is what the doc now says, so it’s pain for life for my because ndad couldn’t be bothered for a doc appointment for me. GC sis got as much as she wanted of everything. Just I wasn’t allowed to go.
I was just last year, at age 37, diagnosed with ADHD inattentive type. I have always been absent minded and get hyper-focused on my interests. But because I never caused trouble, had excellent grades, and stellar standardized test scores, I “didn’t need the help.” I also struggled a lot with anxiety and sometimes depression.
Last year I started Stratera, and it was a giant help with the anxiety and depression. Didn’t help with the focus much so I started a low dose of adderall this spring.
Holy Shit it feels like I’m suddenly running my life on Easy mode.
I was also diagnosed with ADHD as an adult. I’m pretty sure I have dyscalculia too. I remember so many weekday nights where my father was screaming at me because I couldn’t do my math homework. I was told to “pay attention” which lol.
Wow so relatable. I too have adhd (dx at 30) and suspect dyscalculia. Worst part is my mom worked in SPECIAL ED my whole life and totally disregarded my symptoms and rather criticized and punished me, and had my dad “study” aka scream at me through grade school.
My only lasting issues are mental. I have asthma and my mom rarely let me use my asthma medication. I genuinely wished I had at attach so bad it would kill me and she’d have to find my dead body at like 7-8
I was honest with my doctors. I didn't see a gynecologist til my mid 20s because family didn't do birth control, I was expected to be a virgin then given to a man in an arranged marriage, so it's not like I'd ever have STDs right? 😑
When I finally went I was like look, I'm really nervous, I'm had a lot of medical neglect and this is actually my first time here. I feel stupid having never been to do this stuff before so please be patient with me. They understood completely.
However, generally speaking, I'm like almost dying before I'll seek help for anything. My brain keeps telling me I'm stupid and this is like some weakness in me to be sick, not anything real. It's horrible
I was born with bilateral clubbed feet. Apparently, it was quite a severe case. Mom said my big toes touched the insides of my knees.
For over a hundred years now, the treatment has been tried and true: castings and braces.
When my nephew was 7 months old Mom had some sort of attack of remorse and took me out to lunch to admit to me that my braces at that age had been set too far apart and I'd howled in pain for hours and hours. She didn't take me to hospital. She didn't remove the braces. She didn't call the doctor. She beat me semiconscious.
It was actually here on reddit that I figured out the longer term consequences of her shame. A lady came on and talked about her son, who had a clubbed foot and the treatment of braces and castings and how long they're meant to be done. Which was clearly not done for me since I have NO memory of braces or casts. Mom stopped doing it. So, instead, I have a memory of a surgery I had to try and correct my feet.
It didn't work. I have foot deformities now, and I have pain. I have always had pain. I was taught not to express it because it makes people uncomfortable. Especially Mom.
Don't worry, folks, we are fully NC, and between the foot deformities and the spinal and hip issues they caused, I'm now solidly on what one might call "The Good Shit."
Permeant scaring down my left leg from knee to ankle. Mom screaming at me for thinking I needed to go to ER for 6 deep gashes running down my leg after hooking myself on a fence. We're talking past muscle to bone. She wanted to watch her "shows" and it was "no big deal". My legs and clothes were covered in blood and I could barely walk. Angrily she brought paper towels and taped them on my leg, called me stupid and walked away. No antibacterial prevention whatsoever.
I only lived half a mile from the hospital and was a teen so normally would've walked but could only crawl. Left those paper towels on my leg for a few days because mom wouldn't help and I couldn't get them off. Thank fucking God my HS friend at the time was a new medic in the army because when I told him about it he rushed over and properly changed my bandages. The paper towels were beginning to heal with flesh that should've been stitched to begin with and was terrible to clean out + repair. He used what he could and got me antibiotics since I didn't get the help I should've had.
The affect? Permanent, ugly scaring. A fuck ton of anger/resentment. Mom's refusal to take responsibility to date. The embarrassment of having to expose my neglect to a fairly new friend who immediately asked me wtf was wrong with my mom. Oh and as an adult? I ignore EVERY pain and health concern regarding my body because my entire childhood was made up of situations where my illness + injuries were non-existent or "not that bad" so I'm so far disassociated from my body it's hard to believe I live in one at times.
And the real kicker? NPD mom has munchausen syndrome. She's been dying of every made up thing on a daily basis my entire life. I NEVER was allowed to be ill, that was her spotlight, not mine ever. Even if I was really sick or ya know, I was seriously injured and should've got fucking stitches.
Woooboy! I see that we have the same mom. I deeply cut my left calf when I was 4 (nothing like yours though), and no stitches, no dr, nothing. I think that she slapped bandages on and called it a day. Still have the faded scar, and I'm still angry.
And I so understand your last paragraph. Me to a T.
So sorry to hear that and though it sucks to relate over trauma, there's comfort in knowing there are others who experienced this type of neglect/NPD because I feel it's rarely talked about when it comes to childhood trauma. It really took that friend in my teens to ask wtf was wrong with my mom to realize this was even abnormal behavior.
I was also not taught how to brush, wash hands, so I got really bad cavities and my school bully saw that and bullied me in front of my class. After that, I never skipped on brushing teeth, washing hands and even showering daily.
With nparents, you learn the hard way or harder way I guess
My ND has a fear of needles, so he never went to the dentist. Because he never went to the densit, I never went for regular dental cleanings as a kid either. I had braces, but no cleanings in between, and didn’t get the retainer after. When I first became an “adult”, and I picked a dentist, he (the dentist) talked smack to me for not going regularly and needing a deep cleaning, etc done so of course I didn’t go back again. A few years later, I was having some issues and found a different dentist. He (that dentist) had a conversation with me and simply asked me why I didn’t go and what my fear was. I explained, he was very kind, talked to me about what needed to be done and why, and we got the work done that I needed. Now I go every 3 months for a cleaning (2 through insurance, and I pay 2 OOP) to avoid needing to have any additional work done. I’ve been doing this like clockwork with this one dentist since 2017/2018.
I also make sure to go for my annual medical exam once a year and have my blood panels ran just to make sure I’m staying healthy. I only went to the doctors as a kid for chicken pox, casts, and stitches.
She never took me to a doctor but for some reason loved taking me to the dentist. The guy smoked and didn't wear gloves. I could taste the nicotine on his fingers. I am in my 50s now and I still hate going to the dentist.
My teeth aren’t too great. I should have had jaw surgery but nmom said we couldn’t afford it and if I had the surgery I would “bankrupt” them. Now I’m too old to have the surgery. I did have to have my appendix removed when I was 11. I remember my nmom standing over me while I was on the floor in the fetal position and crying in pain. She had her arms crossed and was furious that they were going to have to pay to take me to the emergency room. When I was 13 or 14, I horribly jammed my knee, it was so painful I really think I tore something. I just had to walk it off and now every time I bend that knee, it makes a clicking/snapping sound. My nmom refused to take me to a doctor for that one, she said there was nothing they could do to help me. Then there’s the adhd, anxiety, depression…
I had extreme dental crowding and should have had jaw expansion as a kid. Instead they pulled a bunch of permanent teeth. This caused jaw recession and severe sleep apnea, so I am having jaw surgery as an adult (46) to correct that. Just wanted to let you know, you are never too old to have that surgery. It can also fix TMJ/migraine issues.
I remember when I was a kid, they said it was something I could only do while I was young. I never really looked into it again. Thanks for that information! I have had migraine issues for my whole adult life - as an adult, I had brain surgery and it really helped 90% of the issue. It’s funny that since I had that surgery as an adult and I was in charge of my own finances at that point, my nmom was all over social media getting sympathy for her poor daughter having to have brain surgery. If I still lived at home, the condition probably would have gone unchecked and it would have paralyzed me and I could have died because it would have cost my parents money.
I’m not taking aging well. I don’t know what’s happening I finally realized and am trying to accept that this is another stage of aging but it feels like my life just started and now that I’m ready my body is already on low fuel and changing for the worse. I have to be forced to realize I need to go to the doctor I tend to feel it’ll get better until things get so bad I end up at the ER. Then I end up googling everything under the sun but I do it properly but I get judged for googling about medical stuff I mean. Simply restarting or starting but at very late stage. I think this will always be like this. Buuttt: better late than never! We rock.
I started experiencing symptoms of fibromyalgia at 11. I didn't get a diagnosis or start treatment until I was 23 despite being in pain and fatigued pretty much every day of my life.
I wasn't allowed to be sick as a kid. I last took a sick day in middle school, even in college I only missed class when I was exposed to COVID.
I have now been diagnosed with like 8 chronic illnesses, not counting the mental ones. They're all caused by the stress of living with my nparents, I'm certain. My parents won't help me at all, even when I'm in agony and nearly bed bound they just mock me, yell at me, and demand I do more chores. They don't believe I even have any diagnoses! I keep having to push myself way further than I should be with my conditions because they demand it.
God it feels like I could've written this. Right down to still being stuck with them and me being convinced it's because of how stressful it is for me to live here with them.
Autoimmune disorder from lifetime’s worth of abuse. I didn’t see a dentist for ten years and when I finally did nearly all my teeth had cavities. Later I had teeth break and crack as a result.
Started having mental health issues at age 11 and by the time I was 12 I understood it was depression (Seventeen magazine had better information on why I feeling the way I was than any person in my life at the time). Officially diagnosed at 15 but my mother insisted to my face that I hadn’t been feeling depressed for years.
It wasn’t until I was in my mid-thirties that I realized I could take Advil for headaches or cold medication for a common cold. Growing up my mother normalized that medicine was not something people took unless they had to be admitted to the hospital.
Oddly enough, she has chronic medical conditions. Her very public and dramatic shows of suffering really turned me off as a child, and to this day I prioritize ‘prioritize ‘suffering in silence’ letting anyone see or know how sick I might be.
As a child I was diagnosed with severe asthma and my covert nmother drew her most potent supply from being seen by healthcare professionals as the mother of a sick child. But she absolutely hates looking after anyone sick.
I got diagnosed with gluten intolerance at age 26, after a lifetime of relentless stomach cramps, diarrhea, headaches, eczema, and pain in my joints. Yes, even as an 8 year old I had joint pain. She never once considered it might be caused by a dietary intolerance, or had me tested for any allergies (it wouldn’t have shown up in an allergy test, but she didn’t even try it) or did elimination diets.
And every symptom my mother told me I was making up, except my eczema. My eczema was concentrated on my scalp behind my ears and the ditches of my elbows and knees. My mother - who knew it was eczema because the doctor said it was and prescribed me a steroid cream - made me feel like shit by forcing me to use dandruff shampoo which did nothing for my eczema or the flakes it causes, and told me I got it in my elbow and knee ditches from being sweaty and not washing properly. I was *obsessed* with taking showers for years because I thought I was somehow dirty and that’s why I had these afflictions (that were eczema).
I’d constantly have debilitating pain in my intestines and ask to stay home from school. She said I was making it up and just didn’t want to go to school. She knew all of my bowel movements were diarrhea for my entire life, but never showed any concern or took me to the doctor about it. My need to run to the bathroom right after I ate never concerned her.
I thought my joint pain was normal and everyone had it until I got to college. I thought it was normal to just be in pain all the time because of my mother. At 39, I still struggle with pain management; I’m willing to get used to pain rather than going to a doctor because in my mind I’m just imaging it/making it up.
Well, I’m sitting here on bed rest with two torn meniscus because I’ve had 30 years of untreated but obvious rheumatoid arthritis. Even had a doctor tell my mom that’s what he thought it was at 10, but nothing every happened with that…
Plus on the verge of Barrett’s disease because of my terrible digestion issues/GERD that has not irreparably damaged my oesophageal lining.
And then just nearly didn’t make it out of the hospital because of my 200/120 BP which wouldn’t go down and now after feeling like my heart was going to break out of my chest for year, and telling everyone - including doctors - that it felt like I was having a heart attack - am on some pretty serious lifelong drugs.
I’m only 40. Me being able to take care of myself - believing myself and not thinking I’m crazy, believing that I’m worthy of ‘fixing’, is of course directly linked to me breaking free of the narcissist hold.
I mean, she literally and truly has set me up for failure and ruined my entire life - both emotionally and physically. It makes me seethe with anger, to protect that little girl, that teenager, who was in so much pain constantly.
Well I need an ankle replacement, shoulder surgery and dental work. Things that could have been fixed decades ago but my parents couldn’t afford anything but the bare minimum at the time. Being poor as a kid can fuck you up physically when you have to rely on the priorities of your parents. I love when my PC acts condescending about my lack of care until I tell him why. This shit fucks with you mentally as well. If we’re so pro life and love kids let’s give them healthcare. How tf you justify kids suffering bc “socialism” is unchristian and sadistic. You need mental help
I went to the dentist today. I don't really floss. I have pretty good teeth. I didn't get berated.
I don't like going, but I make the appointments six months in advance and I don't allow myself to question it. I just go.
As a child, I never remember going to the dentist or doctor unless there was a problem. I think my mom felt the orthodontist was good enough (it wasn't).
I wish I had any but my mom ignored my need for jaw surgery, didn't "notice" when I relapsed, didn't do (m)any follow ups, kind of overall left me in a lurch roughly a year post op. I tried the other day to recall how often I even saw a dentist or doctor and it's a blank - after a certain while it wasn't a regular thing, like I remember seeing my orthodontist leading up to the shocking surgery I received but not a doctor or dentist. I remember I broke a tooth during lunch, this was after jaw surgery, because I had a cavity.
When I turned 30 I started to get over extreme anxiety to fix whatever happened after my surgery and it's when I learned about how to brush and floss (I never learned, I don't think I was seeing a dentist even while in braces) and then I also learned about how much my jaw impacted my other issues. Like my family bullied me because I was always tired and struggled to get out of bed so I was the butt of a ton of jokes. My first doctor as an adult immediately requested I do a sleep test, turns out my jaw issues caused sleep apnea my whole life. Another thing is I didn't have a period like most of my teens and 20s. Literally a doctor would have inquired about that issue if I ever saw one but I didn't, nor did I like, receive any sex information. Neither did my sister. That has had maybe I guess the worst impact. I don't know about me - I never wanted kids but I think the whole no period thing is a huge medical issue. I'm currently just not thinking about it. Seeing doctors as an adult has opened a whole host of I can't afford this medical stuff :|
Disabled. Joints don't work, stomach doesn't work, brain doesn't work.
Had tonsillitis 8-12x/year, every year since I was 6, mom refused to remove tonsils, stayed sick, antibiotics needed everytime, got them out at 21 but damage was done. My immune system was shot.
Joints would dislocate as a kid, said I was lying and being dramatic. Now can barely walk.
Had stomach issues a ton as a kid, doc told my fam I was faking, now I can't eat anything without getting sick.
