O
Oceanmist23
Guest
Imagine four years of your life being taken away from you.
Things were going well. You were happy. Then it all went away, in an instant.
This is the story of my older sister, “Emily”.
It’s 2004. I’m visiting my parents for a few days. One evening while watching tv the phone rings, and mum goes to answer it.
She’s three meters away from me, and I can still hear my sister on the phone screaming and crying uncontrollably.
Emily is terrified that she is going to die.
She doesn’t want to be alone in her house, in case something happens to her.
Mum packs some clothes and dad drives her down to my sister. Mum stays there several nights.
What I’ve just written repeats itself over and over, with breaks of various lengths, for the next 4 years...
Shortly after the first episode in 2004, Emily is referred to a therapist by her doctor due to anxiety and panic attacks.
One-on-one sessions at first, and then she starts group therapy with people who also have anxiety.
Some of them were mentally abused in their childhood, others physically.
Emily suffered neither mental nor physical abuse. Not in her childhood, not ever.
She is having panic attacks and she doesn’t understand why.
If she senses the slightest bit of discomfort in her body it worries her. Her pulse is constantly high. Her ears feel clogged.
Her mood is all over the place. Migraines. Dizziness. Depression. Anxiety. No energy. All these symptoms and they’re not going away.
She’s in and out at the doctor’s office for checks, but there seems to be no physical cause for my sister’s symptoms.
The doctor, the therapists, and to some extent even us - her family, believes the cause of her problems is psychological.
After a while she received a diagnose which turned out to be incorrect.
Then she received the diagnose GAD - General Anxiety Disorder, which has been her diagnose from the therapists ever since.
Other possible diagnoses were depression and M.E.
At one point, things went from bad to worse. The group therapy sessions made Emily hit rock bottom.
I had never seen her so low. She decided to quit the group therapy, and stick to the one-on-one sessions.
Some months ago her doctor believed she was also suffering from hypochondria,
and managed to get her a two day appointment at the world’s first Hypochondria clinic in Bergen, western Norway.
It takes over 7 hours to get to Bergen.
May 2008.
Suddenly, Emily has even less energy. She’s constantly tired.
From May to August I barely see my sister because every day she’s tired, worried and unhappy.
Tuesday, 9th of September 2008.
I hear a car outside my flat. A very long “ding dong” at the door, my sister’s signature entry.
She asks me to look up some information online on the contraceptive pill Yaz.
She tells me she just figured out when she started taking the Yasmin pill. In 2004, before she had any symptoms.
And she said she switched to Yaz in May this year.
I searched for a while on Norwegian pages without finding anything.
Then I googled it, also without any luck. I tried Yasmin instead.
First hit: www.verdicts.co.uk
Then, jackpot: www.askapatient.com
I think, for the first time in four years, my sister is genuinely sad and angry.
Through all this time, all this pain, suffering, hurt... Believing she was losing her mind, pushed to dig into her childhood,
analysing every little thought and emotion yet finding nothing, asking her doctor again and again if the symptoms had anything to do with the contraceptive pill and being told NO ...
All this because of a pill? Trusting your doctor, yet this is the outcome?
Essentially having to be your own doctor to figure out what’s really been causing you to go through hell for the past four years?
How angry would YOU get? How can a doctor do this? How can he just say it has nothing to do with the Yaz and Yasmin pills? HOW? WHY?
Emily stopped taking the contraceptive pill a few days ago. She is never going to take it again, not any kind.
She is going to let her body work the way it’s supposed to work.
It will take just over a week before the substances have left her system.
My sister used to be happy. She had found the love of her life.
She had found her passion in painting landscapes, portraits and fantasy, and in making the most stunning exclusive wedding,
anniversary and birthday cards. She used to love cooking, and made dishes so delicious they could be served in restaurants.
She used to laugh so much.
I pray to God that this is the answer.
I want my sister back.
I miss the old her.
Things were going well. You were happy. Then it all went away, in an instant.
This is the story of my older sister, “Emily”.
It’s 2004. I’m visiting my parents for a few days. One evening while watching tv the phone rings, and mum goes to answer it.
She’s three meters away from me, and I can still hear my sister on the phone screaming and crying uncontrollably.
Emily is terrified that she is going to die.
She doesn’t want to be alone in her house, in case something happens to her.
Mum packs some clothes and dad drives her down to my sister. Mum stays there several nights.
What I’ve just written repeats itself over and over, with breaks of various lengths, for the next 4 years...
Shortly after the first episode in 2004, Emily is referred to a therapist by her doctor due to anxiety and panic attacks.
One-on-one sessions at first, and then she starts group therapy with people who also have anxiety.
Some of them were mentally abused in their childhood, others physically.
Emily suffered neither mental nor physical abuse. Not in her childhood, not ever.
She is having panic attacks and she doesn’t understand why.
If she senses the slightest bit of discomfort in her body it worries her. Her pulse is constantly high. Her ears feel clogged.
Her mood is all over the place. Migraines. Dizziness. Depression. Anxiety. No energy. All these symptoms and they’re not going away.
She’s in and out at the doctor’s office for checks, but there seems to be no physical cause for my sister’s symptoms.
The doctor, the therapists, and to some extent even us - her family, believes the cause of her problems is psychological.
After a while she received a diagnose which turned out to be incorrect.
Then she received the diagnose GAD - General Anxiety Disorder, which has been her diagnose from the therapists ever since.
Other possible diagnoses were depression and M.E.
At one point, things went from bad to worse. The group therapy sessions made Emily hit rock bottom.
I had never seen her so low. She decided to quit the group therapy, and stick to the one-on-one sessions.
Some months ago her doctor believed she was also suffering from hypochondria,
and managed to get her a two day appointment at the world’s first Hypochondria clinic in Bergen, western Norway.
It takes over 7 hours to get to Bergen.
May 2008.
Suddenly, Emily has even less energy. She’s constantly tired.
From May to August I barely see my sister because every day she’s tired, worried and unhappy.
Tuesday, 9th of September 2008.
I hear a car outside my flat. A very long “ding dong” at the door, my sister’s signature entry.
She asks me to look up some information online on the contraceptive pill Yaz.
She tells me she just figured out when she started taking the Yasmin pill. In 2004, before she had any symptoms.
And she said she switched to Yaz in May this year.
I searched for a while on Norwegian pages without finding anything.
Then I googled it, also without any luck. I tried Yasmin instead.
First hit: www.verdicts.co.uk
Then, jackpot: www.askapatient.com
I think, for the first time in four years, my sister is genuinely sad and angry.
Through all this time, all this pain, suffering, hurt... Believing she was losing her mind, pushed to dig into her childhood,
analysing every little thought and emotion yet finding nothing, asking her doctor again and again if the symptoms had anything to do with the contraceptive pill and being told NO ...
All this because of a pill? Trusting your doctor, yet this is the outcome?
Essentially having to be your own doctor to figure out what’s really been causing you to go through hell for the past four years?
How angry would YOU get? How can a doctor do this? How can he just say it has nothing to do with the Yaz and Yasmin pills? HOW? WHY?
Emily stopped taking the contraceptive pill a few days ago. She is never going to take it again, not any kind.
She is going to let her body work the way it’s supposed to work.
It will take just over a week before the substances have left her system.
My sister used to be happy. She had found the love of her life.
She had found her passion in painting landscapes, portraits and fantasy, and in making the most stunning exclusive wedding,
anniversary and birthday cards. She used to love cooking, and made dishes so delicious they could be served in restaurants.
She used to laugh so much.
I pray to God that this is the answer.
I want my sister back.
I miss the old her.
