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 goin

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.