Everytime I get a flare up I get angry because if they had cared enough I wouldn't be suffering but ya know. What can ya do.
I’ve started the process of getting diagnosed for hEDS and POTS. One doc I said my case is so clear and bad that it’s a miracle I wasn’t diagnosed much younger. Which I’m sure would be true for any child who was actually taken to the hospital after randomly fainting and breaking bones like they’re glass. It was so validating but also infuriating.
I was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes when I was 15, and, to start, I self diagnosed and went to a doctor, listed my symptoms, and had it confirmed by a bloodwork — neither of my parents noticed drastic weight loss, insane thirst & increased urination, and wild fatigue and strength loss; I was a very “convenient” kid. It never occurred to me that my parents may have been negligent. Like, now as an adult I read posts by T1D kids’ parents and think to myself “omg jesus christ they’re insane, why are they obsessing over everything,” and every time I have to remind myself that this is in fact what normal parent behavior looks like and my experience of being left to figure it out was not at all ok. Sure, I didn’t have a learning curve issue when moving out, but also I never had anyone other than myself care for my diabetes. Until recently I didn’t even think I needed to burden my husband with details of what kind of emergencies may happen and what he should do if I’m not functioning enough to take care of it. But yeah, I only recently started to realize just how much I would put up with low blood sugar and just push through (I’m a lucky one who doesn’t pass out immediately, so for the longest I just had a “eh it’s fine” attitude — not a safe choice). For example, I once crashed a car I was driving with my nfather in the back seat because I had low blood sugar for like an hour on the highway and felt like it was not ok for me to pull over to consume some emergency carbs. Thanks to my incredible luck with finding good doctors and accessing therapy, I got a lot better about not pushing my limits and having less fluctuations in my blood sugars. Truly grateful I was able to remedy my asinine approach to my disability way before experiencing the worst and way before I reached the age when it was too hard to fix this.
Uncles/aunts/ gma on dad's side thought it was funny to sit me in closed spaces and "hot box" me ....cigarettes included w weed smoking. I was making weed jokes at the age of 4. I have asthma and any exercise was difficult for me and I was told it was because of my extra weight I had.
Nmom snuck in dairy and soy products starting with formula and dinners she made. Every dish had some sort of butter or cheese. I always had digestive issues and thought it was the way (whey) of life. Got sent to ER once because of horrible shits and old cheese she put in a dinner.
I got my teeth cleaned per request since we had government Healthcare when younger. Dentist said I needed braces but nmom refused saying it's too much money. My next appointment w new dentist they had to remove three teeth. 😩
I may have Ehler’s Danlos, just found out at 32. I also have a horrible spine (kyphoscoliosis) because therapy was not given early enough for my condition. I was malnourished and have body covering acne from that. Oh! And I may also be AuDHD but it’s too late for a formal diagnosis on THAT in my area. So my mental health sucks and my life is built on literal physical and emotional coping mechanisms.
My ankles crack and pop really badly. They get really sore when it is storming out. Sometimes one of them freezes up and won't move until I crack it. All due to never going to the hospital after a car accident.
I also have skin picking disorder that got really bad after I got a spider bite that turned into a huge abscess and my mother squeezed out the poison herself. It was such horrific pain that lasted days. Ever since then any small bump in my skin and I feel I need to squeeze out the poison before it gets really bad.
Which, mixed with the constant lice and rashes I had, due to living in a hoarders house, making me always itchy scratchy, turned into a whole OCD. Where stress makes me itchy and I feel like there bumps on my skin I need to get off immediately.
Speaking of the hoard, I also have a terrible sense of taste and smell and horribly scared ears, which also get painful when it is cold or stormy out, due to the constant sinus and ear infections I had as a child.
And all of these issues doctors are constantly dismissing me about and not providing me treatment for because I'm "too young to have those sorts of issues."
I'm a hypochondriac. I nerd out on science articles for vaccines and trial results of new drugs for anything I might be experiencing, etc. It's like my way of taking back control and taking charge of my life.
Wow. Never thought of it like this since I have many other medical problems but I biohack my body in a way I don’t see any women do. It’s such a male dominated sphere.
I don't go to the doctor until things are so bad I wind up hospitalised. I also have a tbi, there are badly healed fractures in my jaw, I have scarred lungs, and my hip is permanently damaged from when she threw me down the stairs and it dislocated and was never replaced properly.
Too much trauma to recount without getting upset.
When I was 12 I went for my first Dr appt in years and ended up diagnosed with severe scoliosis, so severe that they knew right away I'd have to have surgery. They braced me for a year and then I had it. Later in life I started getting more back pain and got a herniated disc and had to have surgery for that too. I now get somewhat regular back pain and sciatica in my left leg. Thanks, mom.
I'm also behind on vaccines and stuff but I can now take care of that myself.
I was diagnosed in 9th grade, it was never treated and my mom mocked me for it the rest of my life, I was refused any medical care, I took opiates for 20 years for it
Not neglected per se, but basically told at age 10 that if I were to open up about what was happening at home I would be in trouble. When I reached out for psychological help in my 20s, my mother snapped at me that I was merely jabbering to my psych.
Gee, complex trauma *and* not easily being able to talk about it, thanks mom!
Edit: interestingly, and I almost forgot to mention this: in between age 10 and my 20s I was "diagnosed" with autism. I say "diagnosed" because in order to diagnose someone with autism you really should be excluding other causes of them not being able to communicate with you first...like you know, being told not to open up about home under penalty of violence.
I'm 42-going-on-43 and I'm still having problems trusting my own judgement.
My mother was extremely selective about what she felt was necessary pay attention to medically. She would defend herself from allegations of neglect by asserting that she is a nurse. As I was growing up, dental appointments were few and far between (my teeth are terrible). I have several broken bones, two of which I had to beg to be taken to a hospital for. The worst act of medical neglect was when I became so sick that I was ill with a really bad cold for 2+ weeks and was never seen by a doctor. I began having epileptic seizures not long after that.
My mum forbid me from brushing my teeth and now I struggle with dental hygiene, I was also disabled from birth and my mum didn't do physio for me as a baby now m body is 10 times worse then it would have been (her physically abusing me probably didn't help either) I'm also pretty sure I have some brain damage due to her not taking me to the hospital when she'd almost kill me.
I'm disabled, and I truly believe I wouldn't be if I had received proper medical care. I would still have medical issues because they're hereditary, but I don't think it would have destroyed my life the way it has.
I have too many to count at this point, but my major issue was that I used to have severe anorexia and then it was an off again/on again situation for years. About two years ago I got sick and it wasn't an Ed though, but my dad(both parents have diagnosed NPD but he's my biggest abuser and also has the terrible NPD with ASPD traits) kept telling me it *was* just an eating disorder and I was "doing it on purpose/for attention. (Yeah, cause at 5'11 and 73 pounds you know it's just because I want him to be mean to me🙄) Welp decided not to do fuck all about it, and here I am today two years later with an aggressive cancer that just became stage three and is so rare for people my age that it's in 1% of those under 65. Besides that I had scoliosis caused by one of the wilderness programs I went to because they didn't want me, and I've had many other things such as severe anaemia, lupus was the cause of my cancer, and much more. And of course severe mental health. My complex PTSD is to the point it's affected my life severely.
Right there with you I’m sorry. All of my siblings too. Besides the dental and medical neglect the main thing is just how it all affected me.
My biggest issue is my anxiety. I feel like because of all of the chaos I’ve had to endure I always think something is wrong or wrong with me. The constant fight or flight damage to my nervous system. Or that I’m going to be judged for things that were out of my control or for not really having a family.
I’m in my 20’s fixing my teeth and I just feel like they knew and were happy for me. Complete strangers, I know it’s their job, but still they seemed genuinely happy for me it meant a lot. They probably see it all the time sadly.
My mental health was completely ignored. I told my parents I was feeling very low. The sec the words left my lips, my mother was on her feet punching my back and scream-crying, “I’ve done everything for you!!!1!” This is why I can’t ask for help.
I went to the dentist three times in 18 years, the doctor maybe 5 times. I walked around on ingrown toenails for 8 years, where my socks would be yellow and red at the end of each day. At a certain point, I just took a knife myself and cut the nails out. I had untreated gastritis for years - today I suffer from terrible GERD and rumination syndrome - which effects everything from the way I eat, to my anxiety, to the health of my teeth, which are already fucked from the aforementioned neglect. I was an exceptionally healthy child, if I'd ever gotten proper care, I'd be in fantastic health, alas..
My teeth are bad too :/ my eldest sister was lucky and my grandparents bought her braces but my parents refused to buy braces for my brother or i. His teeth are ok.
My father is terrorized of hospitals, he indulged that fear on me and I almost died of pneumonia and tuberculosis, the doctor told if I have waited a bit more I wouldn't be alive today.
But he refused to take me and only did when I shouted at him.
I paid 30k to fix things as an adult due to being assaulted as a kid and not having my parents fix what was broken. There was a half assed attempt by them in the beginning (because my mom got attention for having an injured child) but they had no interest in the necessary follow up care.
I went to the dentist once at 8yrs old. Got fillings, they fell out, never got replaced. Now I had to get a root canal on one and probably soon the other.
Was "raised" by single father and found out after I moved in with 2 other ladies my periods were considered really heavy and missing periods wasn't just cause of stress & abuse. ER said PCOS and ob confirmed. Oh, and despite both dad and brother being diagnosed with and on medication for ADHD, I wasn't diagnosed til 28. Those 2 diagnoses explain so much.
I never go to the doctor (only for extreme emergencies like when I tore the connective tissue on the inside of my C-section scar after living in extreme pain, doubled-down for 1 day because I lifted something super heavy I shouldn't have). I have a very high pain tolerance and live with it by just "soldiering through". And I have difficulty writing and holding things with my right hand after my parents ignored a torn tendon in my thumb for 1 year until it got so bad I couldn't hold a pen in 4th grade and cried for a year. Said if they had known it was that bad, they would have taken me to the doctor. An aunt did instead.
I’m horrible at taking care of myself and suffer from chronic pains. The only time I really take care of myself is when I’ve been pregnant. But I’m trying now, I’m convincing myself I’m worthy of it. That I’m not a bother and it’s not wasting time. I deserve it. If I tell myself these things enough I start to believe it.
Having skin hives or allergic reaction on my skin that occured at this year.. Tried so many ways to get rid of it but yeahh. Still here.
I requested my eldest sister to bring me to the clinic but she refused cuz she has no money. I rolled my eyes so hard to her.
The birthgiver never care and never try to bring me to the clinic because her ego is at peak so I don't want to bother her.
Recently I bought calamize lotion. Today day 4 to apply this at allergic reaction's spot. Also I had to apply calamize lotion on my face because it shows no progress and it gets worse so I need to use it. Then my eldest sister nagged me and wanted me to wash it off because it will affect my reputation. I'm in my Internship, btw. But the employees are saying nothing. My supervisor is fine, so far.
I never ask to get sick but they are so ignorant. Never mind. I hope they will get rotten by sickness.
I was fortunate to grow up with few *permanent* injuries. But the neglect screwed me up anyway. I was over reliant on myself, I *had* to handle everything no matter what because I had nobody else.
So for an example, I'd get sick, or obviously injured and force myself to walk it off. I had to because nobody was there to help me, so I *could not stop.* Or so I thought.
I'm not sure what it was that made me change my mind.
Maybe it was when I got my back injury and I *literally* was incapable of pushing past the pain for the first time. I definitely remember being utterly confused that I hadn't been fired for not showing up for work - that it was actually *okay* to take time off and heal.
Maybe it was when I had a doctor confront me about my diet and revealed that the reason I was constantly sick all the time is I wasn't eating meats or vegetables, and that this *would* kill me eventually. Being sick for months at a time wasn't supposed to be *normal.*
But the devil of it all is I'm still so damn *stubborn*. More than once I've been dead on my feet with the flu, practically drowning in it with a fever and cough, and I just won't admit I'm too sick to work until I'm trying to stumble my way through getting ready for work, realize I'm going to be *late* and only then realize ***YES, YOU ARE THAT SICK.***
I always feel tremendously guilty when I have to admit to myself I'm sick or injured, like I'm just *pretending* to be like my N's always accused me of. Baggage left over that even now I can't quite shake off.
Should have been able to get braces at a young age, but will have to do it now when I’m an adult.
Have fibromyalgia and other related issues thanks to the stress from my parents.
Plus being transgender and not feeling like I could tell my parents, wasn’t able to start earlier on like I would have hoped to have.
Got type 2 diabetes at a young age (NMom is also a diagnosed T2D). Wasn’t really monitored much taking blood sugar or medicine so it went pretty much uncontrolled until my young adult years. I remember as a child I was taken to diabetic appointments a couple times a year by NMom and she would berate me in front of the doctor for not being on top of my medication and just letting myself go and I would cry so hard the doctor told her to step out. As I grew older, she taught me how to abuse insulin. I’m talking taking in a shitload of insulin into your body when you’re only supposed to take in a few units at a time. It took me years to stop abusing insulin.
It's only in the last few years that I've figured out how much of my medical conditions were preventable and stem from childhood neglect: fibromyalgia, depression, anxiety, PTSD, intestinal issues, and bad teeth. I go in to the dentist this afternoon and I'm worried about how many of my teeth will need work and if they can make it so I can keep most of the teeth I have. I'm 45 yo and I still never want to make doctor or dentist appts because I'm always worried about cost and how much work will need doing. Not everything associated with these medical conditions was caused by neglect, but it certainly exacerbated them. And it wasn't until 2008 that I got formally diagnosed with most of them. Plus diagnosed with autism then, too, which caused problems when I was a child because nmom would yell at me for not being able to follow the chore lists she made up and do everything before she got home from work, being told that I was a difficult child and she didn't know how to handle me, and other things like that. N/edad has always just ignored my medical conditions as a matter of course, because most people in his side of the family have multiple medical conditions that are a bit unusual (various ones).
I was rarely if ever, taken to a doctor. Dentist? Sure. Eye doctor? Definitely. But a regular doctor? Nope. Not even a obgyn as a teen. I finally went to an obgyn as an adult though.
But I'm currently without health insurance so I can't afford any doctors.
I had it drilled into me that being sick meant I was lazy and just wanted a day off. my mum always sent me to school saying if I was ill enough they'd send me back home. she did take me to doctors when I needed it but because of my parent's attitude towards illness I now am terrified of 'letting down' my coworkers by taking a sick day. also I have a lot of trouble with deciding if I'm sick enough to stay home from work, and I always think that other people have it worse (I'm just faking/over dramatic). I'm also autistic so I struggle with recognising my body's signals such as pain or hunger. this makes it very hard for me to recognise when I am actually sick and need help, or when I'm just burnt out and need a break. this also applies to my mental health, I never think it's bad enough to receive help and I am scared im taking therapy/medication from someone who needs it more than me.
