[tw: abuse, mental illness, diet]
So… this just happened.
A tiny bit of background first. I have bipolar disorder, social anxiety disorder, schizo-effective disorder, and come from an abusive home. I currently live with my best friend and her parents (whom are very well off and have a maid, etc, etc).
A very nice lady from Amerigroup (an HMO with medicaid in the U.S.) came today and asked me some questions about my mental and physical health. The process was nice, even though I was very anxious about being out of my ‘safe space’ (my room), especially with the maid working that day. She went through all the physical tests and basically said I had great blood pressure and a nice heart rate and I seemed very healthy even though I told her I didn’t exercise much because of the small amount of time I spent outside of my room. So the last things she needed to do were check my height and weight. I was super anxious because I’m trying not to care about my weight, but it’s really difficult. She was really nice when I stepped on to the scale she brought and looked away, because she basically said, “Do you want me to not tell you?” and I said, “Please don’t.” Then the maid (who is very thin, by the way) came over and stared at the screen and I kept saying, “Oh, please, don’t,” but she lingered there and then walked away after a minute. The Amerigroup lady did not tell me my weight but later on, after she’d gone to the bathroom, the maid came up to me and laughingly said, “You need to go on a diet!” I just about died.