3 ms·

It sounds like the risks of not using the medication properly weren't clearly communicated to her. "You'd better take it every day because it's important" doesn

It sounds like the risks of not using the medication properly weren't clearly communicated to her. "You'd better take it every day because it's important" doesn't count - people need to be able to make their own decisions about these things. The fact that she tried skipping doses as long as it didn't cause short term problems suggests nobody told her it was quietly doing irreversible damage. I can imagine doing the same thing myself - and have often skipped prescription medicines. But if I'd been told the risks (not exaggerated unquantified risks) then I surely never would.

jtheory 11y ago
The tricky thing here is that really getting this message across can be hard, and the doctors/specialists involved may not have any sense whatsoever what's going on inside the head of patient sitting across from them, nodding and looking a bit bored. And looking at them and seeing a parent figure, perhaps, some greying, slightly-ridiculous authority figure who's just setting up more rules because that's how they spend their time... I remember some of these feelings; I've had an eye condition since I was 5 that gave me 20/200 vision at one point, and included various unpleasant treatments; fortunately for many years I've just needed to take eyedrops once a day and that's sufficient. When I left home to go to college, I needed to find a specialist somewhere near school, and see them a few times a year to be sure things were under control. Think I handled that well? Nope, not really, but (to make a long story short) I was lucky that nothing irrevocable happened as a result. At that age, I was aware that poor decisions, even non-decisions (ignoring something that needed to be done) could have severe real-life consequences, but all that still felt unreal, and even now I sort of feel like rolling my eyes at myself for saying it. What kind of person writes phrases like "severe real-life consequences", huh? It's an age for breaking free of constraints, and trading in external rules for internal ones (through some amount of trial & error); that's just a much more dangerous process for people (like the author at that time, and myself to a lesser extent) who are leading lives with lower error tolerances.

jtheory 11y ago

The tricky thing here is that really getting this message across can be hard, and the doctors/specialists involved may not have any sense whatsoever what's going on inside the head of patient sitting across from them, nodding and looking a bit bored. And looking at them and seeing a parent figure, perhaps, some greying, slightly-ridiculous authority figure who's just setting up more rules because that's how they spend their time... I remember some of these feelings; I've had an eye condition since I was 5 that gave me 20/200 vision at one point, and included various unpleasant treatments; fortunately for many years I've just needed to take eyedrops once a day and that's sufficient. When I left home to go to college, I needed to find a specialist somewhere near school, and see them a few times a year to be sure things were under control. Think I handled that well? Nope, not really, but (to make a long story short) I was lucky that nothing irrevocable happened as a result. At that age, I was aware that poor decisions, even non-decisions (ignoring something that needed to be done) could have severe real-life consequences, but all that still felt unreal, and even now I sort of feel like rolling my eyes at myself for saying it. What kind of person writes phrases like "severe real-life consequences", huh? It's an age for breaking free of constraints, and trading in external rules for internal ones (through some amount of trial & error); that's just a much more dangerous process for people (like the author at that time, and myself to a lesser extent) who are leading lives with lower error tolerances.