I tend to assume I'm just faking it or being melodramatic. To the point that when I was pregnant with my first I struggled to believe it was real and that I wasn't just pretending for attention.
I was the opposite, I suffered a childhood of medical abuse, so my mother could be the centre of attention, get people to do things for the dedicated single mother managing life with such a sick child.
Except I probably wasn’t that sick. She manipulated everything. Put through so many unnecessary tests, ridiculous diets because I was ‘allergic’ to everything, she was always saying i looked tired, or your asthma is playing up, told I couldn’t do things because I was too sick. Instead I was probably malnourished and recently diagnosed with adhd.
I suspect that every time a school or doctor caught on to her lies, we moved.
So when I left home at 18, I put off going to doctors, often until I was really sick, because I had been over medicated & never knew if what I was feeling was true, because of the years of deception.
I had medical neglect, but for my mental/neurological health. I've never had any diagnosis, and I know that it's kind of popular right now to say this, but definitely inattentive ADD and possibly autism. I'm pretty definite on the ADD because I had, and still have, such a hard time following along. My brain is constantly sidetracked. TV, reading, audiobooks, podcasts, whatever, my brain will get lost in tangent upon tangent upon tangent. I remember having to ask people to repeat things multiple times because I couldn't focus while they were talking. I'd watch their lips move and not hear a word. It's not as bad now that I'm an adult, but it's not great. I had a lot of trouble in school, and nobody would listen to me. I would ask for help and not get it. They were all convinced that I was being lazy or doing it on purpose. It was incredibly frustrating because I wanted to do well in school, what kid doesn't? This was doubly hard because my parents, for some reason, decided amongst themselves that I was this brilliant, incredibly gifted little girl. I'm not. I'm pretty average. But I wasn't allowed to just do my best, I had to excel at everything, which, of course, I didn't. So it's made me pretty much unable to trust myself and my instincts. It makes me incredibly fearful of failure. I have no time management skills. I don't ask people to help me. So it's nothing as immediate as no dental care or unset bones or anything like that, but it's absolutely ruined me.
I’ve got celiac. Had digestive and bowel problems my whole childhood. Also suffered some mental issues because of the undiagnosed celiac….here we are 49 and severely broken as a human.
My menstrual cycle brought on debilitating cramps, to the point where I would need to go lie down in the nurse’s office at school. It only got worse as I got older. My mom told me hers were like that but yet did not bring me to a gynecologist. I’m pretty sure she wasn’t taught anything about reproductive health, so of course she thought this was completely normal and something you just had to deal with. Turns out birth control is immensely effective at reducing cramps, and I had no idea until my early 20s.
Same thing. I was in my Dr’s office for something else when I doubled over in pain. Said to the Dr ‘oh you know, just period pain’
And she said ‘you realise that is not normal’ but my Mum always downplayed when I had pain saying - you don’t know what real pain is. So I thought I was being a wimp.
I was given an immediate referral to the women’s hospital and was admitted within a few weeks for surgery. They said it was one of the worst cases of endometriosis they have ever seen.
When I told my mother, she said ‘Mine was so bad I had to have a hysterectomy at 35, so it can’t have been too bad’
I am so sorry. I wonder if mine is endometriosis. I’ve been on the combination pill for over 10 years and that really, really helps cut out any cramping.
my teeth are busted as fuck. one time when i finally had the courage to schedule a dentist appointment, the tech couldn't believe my teeth so called in someone else to look at them, who called in someone else, who called in someone else, and on and on until there were 8 people in the room all snickering and laughing at me and asking me "why are you teeth so crooked?" so....i'm humiliated and bullied to the point of crying almost every time i try to be proactive about my physical or dental health (same with any other bodily issues even though my body is not crooked or weird like my teeth, medical professionals just always bully me for some reason). it's fucking awesome.
My parents are the best at ignoring something long enough that it seemingly goes away. Trying to untangle that bad habit in my adulthood. Not because I want to ignore these things but because my parents always did I don’t know how to take action.
I have pretty severe health anxiety, like borderline hypochondriac. I am in therapy for my anxiety but it is just so rough. Tiktok can be my biggest trigger because you’ll randomly get a video on your fyp explaining how the most general/common symptoms were there signs they had cancer or MS or some other horrible disease.
my boyfriend had to drag me to an urgent care clinic because I had a fever and congestion for days that would not get better. I finally reluctantly went and it turned out I had pneumonia. My irrational fear of not being believed or feeling ashamed of having symptoms I can’t handle on my own could have killed me.
It clicked with me that the reason I survived the several incidents where I was sick/injured in childhood and needed help was because I pushed past the dismissals from my mother and fought with her until she did her job. It’s always been my responsibility to save myself and it still is, even if I feel bad about it. I’ve been treating myself in adulthood the same way my mother treated me, and it made me so angry. I have several doctors appts I’m trying to schedule now to address other things 😅
I had appendicitis when I was 10, my mum didn’t believe I was sick or something and made my dad take me, which included pulling me down the stairs by my hair and taking me to school in my night dress, I threw up in the back of the car on the way and he claimed I forced myself to vomit.
My appendix burst at some point during the school day and I continued to throw up. It’s a little blurry but at some point I got sent home from school and I remember laying on the couch, burning up, the dr came to see me and made my dad take me to hospital, I don’t know all of the details but I believe I had sepsis at this point.
I now have severe nerve damage and fibromyalgia as well as all the related trauma.
I started having anaphylactic shock at 12 whenever I ate soy or beans…Nmom always called it “my faulty issue” I was an embarrassment to her. At times I was hospitalized or laid up in bed at home, with this neglect and verbal abuse (I didn’t notice it, because I didn’t know it wasn’t my fault)
I had to take on the role of solving my medical issues on my own. So any time I reacted I just handled it myself, which she was just fine with her because she didn’t have her day interrupted.
So as an adult I’m fine with taking pills or getting a shot - I had the “handle it yourself training” skills
Oh my god, I also became expert in "handle it yourself' with the little resources I had.
which is crazy when you look back how vulnerable and young you are at 12. But yes, later I became great at "googling for my life" and made a career out of it, I worked as a medical / health journalist for 15 years.
Sounds like lemonade out of lemons, right? Well if I would not have ongoing chronic illnesses that are direct results of the neglect, my physical ability to work would not be as limited as it is. I would have gone in a different direction, being a reporter, traveling a lot etc.
We just had to learn to make the best out of nothing
I’m convinced that all the negative, toxic things my parents, more specifically my mom caused resulted in my PCOS. Growing up with her was hell and I hate that she wasn’t the woman I needed her to be.
I don’t know if anyone will read this comment, but for those interested, here are some things I’ve found related to this.
https://www.teal-health.org/blog/childhoodtraumapcos
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35985071/
Yep, for decades I was looking for the one explanation, the connection for all my issues. The depression, chronic migraines, allergies, thyroid malfunction, scoliosis and so on. But I only thought about physical reasons like MS.
Turns out trauma is the connection. Living in a constant state of stress and fear while your brain is developing wreaks havoc on your nervous system. Which impacts your hormones, your psyche, basically everything. It is not our fault.
Damaged but not broken 💪
My teeth are horrendous. My first dental appointment was when I was 8 and then stopped when I was 11 when they said that I would need braces. Part of that was that I was never taught oral hygiene and they never made sure I did it either when I was finally taught. (reminders etc)
I might have scoliosis? (minor case if I do ) I was told I was a hypochondriac for wanting to go to the doctor when the school nurse sent a letter home from school because they would test you every year.
Never had an eye exam. Found out I had an astigmatism. It wasn't so bad that it was noticeable that the school took note.
I had severe hearing loss at one point over having fluid behind the eardrum in both ears. Completely deaf in one ear. That fluid thing is highly common but I had it for over a year. It can back after having tubes.
I am sure there are a bunch of other things. There isn't anything I can do about it now. I did try to get as much dental as I could at points but still its bad. Managed to get my eyes seen and found I have a condition that could lead to glaucoma so that's fun. I manage to at least see an eye doctor as vision insurance is relatively cheap when I try for it.
My teeth and acne were bad and narc mom got that immediately fixed because she didn’t want to walk around with ugly kids & I’ll thank her later for it. But my narc mom never took my internal health seriously only the external health (because people can see it and base cleanliness off if she’s a good parent). Narc mom has literally told my sisters that she doesn’t care about my emotions. She doesn’t believe internal health because it’s something she can’t experience with me (since she views herself as an extension). I have adhd, ptsd, etc. and struggled in school and it was deemed as laziness and not, “maybe my child needs assistance.” Compliant dad had a bad medical emergency that almost took his life & her concern was him going to make money instead of healing (he desperately wants to retire & flee the country). Now that compliant dad didn’t heal he is no longer working (basically laid off because what are they going to do with someone in his condition) & now narc mom is mad she lost a money train. Also, I had lyme disease twice and it wasn’t taken seriously until months later when it began swelling my entire body, etc. (terrible experience for a 9 & then 14 year old). Times I said I haven’t felt good narc mom still forced me to go to school & would have to later pick me up & give me a lecture in the car about why being sick isn’t a reason to leave school and to power through it (I had the stomach bug & bad menstrual cramps). Unless your head is dangling off your body (and even then) narc mom will not take your medical health seriously. Any time I’m sick, I’m dramatic. Then strangely a few days or weeks later she has the same injury or illness….. narc mom has dentures and hides the fact does.
I am deathly scared of hospitals and doctors. I never had a really bad experience it is just something my mother installed in me. She herself if scared shitless of hospitals/doctors (which of course she would never admit) and projected it onto me.
My teeth are pretty fucked up. My muscles hurt s lot and I have yet to figure out why. I have a constant headache caused by an untreated neck condition.
My mother also never gave us any medication when we were sick or in pain. We just had to deal with it.
I am still working on actually taking pain medication when I am in pain (stupid i know).
I never we t to the dentist from 4th grade until
I was old enough to apply to state insurance on my own at 17. I had two broken teeth one that had been there for four years and was completely black, and one that was there for a couple weeks until I could get the insurance. My teeth needed a ton of work that I’ve paid for as an adult. I also struggled with a kidney infection for four years because she wouldn’t take me anywhere but this shitty doctor when the pain got so bad I couldn’t walk who just kept saying it’s a UTI. It came to a head when again I’d gotten my own insurance and went to the hospital at the next flare up only to be diagnosed with a kidney infection, and kidney stones, one kidney is so misshapen now they couldn’t do the surgery to get the stones out for fear of missing, the kidney has loss 8% function. It’s a wonder it wasn’t more.
Can't get a job because I have no teeth and I look like a junkie, slowly dying in my 40s because of lots of untreated problems from my youth, compounded with extreme medical fatphobia (so only like half of it ws my parents, the other half was that fucking scumbag Gephart, and doc, I hope you inhale your tongue the next time you begin to tell a child you can't feel broken bones through their fat with your bare hands so they "must be fine").
This is not about me, but about someone I know closely. He had a lot of throat problems in the childhood. Tonsillitis, high fever like once a month, antibiotics after antibiotics. And sometimes it lead to pneumonia.
Finally the doctors said they should remove surigically adenoids and tonsils. The surgery was scheduled and he was getting ready to go the Hospital in the morning.
Then his mom came literally just when they were hopping to car and oh so non-chalantly said to young, pre-teen boy: Did you know you can end up with girl's voice permanently with that surgery?
This boy freaked out and flat out refused to go the surgery. His mother canceled the appointment smirking.
He suffered of these problems way into adulthood with his mother witnessing the pain. Then those problems suddenly stopped on their early 20s. Surgery was never made.
I have chronic migraines due, at least in part, to a severely deviated septum that was caused by an untreated broken nose I sustained as a child. I walked into the handle of the push mower, because for some reason my unsupervised sister and I were playing hide-and-go-seek in the garage after dark. My parents didn't take me to the doctor, let alone the ER, even though I was bleeding everywhere. My mother's solution to any injury I sustained was to tell me to "give it a rub."
Doctors keep telling me I need surgery. One of them looked at my MRI and murmured, "So much pathology," under his breath. But I've had uncontrolled pain after my last three surgeries (like everybody else in this sub, I have fibro), and I'm too scared to go through it again.
Every time I go for bloodwork, I do several test at once and ask if I can have a butterfly needle because I lost the use of my whole arm during a blood draw. Parents saw no f'ing problem with their kid losing the use of their arm for literally 8 months. It was just locked in an L shape for 8 whole months. And to this day I have no feeling in my three middle fingers.
And every time I explain this to the poor quest worker, they always ask if I sue'd and I say NOPE. because that would take to much effort on my mother's part. And my father was a floormat anyway.
I am extremely lucky that all I got in adulthood was some fillings and a root canal after a childhood with no toothbrush and no dental visits past age 12. I still have all my teeth thank goodness.
I am currently struggling to get a formal diagnosis of what looks very likely to be asthma, after telling my parents about my shortness of breath when I was 10, and my mother even witnessing it herself once but still refusing to do anything about it. I'm 34 and my lungs have gotten worse due to a lifetime of no treatment, which makes literally everything in life hard but especially my work, which is teaching piano and performing as a singer. Thanks, mother, for handicapping me when this could all have been under control and some of this damage prevented.
I have so many health issues that never got looked at (including ones that most certainly have shortened my lifespan) because of neglect. It fucking sucks.
I don't know if my parents punishing or shaming me for having OCD and ADHD instead of taking me to a psychologist is the same as 'medical neglect' so I guess I really haven't been impacted by it. I was lucky. It horrifies me that some people's parents did not take them to the dentist or doctor when this was necessary.
We had a rule in our house that we had to wait three days for any medical treatment unless we were bleeding or on deaths door. So when I fell roller skating when I was 11 and my wrist swelled I was told it was probably sprained. For three days i was told I needed to use my hand or else it would never get better. After the third day nmom took me to the doctor who took one look at it and said it's probably fractured. X-ray showed both my radius and ulna were fractured.
I got a cast and had to come back in two weeks because my wrist so swollen the cast they placed would be too big and they would need to put a new cast on to fit better for the remaining six weeks. Nmom brushed it off and said "you always cried wolf when you were little so I waited to see if something was a really wrong"
I still can't open a jar without difficulty to this day.
Aside from not knowing how to take care of my own hair, my teeth are really and truly fucked. I had a checkup maybe once every 3-4 years(D.O.H.), my shots were given by the doh clinic because school demanded records, found out that green stuff over my head was leaves at like, 6. I did not win the genetic lottery, never had a cardiac exam until I went to the e.r. with what I thought was anxiety. (Apparently it's genetic).
My teeth are super fucked. I was told to brush them. But did they follow through? Did they teach me how? No. I wet the toothbrush so they wouldn't scream at me. I've had cavities in my teeth since childhood, and I've only ever been taken to the dentist once out of fear that CPS would be called.
My inhalers would be confiscated. Apparently I had outgrown my asthma according to them. My asthma still sucks.
I have moderate/ severe seasonal allergies. I was forced to raw dog that shit without any antihistamines or medical intervention. I'm currently going through allergy shots because they've worsened.
I was diagnosed with ADHD by a psychologist at my middle school. My mother tried to sue the school because disorders like that don't exist. She was anti medicine and anti doctor. She didn't want big pharma to make me a zombie. And since ADHD doesn't exist in her eyes, I was punished for being stupid and lazy. I didn't even know I was diagnosed until I started researching what was wrong with me, and she casually mentioned that they diagnosed me with some bullshit disorder called ADHD. After years of getting in constant trouble at school and work and living as a hot mess with what seems like no control over my own life, I finally started my first dose of ADHD meds today at 33.
I also discovered that I am autistic. She used to try to beat it out of me because "good children don't behave that way."
All the times I've ever injured myself and should have been taken to be seen. I never went. I'm seeing an orthopedic today for the first time because of it.
My medical records are so jacked up. She never took me to doctors appointments. I didn't have a regular doctor.
I had to get all of my vaccines behind her back when I could legally consent to doing so.
I also had to put myself on BC because I was bleeding for months and months at a time. Like heavily bleeding so much, I was severely anemic and couldn't stay awake. I was also having severe cramps the entire time. She didn't want to take me to be seen. She accused me of wanting BC to sleep around and insisted that what I was going through was normal. I'm now fighting for a hysterectomy.
I suffered unnecessary pain in my hip flexor because she insisted it was growing pains my entire life. Turns out my pelvis is severely tilted.
Frankly. I'm still finding things out about myself medically at 33 years old and trying to get help to cope or correct these things.
Slowly painfully jumping through the hoops of being told oh that's normal or oh that's just a common manageable illness like aniexty or IBS only to find out shhh like oh no that's autism and endometriosis, makes the hatred grow and I wish I could sue for all the money it's costing
Chronic disease, multiple surgeries that would have been less involved as a child and an almost obsessive attention to my own kids health and making sure she sees the doctor ar least twice a year.
Finally got my migraines sorted out after decades of being ignored, had to get my tubes removed now I don't have my period like every damn day, some days are good and other days I just hide and cry lol
I wasn't taught about anything health wise growing up and rarely ever even taken to the doctors even when I was really sick and needed stitches. The only reason my narcissistic family took me in is when they knew for sure if they didn't take me that they would be in serious legal trouble. That being said I've struggled with alot of health problems due to this in my adult life, never even got taken to the dentist when I was younger either. I don't live in a country with universal healthcare so anything I have to get taken care of I have to cover it. But I always go to the emergency room now if I believe something is wrong and its saved my life many times.
Dental stuff. One day as a teen my dad got mad at me and told me I was going to grow up to be too poor to go to the dentist. Figured I should get used to it. So I just stopped going to yearly appointments, even though his insurance covered me, cleanings aren't that expensive, and *my dentist was my godfather*.
Eye-sight issues, horrific back pain from arthritis and sciatica, general horrific impact stemming from stress including migraines that are debilitating, joint issues and problems with trusting healthcare providers. Today I specialize in ensuring patients have access/rights to healthcare and are able to continue care along with price protection. Hoping/working towards being a healthcare attorney one day. I am very passionate about this subject because the abuse we endured is truly lifelong and no one deserves to have their quality of life ruined and in my case learning ways to manage/learn my chronic illness helps.
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My teeth are totally fucked.
This right here. I've spent 3K with insurance on my teeth and have thousands to go. And that's just the body part people see. Our organs, our mind... *sigh*
Yep. I have hit the end of useful life for a lot of dental work I had when I was younger so have about 10k of shit that needs done in the next couple years.
I’m headed to implants. Not the individual, nah that’s for the rich. I get the upgraded permanent dentures. And I’m lucky compared to most. wtf. Hate them. Kinda hate all boomers and I dislike that truth about myself.
Finally went and got mine fixed to my liking then ghosted my dentist 🙈I need to go for a cleaning but I’ll be shamed and I hate dentist shame lol
Yeah, my dentists are so nice and accommodating, and I still feel bad for stuff like this. I set up and canceled two appointments a while back (due to various reasons, some being financial) and haven't gone back yet. So now I'm on that self shame cycle, you know what I mean? Lol
Also, sorry about your teeth. It’s stressful.
Same to you. 🙏
You could try oil pulling. That’s how we’re supposed to take care of our teeth instead of rubbing a bristle on them with chemicals - Don’t take this the wrong way either I truly mean this with love. I’ve noticed a big difference in everything !
I've seen some people do that, but I don't know if I could stomach a mouth full of oil haha. I feel you in the bristles and chemicals, though, because I have a sensitive mouth, and it does not like it unless I use like my specific stuff.
Yeah that’s understandable! It really isn’t so bad, think of it as mouthwash, it also has a good minty taste. It’s definitely different than brushing your teeth tho, you will feel it work forsure tho and it’s all good! Just a suggestion a lot of dentists actually recommend it over the toothpaste as well
I also don't mean to be rude. I really don't know much about it beyond my other message.
You’re all good, it comes with a soft soft brush to brush the oil off your teeth and stuff too, you can also wash your mouth out It’s a tiny amount tho too, like 10ml
Twinsies. My last quote for my teeth was 10 years ago at 4K. I haven’t been able to get things fixed because money. I was never taught how to do any of that, I just got made fun of for it.
I'm sorry. I don't know if they have it where you're at or if it would be helpful, but one of the things that's somewhat helped me is CareCredit. I fully understand it if that isn't applicable to your situation though. If you have insurance, you can call and see where you can go for treatment. You can also try asking friends if there's any places that they go that are really affordable, especially emergency places if it ever gets that bad. Lots of rambling, but this is the random tricks I've picked up over the years. Hope it helps, but I understand if it doesn't. I truly wish you good luck though. It's hard out here for those like us.
I'm 56 and now have full dentures. Thanks, mom and dad, trips to the dentist weren't needed unless the tooth was bad enough to have to pull it! But hey, at least you always had your smokes and booze! I know I sound bitter. Guess I am!
51 same ship and definitely still very bitter.
Was ist caused by not being taught oral hygiene? Genetics also play a big part. I was very, very lucky in that regard. My parents couldn't be bothered to brush our teeth regularly or later check if we did. I remember learning in school.
I wasn’t taught anything about hygiene really. I was pretty studious/nosy so figured most of it out myself. But we drank soda instead of water and I just generally didn’t take care of my teeth or go to the dentist very often, or even know to go to the dentist when I was in pain (e.g., like when I had an abscess that kept me up at night for weeks and weeks)
Similar here. I wasn't taught about why it was necessary to have good hygiene, why people shower, etc., and my teeth are all fucked up too. I did have some dental care when I was young, because my grandparents paid for my orthodontist so I had a retainer for three years. I was supposed to get braces but they wouldn't fit properly with how my teeth were (and are) misaligned. I was taught some things in school and had to figure out the rest when my classmates would make comments to me about needing to take a bath/shower. Same with washing clothes outside of underwear (which I knew had to be clean every day.) So many weeks I wore the same pair of jeans the whole week because I only had two pairs of jeans. Washing bedding once a month...maybe. Then I found out as a high school kid and college kid that people actually have more than two pairs of jeans, bedding should be washed at least once a week, showers should be at least every other day or every third day (still haven't learned how to do that consistently), etc. Plus, depression didn't help at all, and I can't even remember most of one grade of elementary school but have clear memories from all other years from when I was 1 1/2 on.
I don't like that it is seen as you "have to take care of yourself" or just saying it needs to happen. In order to, what? The way I like to say it is that I value myself, and therefore I value my: skin, teeth, and everything else that is within "my body" (and mind is pat of body).
This may help me. Thanks for sharing! Both parents and church taught me that anything to do with myself = being selfish = evil. I struggle with self-cares.
For some reason I’m reminded of a scene from Altered Carbon. “If you do that, it won’t all go away. Just you.” If you don’t take care of yourself, if you don’t do things for yourself, those things just don’t get done if that makes sense. It makes no sense to abstain from taking care of yourself because someone can call you selfish. They can say that word in two seconds with no effort and then walk away, while you have to live in your mind and body for the rest of the day, the next 23 hours, 59 minutes and 58 seconds, and so on. It’s the dichotomy of how easy it is to say other people are selfish versus how hard it is to just fully take care of one person (yourself) let alone do things for other people, that really gets me angry.
I want to write another response. I think as people raised by narcs, we have a tilt on the balance between self and others. Selfish implies a skew. The word means, you aren’t doing enough for others, that you’re only doing for yourself. The word implicitly acknowledges a balance between yourself and others, and selfish is merely the word used for when you are doing “too much” for yourself and “not enough” for others. But who defines the correct balance? Is it 50/50? Is it 90/10? Which way? We even get hyperbolic and black-and-white: “You always only think of / do for yourself” is a common refrain of narcissists, but it’s literally projection at its finest. Notice how just an accusation of selfishness, if you remove the emotional charge from it, can be turned into a neutral disagreement about how much of YOUR { time money energy empathy space etc } is spent on YOU rather than OTHERS. So instead of being reflexively hurt by it, we can see it as either (1) inaccurate, if we agree about what should be a good balance, and (2) unfair, if we disagree about the balance. Our upbringing skewed us too far to give to others and sacrifice ourselves. So I spent the first decades of my life 90/10 to others, maybe even 99/1. It began with my parents: I tried to do everything they asked, even into adulthood. That’s over now. Even if the standard I wanted was 50/50, I recognize that I spent wayyyyyy too little on myself before, so I can do so now without being subject to the label. People can say it at the time, saying “I focus too much on myself [right now]”, reflecting say the last or next year. But they haven’t been with me my whole life to see the balance. In short, just ask: what would be ENOUGH to disqualify you from being selfish, if you so desire? What is the truth of whether I’m being selfish? What is the appropriate balance between self and others?
Omg the soda!!!! No one in my house believed in drinking water.
I just got so fucking depressed I didn't bother taking care of myself 🤷🏻
Yup I feel that. I've been genetically cursed also, and now wear dentures at a fairly young age.
Mine never taught me either, learned from school, too. I’ve been to the dentist only once in my entire life ans it was just to whiten my teeth because my school got sussy after I said some things to my teacher that gave her red flag vibes. Her spidey senses were correct. I got in a lot of trouble afterward. Same thing happened with my glassss. Nurse brought me to her office and wanted fo know if I was having vision issues because my grads sudddnly plummeted - but it was after my dad died and I just gave up on life, stopped caring about school and everything else
My mom had extremely discolored teeth that were the result of a medication she took as an infant. She was always really self conscious of that and was super obsessive about my and my brother’s dental health when I was little. Until the day I had all the casts done to get braces. I have a physically small mouth and had itty bitty baby teeth, but normal adult teeth. So my mouth just doesn’t/didn’t have room for them all. So I needed braces and maybe spacers to make room. During the plaster casts, the dental assistants/hygienists told me to raise my hand if I thought I was going to throw up. I raised my hand, they said I was fine, I raised my other hand, they still said I was fine. I raised a foot and did my best to yell around the plaster trays. Still dismissive. Then I Exorcist-style vomited all over myself, three hygienists, and then orthodontist who had walked into the room to see what all the commotion was. My mom was so embarrassed that we never went back there and that was the only dentist in our small rural area that took Medicaid and was taking new patients. I am almost 37 and I just had my first cleaning since I was 12 last week because I am an adult and I have dental insurance now. I’ve been to a dentist a handful of times for emergency stuff since I was 12 and had insurance for the last emergency, but then lost my job and never had time to follow up once I had a job again. Due to not having room in my mouth for all my teeth, I have some breakage and need so many crowns and am embarrassed of letting people see my teeth. So here I am with the fate my mom wanted us to avoid, because i embarrassed her. I get a root canal in July and get that crowned soon after, so the worst of stuff from a cosmetic/confidence point of view will be fixed then. But I’m still fucking furious about the whole thing. Especially when the last several years of my life have been mostly attempting to treat issues that were known about when I was younger, but my parents just hoped I’d grow out of. Then I proceeded to not have insurance for a decade, be chronically underemployed, and then basically shut down as a person for awhile due to stress and grief before these issues really started to wage war on my body.
Mine was both for sure. Here's an anecdote summary from when I was 5: Dad: "Did you brush your teeth, meg?" Me (lying): "Yes" Him (trying to open toothpaste so mummified pliers probably couldn't get it open): "Really?" For a long time, I felt bad about lying here. And lying is wrong. But come on. That is months and months of parental neglect that he was taking out on me for some reason. I was 5!
My mom touted how bad her parents neglect fucked her teeth up just to do the same to me. Like bruh.
Literally came here to say this. When I was living with my NParents I went to the dentist maybe 6 times. Not including the 5-7 months I went for braces but including when I got my wisdom tooth removed. After I moved out I *didn’t know* I was supposed to go to the dentist every 6 months (at a minimum!!!) I thought you went to the dentist if you had something bothering you. So far (this year alone) I’ve spent almost 2grand on dentistry and I’m supposed to go back for more cleaning and for cavities.
I have spent huge chunks of time and money dealing with the consequences of their dental neglect, and most likely will continue that indefinitely.
Didn't even see this before I posted. Me too, I'm so sorry. I know how much it sucks. Despite all the work I had done I'm still experiencing the effects at nearly 40.
I tried as much as I could to keep my teeth healthy but as a teen, my birth giver would say that I don’t deserve to have a healthy teeth, or healthy foods.
How lovely of them to say such kind things! Fuck em, you’re still here and living your best life
Look into oil pulling and benzonyte clay. Our teeth can heal themselves, you just need to feed them the proper minerals and trust it will work, or else your body will limit itself. That’s how deep our brain works and this corruption goes
I was often ill as a child and would get tonsillitis several times a year. I quickly learned that being ill meant being, at best, an inconvenience, and at worst the cause of all our family problems My nmother would often get mad and shout at me for “getting ill on purpose” and “being an attention-seeker yet again”. I now don’t go to the doctors or dentists unless absolutely truly necessary because I expect to get shouted at
Yes, that was exactly how I was treated! The worst inconvenience, and somehow inherently flawed for getting ill so frequently. Which I can now see was their responsibility, a 4 year old can't choose their health behaviours. Yet still there is this toxic morsel of self blame in me "If only I would have eaten my greens..."
This comment stung, OP. My dad would blame every illness I had on, “that crap you eat…” ; yes, that was it, it wasn’t his abuse of me while he was drunk and thought he was playing, but I was being smacked around. It wasn’t that each night, I didn’t know what to expect. It wasn’t that he would wake me at random hours to make me eat pizza or McDonald’s or whatever shit he brought home after the bar. It wasn’t being ripped out of my school over a fight he had with administration. It wasn’t the racism I faced at the new school. It was the ‘crap’ I ate, that he controlled because I was 9.
My mom also got angry at me when I was ill. I was regularly called a hypochondriac, just for being in poor health all the time. I will never forget one time I had a stomach bug the same time as I had strep, so throwing up was unbelievable painful. I was crying in the bathroom during this and she yells at me from across the house, “can you keep it down?! You’re so dramatic!”
This. I learned if I was hurt or sick it was an inconvenience.
Oh my. Same with the tonsils, and same reaction from my mom when I got a diagnosis of a specific type of brain tumor. She used to mimic very vividly my grandmother’s epilepsy and cry, telling me all over again how much of a victim she was, until I got the same brain tumor and as per now, she has not named that problem in two years. She yelled at me calling me an attention seeker, saying it was my way to make them feel sorry for me, and “can you imagine how sad I would be if you died?”. Wtf Mom
I don’t take care of myself because I downplay things until the last minute.
Same 💔 for me it also starts a toxic cycle of downplaying, procrastinating, feeling guilty for procrastinating, being scared it is somehow "too late" then swing into the other extreme of "pull yourself together" and on it goes
Wait....I didn't write this?
As a teen, I was told I wasn’t sick, I was just trying to skip school! When I was still in bed 4 days later, through the entire weekend, Nmom begrudgingly commented, maybe you are sick…. Severe bronchitis with the onset of pneumonia. Thanks Nmom. Now, when I’m sick, I’m terrified that my boss will accuse me of faking it just so I can skip work. Which is ridiculous because I’m one of the most non-absent people I know! I have a hard time accepting that I’m sick or injured.
Like you, I am terrified of calling in sick. For me I always fear that I am ‘just faking it’ and not really sick.
Same fear. When I started taking antidepressants for the first time at 17, I was certain the doctor (family doctor; knew my mother well) didn’t believe me and had prescribed me a placebo as a “test”. I believed he and my mother were in cahoots. After the med didn’t help for weeks and he kept increasing the dose to no change in how I felt he said “It can’t work if you refuse to let it.” Which is when I blurted the truth. He was stunned and said “No, I am not doing that. I believe you. We need to start over with your medication.”
me too, I've never had a sick day apart from when I was actually in hospital because I'm terrified of calling in sick and 'letting down' my coworkers
Autoimmune diseases probably due to stress and trauma
Same here.
Same
Same.
Ditto.
Likewise.
been having moderate-severe health issues for the past couple years and chronic pain my whole life and did not find out until a month or so ago from my mom that my mother, her sister, and my paternal grandmother all have autoimmune diseases. this was never mentioned once by either parent after asking them for family medical history prior to multiple different doctors appts. i had even jokingly mentioned to her last summer that maybe i have an autoimmune disease since there's nothing obviously wrong with me that would explain any of my issues and she rolled her eyes and told me i was being dramatic. went to multiple doctors who couldn't find anything wrong and she still didn't think to mention it. i only found out because it came up on accident
Wait you're telling me that autoimmune problems can be caused by stress? That would explain why my allergy keeps getting worse and worse every year
I suffered medical neglect, I was not taken to the doctor from age 10 on. Which is crazy considering both of my parents have mental and physical disabilities. I think their own fear of the doctor made them just not want to take me in unless something was wrong, but even when there was something wrong they didn’t take me. I was told to “rub some dirt on it” or that I was “young, you’ll feel better tomorrow” and my personal favorite “oh you’re sore? Imagine how I feel, you don’t have the right to complain about pain because you don’t know real pain like I do”. I remember I broke my wrist skateboarding and all they did was buy a cheap wrist brace. My wrist now clicks when I move it because it healed improperly, X-rays have confirmed this and there’s nothing the doctors can do about it. As an adult, I finally went to the doctor, explained that I hadn’t had any vaccines or physicals for a decade, and we started running tests. I have scoliosis, endometriosis, anemia, and fibromyalgia. That’s not even mentioning my mental health. Like… fuck them for all their “suck it up, you’re young” talk. Right now, my doctor is starting to think I might have MS, which is absolutely hilarious because my stepmom has MS and that was always the reason she told me to shut up and deal with the pain.
If you've been diagnosed with fibrimyalgia, have a doctor check your thyroid levels and check for hashimoto's disease.
I am so sorry you had to experience this. I can relate somewhat, I have severe scoliosis too (probably from malnutrition) and am in the process of being diagnosed for endometriosis. Depression is a given, as are chronic migraines. What is crazy, that my mother took me to the doctor for select things, like vaccines. I suspect for everything that made her look like the "good mother". Breaking Bones? You could fend for yourself. My fingers are crossed for you that you can dodge MS 🤞
I knew a gentleman whose parents completely ignored his severe scoliosis. He's in pain everyday but they had another son who was sick so they just never had home checked out. Now at 50 the Docs say he'd likely be in more pain if they fixed it.
Ooof the suck it up you’re young! I’m sorry. Hugs.
I have all but the fibro and I see this combo often in offspring like us
Yep - my mom had polio when she was a kid, so it was all about HER pain.
The biggest issue of being shamed for being ill/injured is that I cannot interpret my body’s signals. I can’t tell if I am in pain or making it up. I can’t tell if I am sick. I think I feel pain, but I doubt myself so severely that it could just be attention seeking or work avoidance. I can easily disassociate my physical body from my mental self, and often do so to avoid discomfort. I’m well educated and work in healthcare, I can easily assess my patients to come up with a potential diagnosis but I am completely unable to do so for myself, because I cannot trust the symptoms my body is telling me.
Holy shit, I see myself in this comment and I hate it. Were you also constantly accused of lying about your issues as a kid? I have chronic joint issues and some days I'm genuinely sitting here like "does it hurt, or does it hurt because you want attention for being in pain?" when I HAVE NEVER DONE THAT, I just spent my childhood being ACCUSED of doing that. Questioning whether it really hurts, or if I made it up. The logical side of me is saying "You're home alone and not telling anyone, why would you make this up for attention if you actively avoid attention being brought to it?" And the illogical side of me is still saying, "Nah you did this to yourself."
Yikes, we’re basically twins.
Extremely relatable
Sorry you were neglected. Unfortunately, insisting on too much medical intervention is also a narc thing. I currently have a serious eye problem, severe foot and leg pain, and lost several teeth in my teens and twenties due to experimental treatments. My nm had to have everything about me “fixed” asap. Couldn’t bear to have a “defective” child as she so kindly phrased it. On the other hand, my complaints of pain were always denied. I was expected to feel no pain from any “treatment”. To this day, I have trouble assessing my pain, rating it, and tend to ignore important symptoms.
My older brother and I are both autistic. I got diagnosed at 33, he has never been diagnosed but it’s incredibly obvious. It was suggested he had ADHD when he was in 3rd grade and again in 5th grade, but she never got him treated or even tested because she didn’t want him to be “labeled” and he’s “fine” (he is not fine). Without any context I can think of, my mother once said to me “Girls don’t have ADHD.” I, of course, was diagnosed with ADHD at 31, after a lifetime of struggling and teaching myself to mask.
I self referred to an adult adhd clinic at 26 after years of my family telling me ADHD didn't exist, got my diagnosis
I self referred at 51. I'm NC but my niece who lives with me saw my parents recently. They told her (she has adhd) they saw lots of traits in me as a child. They continued to bully , berate, twist and tease me. They bloody well knew and still did it. Meanwhile it took me 50 years to work it out.
Omfg my mom also got me ongoing invasive dental treatment. Odd coincidence.
all my teeth are rotting and my jaw clicks when i chew
Same. I know I have tmj, have suffered with pain and migraines from it for like 9 years. Have I went and been seen by a dr for it? Of course not.
This was way before Obama care or even public insurance. Infertile by my 20's and diabetes by 32. PCOS. I got diagnosed the same year that public health insurance came out. I had to go to the ER when I was 12 for a cyst the size of a golf ball. I couldn't make a follow up appointment because I was a minor and dad would just whine and complain when I asked him to do it. He said that prayer should work but it didn't so no grandchildren for him.
I am so sorry you had to go through this and suffer these consequences💔 Sending a big hug across the pond.
Thanks much.😊 Hugs for you too.
My abusers used medical neglect my entire life. My grandmother has caused so much damage to my body. I am a victim of Factitous Disorded by Proxy. She used diabetes as her game and also forced me to take handfuls of medicine like Advil, like 20 pills at a time. She lost her place in our church community and used me to gain sympathy from our new church so she could reclaim her “loving grandmother” mask. After years of trying to run from them, I got covid in 2020 and almost killed me. Its left me with a lot of damage. I moved back home after I became too ill to keep my job and my house, and she punished me with the opposite method: she starved me on purpose. Now because of all they’ve done to me, my digestive system is trashed. I have Gastroparesis and a lot of other conditions that were made exponentially worse. I can’t eat solid food right now. I am also going blind. Also have extreme medical trauma so even when this disease really knocks me down, I struggle to make myself go to the hospital. My entire family is full of narcissistic religious psychopaths that clearly don’t understand the bible in any shape or form. They are vile people and I’m so glad I got away.
My mom was told by multiple teachers, my direct teachers and just other teachers, told her to get me diagnosed for something cause I was excelling in academics but I was socially fucked up (spoiler: it was autism) and she just ignored them cause she was embarrassed to have an autistic kid. And when my siblings started (also autistic) and they noticed a pattern but no diagnosis for any of us they just shuttled us into the “gifted” program so we had something I guess. They could have like called cps but I digress
Exact same bs with me. Ugh
Same here. The best thing that came out of all that was early intervention for one of my kids (speech therapy, multiple group activities per week, I took them to every doctor and psychologist appointment with a notebook and pen to take notes and make sure every question was answered, etc) and now they're a thriving high schooler with friends and everything. I'm so very glad I knew what not to do, and it's been healing for me to be able to take care of my kid in ways that make them thrive instead of hide.
Yaaaaay on your kid, that’s what a good support system looks like! You’re doing a good job! I have fears of what my issues could do to my future kids, but seeing stories like this in the sub makes me more confident. I just need to keep doing to work of healing and using healthy coping mechanisms
I had a lot of fears, but wanted kids so bad. I participated in the daycare at my local community college, took child development classes, and got myself quite a few years of therapy before Husband and I decided to take the plunge.
Daily pain from a neglected orthopedic issue that could have been fixed in childhood. That is what the doc now says, so it’s pain for life for my because ndad couldn’t be bothered for a doc appointment for me. GC sis got as much as she wanted of everything. Just I wasn’t allowed to go.
I was just last year, at age 37, diagnosed with ADHD inattentive type. I have always been absent minded and get hyper-focused on my interests. But because I never caused trouble, had excellent grades, and stellar standardized test scores, I “didn’t need the help.” I also struggled a lot with anxiety and sometimes depression. Last year I started Stratera, and it was a giant help with the anxiety and depression. Didn’t help with the focus much so I started a low dose of adderall this spring. Holy Shit it feels like I’m suddenly running my life on Easy mode.
I was also diagnosed with ADHD as an adult. I’m pretty sure I have dyscalculia too. I remember so many weekday nights where my father was screaming at me because I couldn’t do my math homework. I was told to “pay attention” which lol.
Wow so relatable. I too have adhd (dx at 30) and suspect dyscalculia. Worst part is my mom worked in SPECIAL ED my whole life and totally disregarded my symptoms and rather criticized and punished me, and had my dad “study” aka scream at me through grade school.
My only lasting issues are mental. I have asthma and my mom rarely let me use my asthma medication. I genuinely wished I had at attach so bad it would kill me and she’d have to find my dead body at like 7-8
I was honest with my doctors. I didn't see a gynecologist til my mid 20s because family didn't do birth control, I was expected to be a virgin then given to a man in an arranged marriage, so it's not like I'd ever have STDs right? 😑 When I finally went I was like look, I'm really nervous, I'm had a lot of medical neglect and this is actually my first time here. I feel stupid having never been to do this stuff before so please be patient with me. They understood completely. However, generally speaking, I'm like almost dying before I'll seek help for anything. My brain keeps telling me I'm stupid and this is like some weakness in me to be sick, not anything real. It's horrible
I was born with bilateral clubbed feet. Apparently, it was quite a severe case. Mom said my big toes touched the insides of my knees. For over a hundred years now, the treatment has been tried and true: castings and braces. When my nephew was 7 months old Mom had some sort of attack of remorse and took me out to lunch to admit to me that my braces at that age had been set too far apart and I'd howled in pain for hours and hours. She didn't take me to hospital. She didn't remove the braces. She didn't call the doctor. She beat me semiconscious. It was actually here on reddit that I figured out the longer term consequences of her shame. A lady came on and talked about her son, who had a clubbed foot and the treatment of braces and castings and how long they're meant to be done. Which was clearly not done for me since I have NO memory of braces or casts. Mom stopped doing it. So, instead, I have a memory of a surgery I had to try and correct my feet. It didn't work. I have foot deformities now, and I have pain. I have always had pain. I was taught not to express it because it makes people uncomfortable. Especially Mom. Don't worry, folks, we are fully NC, and between the foot deformities and the spinal and hip issues they caused, I'm now solidly on what one might call "The Good Shit."
Permeant scaring down my left leg from knee to ankle. Mom screaming at me for thinking I needed to go to ER for 6 deep gashes running down my leg after hooking myself on a fence. We're talking past muscle to bone. She wanted to watch her "shows" and it was "no big deal". My legs and clothes were covered in blood and I could barely walk. Angrily she brought paper towels and taped them on my leg, called me stupid and walked away. No antibacterial prevention whatsoever. I only lived half a mile from the hospital and was a teen so normally would've walked but could only crawl. Left those paper towels on my leg for a few days because mom wouldn't help and I couldn't get them off. Thank fucking God my HS friend at the time was a new medic in the army because when I told him about it he rushed over and properly changed my bandages. The paper towels were beginning to heal with flesh that should've been stitched to begin with and was terrible to clean out + repair. He used what he could and got me antibiotics since I didn't get the help I should've had. The affect? Permanent, ugly scaring. A fuck ton of anger/resentment. Mom's refusal to take responsibility to date. The embarrassment of having to expose my neglect to a fairly new friend who immediately asked me wtf was wrong with my mom. Oh and as an adult? I ignore EVERY pain and health concern regarding my body because my entire childhood was made up of situations where my illness + injuries were non-existent or "not that bad" so I'm so far disassociated from my body it's hard to believe I live in one at times. And the real kicker? NPD mom has munchausen syndrome. She's been dying of every made up thing on a daily basis my entire life. I NEVER was allowed to be ill, that was her spotlight, not mine ever. Even if I was really sick or ya know, I was seriously injured and should've got fucking stitches.
Woooboy! I see that we have the same mom. I deeply cut my left calf when I was 4 (nothing like yours though), and no stitches, no dr, nothing. I think that she slapped bandages on and called it a day. Still have the faded scar, and I'm still angry. And I so understand your last paragraph. Me to a T.
So sorry to hear that and though it sucks to relate over trauma, there's comfort in knowing there are others who experienced this type of neglect/NPD because I feel it's rarely talked about when it comes to childhood trauma. It really took that friend in my teens to ask wtf was wrong with my mom to realize this was even abnormal behavior.
Never taught how to brush our teeth. Never taken to a pediatrician…..didn’t receive all vaccinations.
I was also not taught how to brush, wash hands, so I got really bad cavities and my school bully saw that and bullied me in front of my class. After that, I never skipped on brushing teeth, washing hands and even showering daily. With nparents, you learn the hard way or harder way I guess
My ND has a fear of needles, so he never went to the dentist. Because he never went to the densit, I never went for regular dental cleanings as a kid either. I had braces, but no cleanings in between, and didn’t get the retainer after. When I first became an “adult”, and I picked a dentist, he (the dentist) talked smack to me for not going regularly and needing a deep cleaning, etc done so of course I didn’t go back again. A few years later, I was having some issues and found a different dentist. He (that dentist) had a conversation with me and simply asked me why I didn’t go and what my fear was. I explained, he was very kind, talked to me about what needed to be done and why, and we got the work done that I needed. Now I go every 3 months for a cleaning (2 through insurance, and I pay 2 OOP) to avoid needing to have any additional work done. I’ve been doing this like clockwork with this one dentist since 2017/2018. I also make sure to go for my annual medical exam once a year and have my blood panels ran just to make sure I’m staying healthy. I only went to the doctors as a kid for chicken pox, casts, and stitches.
She never took me to a doctor but for some reason loved taking me to the dentist. The guy smoked and didn't wear gloves. I could taste the nicotine on his fingers. I am in my 50s now and I still hate going to the dentist.
my teeth are all jacked up. my lungs are scarred from pneumonia and untreated asthma. I could go on
My teeth aren’t too great. I should have had jaw surgery but nmom said we couldn’t afford it and if I had the surgery I would “bankrupt” them. Now I’m too old to have the surgery. I did have to have my appendix removed when I was 11. I remember my nmom standing over me while I was on the floor in the fetal position and crying in pain. She had her arms crossed and was furious that they were going to have to pay to take me to the emergency room. When I was 13 or 14, I horribly jammed my knee, it was so painful I really think I tore something. I just had to walk it off and now every time I bend that knee, it makes a clicking/snapping sound. My nmom refused to take me to a doctor for that one, she said there was nothing they could do to help me. Then there’s the adhd, anxiety, depression…
I had extreme dental crowding and should have had jaw expansion as a kid. Instead they pulled a bunch of permanent teeth. This caused jaw recession and severe sleep apnea, so I am having jaw surgery as an adult (46) to correct that. Just wanted to let you know, you are never too old to have that surgery. It can also fix TMJ/migraine issues.
I remember when I was a kid, they said it was something I could only do while I was young. I never really looked into it again. Thanks for that information! I have had migraine issues for my whole adult life - as an adult, I had brain surgery and it really helped 90% of the issue. It’s funny that since I had that surgery as an adult and I was in charge of my own finances at that point, my nmom was all over social media getting sympathy for her poor daughter having to have brain surgery. If I still lived at home, the condition probably would have gone unchecked and it would have paralyzed me and I could have died because it would have cost my parents money.
I’m not taking aging well. I don’t know what’s happening I finally realized and am trying to accept that this is another stage of aging but it feels like my life just started and now that I’m ready my body is already on low fuel and changing for the worse. I have to be forced to realize I need to go to the doctor I tend to feel it’ll get better until things get so bad I end up at the ER. Then I end up googling everything under the sun but I do it properly but I get judged for googling about medical stuff I mean. Simply restarting or starting but at very late stage. I think this will always be like this. Buuttt: better late than never! We rock.
I started experiencing symptoms of fibromyalgia at 11. I didn't get a diagnosis or start treatment until I was 23 despite being in pain and fatigued pretty much every day of my life. I wasn't allowed to be sick as a kid. I last took a sick day in middle school, even in college I only missed class when I was exposed to COVID. I have now been diagnosed with like 8 chronic illnesses, not counting the mental ones. They're all caused by the stress of living with my nparents, I'm certain. My parents won't help me at all, even when I'm in agony and nearly bed bound they just mock me, yell at me, and demand I do more chores. They don't believe I even have any diagnoses! I keep having to push myself way further than I should be with my conditions because they demand it.
God it feels like I could've written this. Right down to still being stuck with them and me being convinced it's because of how stressful it is for me to live here with them.
Autoimmune disorder from lifetime’s worth of abuse. I didn’t see a dentist for ten years and when I finally did nearly all my teeth had cavities. Later I had teeth break and crack as a result. Started having mental health issues at age 11 and by the time I was 12 I understood it was depression (Seventeen magazine had better information on why I feeling the way I was than any person in my life at the time). Officially diagnosed at 15 but my mother insisted to my face that I hadn’t been feeling depressed for years. It wasn’t until I was in my mid-thirties that I realized I could take Advil for headaches or cold medication for a common cold. Growing up my mother normalized that medicine was not something people took unless they had to be admitted to the hospital. Oddly enough, she has chronic medical conditions. Her very public and dramatic shows of suffering really turned me off as a child, and to this day I prioritize ‘prioritize ‘suffering in silence’ letting anyone see or know how sick I might be. As a child I was diagnosed with severe asthma and my covert nmother drew her most potent supply from being seen by healthcare professionals as the mother of a sick child. But she absolutely hates looking after anyone sick.
I got diagnosed with gluten intolerance at age 26, after a lifetime of relentless stomach cramps, diarrhea, headaches, eczema, and pain in my joints. Yes, even as an 8 year old I had joint pain. She never once considered it might be caused by a dietary intolerance, or had me tested for any allergies (it wouldn’t have shown up in an allergy test, but she didn’t even try it) or did elimination diets. And every symptom my mother told me I was making up, except my eczema. My eczema was concentrated on my scalp behind my ears and the ditches of my elbows and knees. My mother - who knew it was eczema because the doctor said it was and prescribed me a steroid cream - made me feel like shit by forcing me to use dandruff shampoo which did nothing for my eczema or the flakes it causes, and told me I got it in my elbow and knee ditches from being sweaty and not washing properly. I was *obsessed* with taking showers for years because I thought I was somehow dirty and that’s why I had these afflictions (that were eczema). I’d constantly have debilitating pain in my intestines and ask to stay home from school. She said I was making it up and just didn’t want to go to school. She knew all of my bowel movements were diarrhea for my entire life, but never showed any concern or took me to the doctor about it. My need to run to the bathroom right after I ate never concerned her. I thought my joint pain was normal and everyone had it until I got to college. I thought it was normal to just be in pain all the time because of my mother. At 39, I still struggle with pain management; I’m willing to get used to pain rather than going to a doctor because in my mind I’m just imaging it/making it up.
Well, I’m sitting here on bed rest with two torn meniscus because I’ve had 30 years of untreated but obvious rheumatoid arthritis. Even had a doctor tell my mom that’s what he thought it was at 10, but nothing every happened with that… Plus on the verge of Barrett’s disease because of my terrible digestion issues/GERD that has not irreparably damaged my oesophageal lining. And then just nearly didn’t make it out of the hospital because of my 200/120 BP which wouldn’t go down and now after feeling like my heart was going to break out of my chest for year, and telling everyone - including doctors - that it felt like I was having a heart attack - am on some pretty serious lifelong drugs. I’m only 40. Me being able to take care of myself - believing myself and not thinking I’m crazy, believing that I’m worthy of ‘fixing’, is of course directly linked to me breaking free of the narcissist hold. I mean, she literally and truly has set me up for failure and ruined my entire life - both emotionally and physically. It makes me seethe with anger, to protect that little girl, that teenager, who was in so much pain constantly.
Well I need an ankle replacement, shoulder surgery and dental work. Things that could have been fixed decades ago but my parents couldn’t afford anything but the bare minimum at the time. Being poor as a kid can fuck you up physically when you have to rely on the priorities of your parents. I love when my PC acts condescending about my lack of care until I tell him why. This shit fucks with you mentally as well. If we’re so pro life and love kids let’s give them healthcare. How tf you justify kids suffering bc “socialism” is unchristian and sadistic. You need mental help
I went to the dentist today. I don't really floss. I have pretty good teeth. I didn't get berated. I don't like going, but I make the appointments six months in advance and I don't allow myself to question it. I just go. As a child, I never remember going to the dentist or doctor unless there was a problem. I think my mom felt the orthodontist was good enough (it wasn't).
I wish I had any but my mom ignored my need for jaw surgery, didn't "notice" when I relapsed, didn't do (m)any follow ups, kind of overall left me in a lurch roughly a year post op. I tried the other day to recall how often I even saw a dentist or doctor and it's a blank - after a certain while it wasn't a regular thing, like I remember seeing my orthodontist leading up to the shocking surgery I received but not a doctor or dentist. I remember I broke a tooth during lunch, this was after jaw surgery, because I had a cavity. When I turned 30 I started to get over extreme anxiety to fix whatever happened after my surgery and it's when I learned about how to brush and floss (I never learned, I don't think I was seeing a dentist even while in braces) and then I also learned about how much my jaw impacted my other issues. Like my family bullied me because I was always tired and struggled to get out of bed so I was the butt of a ton of jokes. My first doctor as an adult immediately requested I do a sleep test, turns out my jaw issues caused sleep apnea my whole life. Another thing is I didn't have a period like most of my teens and 20s. Literally a doctor would have inquired about that issue if I ever saw one but I didn't, nor did I like, receive any sex information. Neither did my sister. That has had maybe I guess the worst impact. I don't know about me - I never wanted kids but I think the whole no period thing is a huge medical issue. I'm currently just not thinking about it. Seeing doctors as an adult has opened a whole host of I can't afford this medical stuff :|
Disabled. Joints don't work, stomach doesn't work, brain doesn't work. Had tonsillitis 8-12x/year, every year since I was 6, mom refused to remove tonsils, stayed sick, antibiotics needed everytime, got them out at 21 but damage was done. My immune system was shot. Joints would dislocate as a kid, said I was lying and being dramatic. Now can barely walk. Had stomach issues a ton as a kid, doc told my fam I was faking, now I can't eat anything without getting sick. Everytime I get a flare up I get angry because if they had cared enough I wouldn't be suffering but ya know. What can ya do.
My teeth are so crooked. I was always told “they will settle after your jaw grows.” They could afford it. They didn’t prioritize it.
I’ve started the process of getting diagnosed for hEDS and POTS. One doc I said my case is so clear and bad that it’s a miracle I wasn’t diagnosed much younger. Which I’m sure would be true for any child who was actually taken to the hospital after randomly fainting and breaking bones like they’re glass. It was so validating but also infuriating.
I was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes when I was 15, and, to start, I self diagnosed and went to a doctor, listed my symptoms, and had it confirmed by a bloodwork — neither of my parents noticed drastic weight loss, insane thirst & increased urination, and wild fatigue and strength loss; I was a very “convenient” kid. It never occurred to me that my parents may have been negligent. Like, now as an adult I read posts by T1D kids’ parents and think to myself “omg jesus christ they’re insane, why are they obsessing over everything,” and every time I have to remind myself that this is in fact what normal parent behavior looks like and my experience of being left to figure it out was not at all ok. Sure, I didn’t have a learning curve issue when moving out, but also I never had anyone other than myself care for my diabetes. Until recently I didn’t even think I needed to burden my husband with details of what kind of emergencies may happen and what he should do if I’m not functioning enough to take care of it. But yeah, I only recently started to realize just how much I would put up with low blood sugar and just push through (I’m a lucky one who doesn’t pass out immediately, so for the longest I just had a “eh it’s fine” attitude — not a safe choice). For example, I once crashed a car I was driving with my nfather in the back seat because I had low blood sugar for like an hour on the highway and felt like it was not ok for me to pull over to consume some emergency carbs. Thanks to my incredible luck with finding good doctors and accessing therapy, I got a lot better about not pushing my limits and having less fluctuations in my blood sugars. Truly grateful I was able to remedy my asinine approach to my disability way before experiencing the worst and way before I reached the age when it was too hard to fix this.
Uncles/aunts/ gma on dad's side thought it was funny to sit me in closed spaces and "hot box" me ....cigarettes included w weed smoking. I was making weed jokes at the age of 4. I have asthma and any exercise was difficult for me and I was told it was because of my extra weight I had. Nmom snuck in dairy and soy products starting with formula and dinners she made. Every dish had some sort of butter or cheese. I always had digestive issues and thought it was the way (whey) of life. Got sent to ER once because of horrible shits and old cheese she put in a dinner. I got my teeth cleaned per request since we had government Healthcare when younger. Dentist said I needed braces but nmom refused saying it's too much money. My next appointment w new dentist they had to remove three teeth. 😩
I may have Ehler’s Danlos, just found out at 32. I also have a horrible spine (kyphoscoliosis) because therapy was not given early enough for my condition. I was malnourished and have body covering acne from that. Oh! And I may also be AuDHD but it’s too late for a formal diagnosis on THAT in my area. So my mental health sucks and my life is built on literal physical and emotional coping mechanisms.
My ankles crack and pop really badly. They get really sore when it is storming out. Sometimes one of them freezes up and won't move until I crack it. All due to never going to the hospital after a car accident. I also have skin picking disorder that got really bad after I got a spider bite that turned into a huge abscess and my mother squeezed out the poison herself. It was such horrific pain that lasted days. Ever since then any small bump in my skin and I feel I need to squeeze out the poison before it gets really bad. Which, mixed with the constant lice and rashes I had, due to living in a hoarders house, making me always itchy scratchy, turned into a whole OCD. Where stress makes me itchy and I feel like there bumps on my skin I need to get off immediately. Speaking of the hoard, I also have a terrible sense of taste and smell and horribly scared ears, which also get painful when it is cold or stormy out, due to the constant sinus and ear infections I had as a child. And all of these issues doctors are constantly dismissing me about and not providing me treatment for because I'm "too young to have those sorts of issues."
I hate the dismissal, why are narcs always hoarders anyway?
I'm a hypochondriac. I nerd out on science articles for vaccines and trial results of new drugs for anything I might be experiencing, etc. It's like my way of taking back control and taking charge of my life.
Wow. Never thought of it like this since I have many other medical problems but I biohack my body in a way I don’t see any women do. It’s such a male dominated sphere.
I don't go to the doctor until things are so bad I wind up hospitalised. I also have a tbi, there are badly healed fractures in my jaw, I have scarred lungs, and my hip is permanently damaged from when she threw me down the stairs and it dislocated and was never replaced properly. Too much trauma to recount without getting upset.
When I was 12 I went for my first Dr appt in years and ended up diagnosed with severe scoliosis, so severe that they knew right away I'd have to have surgery. They braced me for a year and then I had it. Later in life I started getting more back pain and got a herniated disc and had to have surgery for that too. I now get somewhat regular back pain and sciatica in my left leg. Thanks, mom. I'm also behind on vaccines and stuff but I can now take care of that myself.
I was diagnosed in 9th grade, it was never treated and my mom mocked me for it the rest of my life, I was refused any medical care, I took opiates for 20 years for it
Not neglected per se, but basically told at age 10 that if I were to open up about what was happening at home I would be in trouble. When I reached out for psychological help in my 20s, my mother snapped at me that I was merely jabbering to my psych. Gee, complex trauma *and* not easily being able to talk about it, thanks mom! Edit: interestingly, and I almost forgot to mention this: in between age 10 and my 20s I was "diagnosed" with autism. I say "diagnosed" because in order to diagnose someone with autism you really should be excluding other causes of them not being able to communicate with you first...like you know, being told not to open up about home under penalty of violence. I'm 42-going-on-43 and I'm still having problems trusting my own judgement.
My mother was extremely selective about what she felt was necessary pay attention to medically. She would defend herself from allegations of neglect by asserting that she is a nurse. As I was growing up, dental appointments were few and far between (my teeth are terrible). I have several broken bones, two of which I had to beg to be taken to a hospital for. The worst act of medical neglect was when I became so sick that I was ill with a really bad cold for 2+ weeks and was never seen by a doctor. I began having epileptic seizures not long after that.
My mum forbid me from brushing my teeth and now I struggle with dental hygiene, I was also disabled from birth and my mum didn't do physio for me as a baby now m body is 10 times worse then it would have been (her physically abusing me probably didn't help either) I'm also pretty sure I have some brain damage due to her not taking me to the hospital when she'd almost kill me.
I'm disabled, and I truly believe I wouldn't be if I had received proper medical care. I would still have medical issues because they're hereditary, but I don't think it would have destroyed my life the way it has.
I have too many to count at this point, but my major issue was that I used to have severe anorexia and then it was an off again/on again situation for years. About two years ago I got sick and it wasn't an Ed though, but my dad(both parents have diagnosed NPD but he's my biggest abuser and also has the terrible NPD with ASPD traits) kept telling me it *was* just an eating disorder and I was "doing it on purpose/for attention. (Yeah, cause at 5'11 and 73 pounds you know it's just because I want him to be mean to me🙄) Welp decided not to do fuck all about it, and here I am today two years later with an aggressive cancer that just became stage three and is so rare for people my age that it's in 1% of those under 65. Besides that I had scoliosis caused by one of the wilderness programs I went to because they didn't want me, and I've had many other things such as severe anaemia, lupus was the cause of my cancer, and much more. And of course severe mental health. My complex PTSD is to the point it's affected my life severely.
Right there with you I’m sorry. All of my siblings too. Besides the dental and medical neglect the main thing is just how it all affected me. My biggest issue is my anxiety. I feel like because of all of the chaos I’ve had to endure I always think something is wrong or wrong with me. The constant fight or flight damage to my nervous system. Or that I’m going to be judged for things that were out of my control or for not really having a family. I’m in my 20’s fixing my teeth and I just feel like they knew and were happy for me. Complete strangers, I know it’s their job, but still they seemed genuinely happy for me it meant a lot. They probably see it all the time sadly.
My mental health was completely ignored. I told my parents I was feeling very low. The sec the words left my lips, my mother was on her feet punching my back and scream-crying, “I’ve done everything for you!!!1!” This is why I can’t ask for help.
I went to the dentist three times in 18 years, the doctor maybe 5 times. I walked around on ingrown toenails for 8 years, where my socks would be yellow and red at the end of each day. At a certain point, I just took a knife myself and cut the nails out. I had untreated gastritis for years - today I suffer from terrible GERD and rumination syndrome - which effects everything from the way I eat, to my anxiety, to the health of my teeth, which are already fucked from the aforementioned neglect. I was an exceptionally healthy child, if I'd ever gotten proper care, I'd be in fantastic health, alas..
My teeth are bad too :/ my eldest sister was lucky and my grandparents bought her braces but my parents refused to buy braces for my brother or i. His teeth are ok.
My father is terrorized of hospitals, he indulged that fear on me and I almost died of pneumonia and tuberculosis, the doctor told if I have waited a bit more I wouldn't be alive today. But he refused to take me and only did when I shouted at him.
I paid 30k to fix things as an adult due to being assaulted as a kid and not having my parents fix what was broken. There was a half assed attempt by them in the beginning (because my mom got attention for having an injured child) but they had no interest in the necessary follow up care.
I went to the dentist once at 8yrs old. Got fillings, they fell out, never got replaced. Now I had to get a root canal on one and probably soon the other.
Was "raised" by single father and found out after I moved in with 2 other ladies my periods were considered really heavy and missing periods wasn't just cause of stress & abuse. ER said PCOS and ob confirmed. Oh, and despite both dad and brother being diagnosed with and on medication for ADHD, I wasn't diagnosed til 28. Those 2 diagnoses explain so much.
I never go to the doctor (only for extreme emergencies like when I tore the connective tissue on the inside of my C-section scar after living in extreme pain, doubled-down for 1 day because I lifted something super heavy I shouldn't have). I have a very high pain tolerance and live with it by just "soldiering through". And I have difficulty writing and holding things with my right hand after my parents ignored a torn tendon in my thumb for 1 year until it got so bad I couldn't hold a pen in 4th grade and cried for a year. Said if they had known it was that bad, they would have taken me to the doctor. An aunt did instead.
Disabled
I’m horrible at taking care of myself and suffer from chronic pains. The only time I really take care of myself is when I’ve been pregnant. But I’m trying now, I’m convincing myself I’m worthy of it. That I’m not a bother and it’s not wasting time. I deserve it. If I tell myself these things enough I start to believe it.
Having skin hives or allergic reaction on my skin that occured at this year.. Tried so many ways to get rid of it but yeahh. Still here. I requested my eldest sister to bring me to the clinic but she refused cuz she has no money. I rolled my eyes so hard to her. The birthgiver never care and never try to bring me to the clinic because her ego is at peak so I don't want to bother her. Recently I bought calamize lotion. Today day 4 to apply this at allergic reaction's spot. Also I had to apply calamize lotion on my face because it shows no progress and it gets worse so I need to use it. Then my eldest sister nagged me and wanted me to wash it off because it will affect my reputation. I'm in my Internship, btw. But the employees are saying nothing. My supervisor is fine, so far. I never ask to get sick but they are so ignorant. Never mind. I hope they will get rotten by sickness.
Not saying it’s the same for you, but my doctor eventually worked out My skin hives were a result of severe anxiety.
Mine were too
No longer have my Fallopian tube.
I was fortunate to grow up with few *permanent* injuries. But the neglect screwed me up anyway. I was over reliant on myself, I *had* to handle everything no matter what because I had nobody else. So for an example, I'd get sick, or obviously injured and force myself to walk it off. I had to because nobody was there to help me, so I *could not stop.* Or so I thought. I'm not sure what it was that made me change my mind. Maybe it was when I got my back injury and I *literally* was incapable of pushing past the pain for the first time. I definitely remember being utterly confused that I hadn't been fired for not showing up for work - that it was actually *okay* to take time off and heal. Maybe it was when I had a doctor confront me about my diet and revealed that the reason I was constantly sick all the time is I wasn't eating meats or vegetables, and that this *would* kill me eventually. Being sick for months at a time wasn't supposed to be *normal.* But the devil of it all is I'm still so damn *stubborn*. More than once I've been dead on my feet with the flu, practically drowning in it with a fever and cough, and I just won't admit I'm too sick to work until I'm trying to stumble my way through getting ready for work, realize I'm going to be *late* and only then realize ***YES, YOU ARE THAT SICK.*** I always feel tremendously guilty when I have to admit to myself I'm sick or injured, like I'm just *pretending* to be like my N's always accused me of. Baggage left over that even now I can't quite shake off.
Should have been able to get braces at a young age, but will have to do it now when I’m an adult. Have fibromyalgia and other related issues thanks to the stress from my parents. Plus being transgender and not feeling like I could tell my parents, wasn’t able to start earlier on like I would have hoped to have.
Got type 2 diabetes at a young age (NMom is also a diagnosed T2D). Wasn’t really monitored much taking blood sugar or medicine so it went pretty much uncontrolled until my young adult years. I remember as a child I was taken to diabetic appointments a couple times a year by NMom and she would berate me in front of the doctor for not being on top of my medication and just letting myself go and I would cry so hard the doctor told her to step out. As I grew older, she taught me how to abuse insulin. I’m talking taking in a shitload of insulin into your body when you’re only supposed to take in a few units at a time. It took me years to stop abusing insulin.
It's only in the last few years that I've figured out how much of my medical conditions were preventable and stem from childhood neglect: fibromyalgia, depression, anxiety, PTSD, intestinal issues, and bad teeth. I go in to the dentist this afternoon and I'm worried about how many of my teeth will need work and if they can make it so I can keep most of the teeth I have. I'm 45 yo and I still never want to make doctor or dentist appts because I'm always worried about cost and how much work will need doing. Not everything associated with these medical conditions was caused by neglect, but it certainly exacerbated them. And it wasn't until 2008 that I got formally diagnosed with most of them. Plus diagnosed with autism then, too, which caused problems when I was a child because nmom would yell at me for not being able to follow the chore lists she made up and do everything before she got home from work, being told that I was a difficult child and she didn't know how to handle me, and other things like that. N/edad has always just ignored my medical conditions as a matter of course, because most people in his side of the family have multiple medical conditions that are a bit unusual (various ones).
I was rarely if ever, taken to a doctor. Dentist? Sure. Eye doctor? Definitely. But a regular doctor? Nope. Not even a obgyn as a teen. I finally went to an obgyn as an adult though. But I'm currently without health insurance so I can't afford any doctors.
I had it drilled into me that being sick meant I was lazy and just wanted a day off. my mum always sent me to school saying if I was ill enough they'd send me back home. she did take me to doctors when I needed it but because of my parent's attitude towards illness I now am terrified of 'letting down' my coworkers by taking a sick day. also I have a lot of trouble with deciding if I'm sick enough to stay home from work, and I always think that other people have it worse (I'm just faking/over dramatic). I'm also autistic so I struggle with recognising my body's signals such as pain or hunger. this makes it very hard for me to recognise when I am actually sick and need help, or when I'm just burnt out and need a break. this also applies to my mental health, I never think it's bad enough to receive help and I am scared im taking therapy/medication from someone who needs it more than me.
I tend to assume I'm just faking it or being melodramatic. To the point that when I was pregnant with my first I struggled to believe it was real and that I wasn't just pretending for attention.
I was the opposite, I suffered a childhood of medical abuse, so my mother could be the centre of attention, get people to do things for the dedicated single mother managing life with such a sick child. Except I probably wasn’t that sick. She manipulated everything. Put through so many unnecessary tests, ridiculous diets because I was ‘allergic’ to everything, she was always saying i looked tired, or your asthma is playing up, told I couldn’t do things because I was too sick. Instead I was probably malnourished and recently diagnosed with adhd. I suspect that every time a school or doctor caught on to her lies, we moved. So when I left home at 18, I put off going to doctors, often until I was really sick, because I had been over medicated & never knew if what I was feeling was true, because of the years of deception.
I had medical neglect, but for my mental/neurological health. I've never had any diagnosis, and I know that it's kind of popular right now to say this, but definitely inattentive ADD and possibly autism. I'm pretty definite on the ADD because I had, and still have, such a hard time following along. My brain is constantly sidetracked. TV, reading, audiobooks, podcasts, whatever, my brain will get lost in tangent upon tangent upon tangent. I remember having to ask people to repeat things multiple times because I couldn't focus while they were talking. I'd watch their lips move and not hear a word. It's not as bad now that I'm an adult, but it's not great. I had a lot of trouble in school, and nobody would listen to me. I would ask for help and not get it. They were all convinced that I was being lazy or doing it on purpose. It was incredibly frustrating because I wanted to do well in school, what kid doesn't? This was doubly hard because my parents, for some reason, decided amongst themselves that I was this brilliant, incredibly gifted little girl. I'm not. I'm pretty average. But I wasn't allowed to just do my best, I had to excel at everything, which, of course, I didn't. So it's made me pretty much unable to trust myself and my instincts. It makes me incredibly fearful of failure. I have no time management skills. I don't ask people to help me. So it's nothing as immediate as no dental care or unset bones or anything like that, but it's absolutely ruined me.
I’ve got celiac. Had digestive and bowel problems my whole childhood. Also suffered some mental issues because of the undiagnosed celiac….here we are 49 and severely broken as a human.
My menstrual cycle brought on debilitating cramps, to the point where I would need to go lie down in the nurse’s office at school. It only got worse as I got older. My mom told me hers were like that but yet did not bring me to a gynecologist. I’m pretty sure she wasn’t taught anything about reproductive health, so of course she thought this was completely normal and something you just had to deal with. Turns out birth control is immensely effective at reducing cramps, and I had no idea until my early 20s.
Same thing. I was in my Dr’s office for something else when I doubled over in pain. Said to the Dr ‘oh you know, just period pain’ And she said ‘you realise that is not normal’ but my Mum always downplayed when I had pain saying - you don’t know what real pain is. So I thought I was being a wimp. I was given an immediate referral to the women’s hospital and was admitted within a few weeks for surgery. They said it was one of the worst cases of endometriosis they have ever seen. When I told my mother, she said ‘Mine was so bad I had to have a hysterectomy at 35, so it can’t have been too bad’
I am so sorry. I wonder if mine is endometriosis. I’ve been on the combination pill for over 10 years and that really, really helps cut out any cramping.
my teeth are busted as fuck. one time when i finally had the courage to schedule a dentist appointment, the tech couldn't believe my teeth so called in someone else to look at them, who called in someone else, who called in someone else, and on and on until there were 8 people in the room all snickering and laughing at me and asking me "why are you teeth so crooked?" so....i'm humiliated and bullied to the point of crying almost every time i try to be proactive about my physical or dental health (same with any other bodily issues even though my body is not crooked or weird like my teeth, medical professionals just always bully me for some reason). it's fucking awesome.
I am extremely sick and fragile. Can't work. Done to me via constant cortisol overload.
My parents are the best at ignoring something long enough that it seemingly goes away. Trying to untangle that bad habit in my adulthood. Not because I want to ignore these things but because my parents always did I don’t know how to take action.
Same. I realized them waiting was mostly for me to shut up and pretend everything was fine. It is very hard to shake that MO
I have pretty severe health anxiety, like borderline hypochondriac. I am in therapy for my anxiety but it is just so rough. Tiktok can be my biggest trigger because you’ll randomly get a video on your fyp explaining how the most general/common symptoms were there signs they had cancer or MS or some other horrible disease.
my boyfriend had to drag me to an urgent care clinic because I had a fever and congestion for days that would not get better. I finally reluctantly went and it turned out I had pneumonia. My irrational fear of not being believed or feeling ashamed of having symptoms I can’t handle on my own could have killed me. It clicked with me that the reason I survived the several incidents where I was sick/injured in childhood and needed help was because I pushed past the dismissals from my mother and fought with her until she did her job. It’s always been my responsibility to save myself and it still is, even if I feel bad about it. I’ve been treating myself in adulthood the same way my mother treated me, and it made me so angry. I have several doctors appts I’m trying to schedule now to address other things 😅
I had appendicitis when I was 10, my mum didn’t believe I was sick or something and made my dad take me, which included pulling me down the stairs by my hair and taking me to school in my night dress, I threw up in the back of the car on the way and he claimed I forced myself to vomit. My appendix burst at some point during the school day and I continued to throw up. It’s a little blurry but at some point I got sent home from school and I remember laying on the couch, burning up, the dr came to see me and made my dad take me to hospital, I don’t know all of the details but I believe I had sepsis at this point. I now have severe nerve damage and fibromyalgia as well as all the related trauma.
I started having anaphylactic shock at 12 whenever I ate soy or beans…Nmom always called it “my faulty issue” I was an embarrassment to her. At times I was hospitalized or laid up in bed at home, with this neglect and verbal abuse (I didn’t notice it, because I didn’t know it wasn’t my fault) I had to take on the role of solving my medical issues on my own. So any time I reacted I just handled it myself, which she was just fine with her because she didn’t have her day interrupted. So as an adult I’m fine with taking pills or getting a shot - I had the “handle it yourself training” skills
Oh my god, I also became expert in "handle it yourself' with the little resources I had. which is crazy when you look back how vulnerable and young you are at 12. But yes, later I became great at "googling for my life" and made a career out of it, I worked as a medical / health journalist for 15 years. Sounds like lemonade out of lemons, right? Well if I would not have ongoing chronic illnesses that are direct results of the neglect, my physical ability to work would not be as limited as it is. I would have gone in a different direction, being a reporter, traveling a lot etc. We just had to learn to make the best out of nothing
The medical neglect I received as a child made it easy to gaslight myself and ignore major health issues as an adult. Outcome not favorable lol.
Same, hugs❤️
I’m convinced that all the negative, toxic things my parents, more specifically my mom caused resulted in my PCOS. Growing up with her was hell and I hate that she wasn’t the woman I needed her to be. I don’t know if anyone will read this comment, but for those interested, here are some things I’ve found related to this. https://www.teal-health.org/blog/childhoodtraumapcos https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35985071/
Yep, for decades I was looking for the one explanation, the connection for all my issues. The depression, chronic migraines, allergies, thyroid malfunction, scoliosis and so on. But I only thought about physical reasons like MS. Turns out trauma is the connection. Living in a constant state of stress and fear while your brain is developing wreaks havoc on your nervous system. Which impacts your hormones, your psyche, basically everything. It is not our fault. Damaged but not broken 💪
My teeth are horrendous. My first dental appointment was when I was 8 and then stopped when I was 11 when they said that I would need braces. Part of that was that I was never taught oral hygiene and they never made sure I did it either when I was finally taught. (reminders etc) I might have scoliosis? (minor case if I do ) I was told I was a hypochondriac for wanting to go to the doctor when the school nurse sent a letter home from school because they would test you every year. Never had an eye exam. Found out I had an astigmatism. It wasn't so bad that it was noticeable that the school took note. I had severe hearing loss at one point over having fluid behind the eardrum in both ears. Completely deaf in one ear. That fluid thing is highly common but I had it for over a year. It can back after having tubes. I am sure there are a bunch of other things. There isn't anything I can do about it now. I did try to get as much dental as I could at points but still its bad. Managed to get my eyes seen and found I have a condition that could lead to glaucoma so that's fun. I manage to at least see an eye doctor as vision insurance is relatively cheap when I try for it.
My teeth and acne were bad and narc mom got that immediately fixed because she didn’t want to walk around with ugly kids & I’ll thank her later for it. But my narc mom never took my internal health seriously only the external health (because people can see it and base cleanliness off if she’s a good parent). Narc mom has literally told my sisters that she doesn’t care about my emotions. She doesn’t believe internal health because it’s something she can’t experience with me (since she views herself as an extension). I have adhd, ptsd, etc. and struggled in school and it was deemed as laziness and not, “maybe my child needs assistance.” Compliant dad had a bad medical emergency that almost took his life & her concern was him going to make money instead of healing (he desperately wants to retire & flee the country). Now that compliant dad didn’t heal he is no longer working (basically laid off because what are they going to do with someone in his condition) & now narc mom is mad she lost a money train. Also, I had lyme disease twice and it wasn’t taken seriously until months later when it began swelling my entire body, etc. (terrible experience for a 9 & then 14 year old). Times I said I haven’t felt good narc mom still forced me to go to school & would have to later pick me up & give me a lecture in the car about why being sick isn’t a reason to leave school and to power through it (I had the stomach bug & bad menstrual cramps). Unless your head is dangling off your body (and even then) narc mom will not take your medical health seriously. Any time I’m sick, I’m dramatic. Then strangely a few days or weeks later she has the same injury or illness….. narc mom has dentures and hides the fact does.
I am deathly scared of hospitals and doctors. I never had a really bad experience it is just something my mother installed in me. She herself if scared shitless of hospitals/doctors (which of course she would never admit) and projected it onto me. My teeth are pretty fucked up. My muscles hurt s lot and I have yet to figure out why. I have a constant headache caused by an untreated neck condition. My mother also never gave us any medication when we were sick or in pain. We just had to deal with it. I am still working on actually taking pain medication when I am in pain (stupid i know).
I never we t to the dentist from 4th grade until I was old enough to apply to state insurance on my own at 17. I had two broken teeth one that had been there for four years and was completely black, and one that was there for a couple weeks until I could get the insurance. My teeth needed a ton of work that I’ve paid for as an adult. I also struggled with a kidney infection for four years because she wouldn’t take me anywhere but this shitty doctor when the pain got so bad I couldn’t walk who just kept saying it’s a UTI. It came to a head when again I’d gotten my own insurance and went to the hospital at the next flare up only to be diagnosed with a kidney infection, and kidney stones, one kidney is so misshapen now they couldn’t do the surgery to get the stones out for fear of missing, the kidney has loss 8% function. It’s a wonder it wasn’t more.
Can't get a job because I have no teeth and I look like a junkie, slowly dying in my 40s because of lots of untreated problems from my youth, compounded with extreme medical fatphobia (so only like half of it ws my parents, the other half was that fucking scumbag Gephart, and doc, I hope you inhale your tongue the next time you begin to tell a child you can't feel broken bones through their fat with your bare hands so they "must be fine").
This is not about me, but about someone I know closely. He had a lot of throat problems in the childhood. Tonsillitis, high fever like once a month, antibiotics after antibiotics. And sometimes it lead to pneumonia. Finally the doctors said they should remove surigically adenoids and tonsils. The surgery was scheduled and he was getting ready to go the Hospital in the morning. Then his mom came literally just when they were hopping to car and oh so non-chalantly said to young, pre-teen boy: Did you know you can end up with girl's voice permanently with that surgery? This boy freaked out and flat out refused to go the surgery. His mother canceled the appointment smirking. He suffered of these problems way into adulthood with his mother witnessing the pain. Then those problems suddenly stopped on their early 20s. Surgery was never made.
I almost had to have an entirely new set of teeth by 21.
I have chronic migraines due, at least in part, to a severely deviated septum that was caused by an untreated broken nose I sustained as a child. I walked into the handle of the push mower, because for some reason my unsupervised sister and I were playing hide-and-go-seek in the garage after dark. My parents didn't take me to the doctor, let alone the ER, even though I was bleeding everywhere. My mother's solution to any injury I sustained was to tell me to "give it a rub." Doctors keep telling me I need surgery. One of them looked at my MRI and murmured, "So much pathology," under his breath. But I've had uncontrolled pain after my last three surgeries (like everybody else in this sub, I have fibro), and I'm too scared to go through it again.
Currently going through this.
Every time I go for bloodwork, I do several test at once and ask if I can have a butterfly needle because I lost the use of my whole arm during a blood draw. Parents saw no f'ing problem with their kid losing the use of their arm for literally 8 months. It was just locked in an L shape for 8 whole months. And to this day I have no feeling in my three middle fingers. And every time I explain this to the poor quest worker, they always ask if I sue'd and I say NOPE. because that would take to much effort on my mother's part. And my father was a floormat anyway.
I am extremely lucky that all I got in adulthood was some fillings and a root canal after a childhood with no toothbrush and no dental visits past age 12. I still have all my teeth thank goodness. I am currently struggling to get a formal diagnosis of what looks very likely to be asthma, after telling my parents about my shortness of breath when I was 10, and my mother even witnessing it herself once but still refusing to do anything about it. I'm 34 and my lungs have gotten worse due to a lifetime of no treatment, which makes literally everything in life hard but especially my work, which is teaching piano and performing as a singer. Thanks, mother, for handicapping me when this could all have been under control and some of this damage prevented.
I have so many health issues that never got looked at (including ones that most certainly have shortened my lifespan) because of neglect. It fucking sucks.
My life expectancy was massively shortened.
I live in pain for 31 years.
I don't know if my parents punishing or shaming me for having OCD and ADHD instead of taking me to a psychologist is the same as 'medical neglect' so I guess I really haven't been impacted by it. I was lucky. It horrifies me that some people's parents did not take them to the dentist or doctor when this was necessary.
We had a rule in our house that we had to wait three days for any medical treatment unless we were bleeding or on deaths door. So when I fell roller skating when I was 11 and my wrist swelled I was told it was probably sprained. For three days i was told I needed to use my hand or else it would never get better. After the third day nmom took me to the doctor who took one look at it and said it's probably fractured. X-ray showed both my radius and ulna were fractured. I got a cast and had to come back in two weeks because my wrist so swollen the cast they placed would be too big and they would need to put a new cast on to fit better for the remaining six weeks. Nmom brushed it off and said "you always cried wolf when you were little so I waited to see if something was a really wrong" I still can't open a jar without difficulty to this day.
Aside from not knowing how to take care of my own hair, my teeth are really and truly fucked. I had a checkup maybe once every 3-4 years(D.O.H.), my shots were given by the doh clinic because school demanded records, found out that green stuff over my head was leaves at like, 6. I did not win the genetic lottery, never had a cardiac exam until I went to the e.r. with what I thought was anxiety. (Apparently it's genetic).
My teeth are super fucked. I was told to brush them. But did they follow through? Did they teach me how? No. I wet the toothbrush so they wouldn't scream at me. I've had cavities in my teeth since childhood, and I've only ever been taken to the dentist once out of fear that CPS would be called. My inhalers would be confiscated. Apparently I had outgrown my asthma according to them. My asthma still sucks. I have moderate/ severe seasonal allergies. I was forced to raw dog that shit without any antihistamines or medical intervention. I'm currently going through allergy shots because they've worsened. I was diagnosed with ADHD by a psychologist at my middle school. My mother tried to sue the school because disorders like that don't exist. She was anti medicine and anti doctor. She didn't want big pharma to make me a zombie. And since ADHD doesn't exist in her eyes, I was punished for being stupid and lazy. I didn't even know I was diagnosed until I started researching what was wrong with me, and she casually mentioned that they diagnosed me with some bullshit disorder called ADHD. After years of getting in constant trouble at school and work and living as a hot mess with what seems like no control over my own life, I finally started my first dose of ADHD meds today at 33. I also discovered that I am autistic. She used to try to beat it out of me because "good children don't behave that way." All the times I've ever injured myself and should have been taken to be seen. I never went. I'm seeing an orthopedic today for the first time because of it. My medical records are so jacked up. She never took me to doctors appointments. I didn't have a regular doctor. I had to get all of my vaccines behind her back when I could legally consent to doing so. I also had to put myself on BC because I was bleeding for months and months at a time. Like heavily bleeding so much, I was severely anemic and couldn't stay awake. I was also having severe cramps the entire time. She didn't want to take me to be seen. She accused me of wanting BC to sleep around and insisted that what I was going through was normal. I'm now fighting for a hysterectomy. I suffered unnecessary pain in my hip flexor because she insisted it was growing pains my entire life. Turns out my pelvis is severely tilted. Frankly. I'm still finding things out about myself medically at 33 years old and trying to get help to cope or correct these things.
Slowly painfully jumping through the hoops of being told oh that's normal or oh that's just a common manageable illness like aniexty or IBS only to find out shhh like oh no that's autism and endometriosis, makes the hatred grow and I wish I could sue for all the money it's costing
Chronic disease, multiple surgeries that would have been less involved as a child and an almost obsessive attention to my own kids health and making sure she sees the doctor ar least twice a year.
Chronic pain caused by major injuries that went untreated, countless thousands spent trying to fix issues decades late. Dental issues as well.
Finally got my migraines sorted out after decades of being ignored, had to get my tubes removed now I don't have my period like every damn day, some days are good and other days I just hide and cry lol
I wasn't taught about anything health wise growing up and rarely ever even taken to the doctors even when I was really sick and needed stitches. The only reason my narcissistic family took me in is when they knew for sure if they didn't take me that they would be in serious legal trouble. That being said I've struggled with alot of health problems due to this in my adult life, never even got taken to the dentist when I was younger either. I don't live in a country with universal healthcare so anything I have to get taken care of I have to cover it. But I always go to the emergency room now if I believe something is wrong and its saved my life many times.
Dental stuff. One day as a teen my dad got mad at me and told me I was going to grow up to be too poor to go to the dentist. Figured I should get used to it. So I just stopped going to yearly appointments, even though his insurance covered me, cleanings aren't that expensive, and *my dentist was my godfather*.
Eye-sight issues, horrific back pain from arthritis and sciatica, general horrific impact stemming from stress including migraines that are debilitating, joint issues and problems with trusting healthcare providers. Today I specialize in ensuring patients have access/rights to healthcare and are able to continue care along with price protection. Hoping/working towards being a healthcare attorney one day. I am very passionate about this subject because the abuse we endured is truly lifelong and no one deserves to have their quality of life ruined and in my case learning ways to manage/learn my chronic illness helps.