2meirl4meirl

My doctor told me the best way to heal my back was to take a few weeks off work. She didn't understand why I was laughing my ass off, till I reminded her that most people don't get paid time off. Doctors kinda live on the moon in terms of what the rest of us can get
- most people don’t get paid time off
  WTF really? I know workers get fucked really bad in the US, but do most people not get time off at all?
  
  You seriously haven’t heard us complaining? Most people get something but a few weeks is unheard of. I think most people I know who even get pto have a little over a week/year between personal and sick days
  
  As an american Paid time off almost sounds like a myth
  
  The minimum for New York is 40 hours of sick time a year that has to be earned. This had to be fought for.
  
  I'm not even American, I'm Canadian. Things are a shit show here too. I didn't get PTO, vacation pay or sick days until I joined a union. So this was before then. I remember my second job was working part time at a hospital for a while, which are run by the government, and I still had no PTO or any sort of protection or benefits.
  
  Some places combine sick time and vacation into “PTO”, others the accrual is so pitiful you’re lucky if you get a week’s worth of time off in a year.
  My fiancé’s place of work is both of these things. She got really sick in August and burned through her PTO in a week, then had to go to work despite still being sick
  
  I was the IT guy for a company in Georgia (USA). Despite the fact I was the only IT guy and handled our SQL databases/Exchange/AD/firewalls/etc (all the way down to punching down new phonelines for headsets going back to the dialer), I recieved 0 days PTO (sick time or other). I was paid $15.50/hr and dealt with insane shit that made me question my morals, but when it's do thing x or not feed your son, you'll do some stuff.
  Thankfully I don't work there anymore, but yeah, if time off isn't mandatory, a lot of companies don't offer it.
- That's American problem, I suppose. In the UK and even the 3rd world country like mine, we were paid at least 2 weeks off when working full-time.
  
  Sadly I'm Canadian. And we're as fucked as the u.s when it comes to worker rights. Thankfully I'm in a union now
- I knew that there wasn't any nationally mandated PTO, but I assumed that most of you had some in your contracts individually or union...FFS America, what are you doing!!!
  In NZ we get 4 weeks/year and 10 days sick leave. Most companies have allowance for a couple of mental health days also, some even pay those days.
  There is also bereavement leave, of up to 3 days. Parental leave of 26 weeks, your employer has to keep your job open for you to return to after the 26 weeks.
  Source
  Side note: we are full, don't come here. Actually we get left off maps, and we like it like that.
  
  In Europe I don't think sick days even have a limit, at some point you need to actually prove you are sick and are not just saying it, but as long as you have a doctor sign off on it you can be sick as much as you like.
  Often used when people have long-term illnesses or injuries that take a long time to recover from
  Those sick days are totally separate from holiday pay. So I can be off for 2 weeks with an infection (with a doctor's note) and then take a week holiday, and they can't say boo.
  
  Oh you sweet sweet summer child. Here in the US we traded unions and labor protection for an extra $20 a week and rugged individualism.
  
  I have a corporate job with a very large company. Interact with CTO and other executives occasionally.
  If I take off, I don't get paid. And they can fire me whenever.
  And the state they operate out of doesn't have unemployment money left to pay when that happens so you better have money in the bank.
  At least I have basic health care I can't use that I pay $300 a month for.
  
  most of you had some in your contracts individually or union
  Lol, we don't do contracts for most positions, either!
  
  Most companies have PTO of some kind, but there's not a lot of real enforcement and whatever rules there are vary state-to-state, a situation I'm sure is about to get much, much worse with an administration coming promising to gut or destroy federal agencies.
  Most established companies usually only offer a week or two of PTO a year, and this includes sick-time and sometimes holidays, so if you want to take Christmas and new years off, some companies force you to spend your PTO days on it. Many times if you don't use your PTO it just expires at end of the year and doesn't accumulate, they wouldn't want anyone saving up and taking a few weeks off while being paid. Most Americans manage to swing a handful of 3-day or 4-day weekends a year, and that's the extent of our down-time or escape from work.
  
  Yeah, I actually am not sure what folks are talking about. Even in the most soul crushing places I've worked, the bosses still (reluctantly) give PTO. I've worked all over the USA from retail to military to Mom n pop shop etc, PTO has never been "do I get PTO?" It's "how much PTO do I get?"
- Move to a developed country and find out that most people get paid leave.
  
  Canadian. Most people here do not
- If you're lacking paid leave, maybe have your union take it up on your behalf?
  Unless...no...
- To heal your back, just take 2 weeks off to starve. Yes that will help.
  
  Less weight for your back to support.
- I used to do IT for a hospital and the doctors were the most coddled mfers I've ever dealt with in my life. I would regularly get calls in the middle of the night or the weekend to fix one of their dictation software. Like... Just type, ffs.
  
  While working at the hospital I met many a young doctor. Extremely smart when it comes to their field, but they seem to lack the most basic common sense about something as easy as rebooting a computer. They're also messier than my 13 year old kid. Their private offices always look like messy dorm rooms
  
  As someone who currently works in Healthcare IT, the dictation thing is so true ... It's literally the end of the world to them if they can't dictate, and have to use their fingers and - gasp, a keyboard! The horror!
- A grim reminder that here in Europe things can get worse and worse, but people will always just complain and take it. There will never be an uprising or a revolution or anything. Humans really are pathetic, huh?
  
  What are you actually talking about?

He's the one they call Dr. Gaslight He's the one that makes ya feel uptight
- Read that to the tune of doctor feelgood
  
  As intended

Doc's lying. We all do, some just don't linger on them.
- Yeah the important thing is a lot of people don't have depression and/or anxiety regularly

Depression and feeling sad over sad things aren't the same thing. A lot of people who experience depression may not realize that their feelings go beyond just feeling blue sometimes. Really sounds like the doctor is right to raise this as a potential issue.
- I hope one day to not have a constant barrage of sad things going on so I can find out if I actually have depression or not.
  
  I second this. I wasn't exactly too optimistic before, but now I see no space for optimism at all :(
- Yup, clinical depression doesn't have a rational cause.
- This is the opposite side of the "wowthanksimcured" hashtag/subreddit/topic that was popular about 10 years ago. These feelings don't always have an objectively rational cause. Which also means that if there's some kind of medical cause or intervention necessary, screening for it is important.

If you don’t have some anxiety, I’m pretty sure you’re dead inside.
- I'm dead inside, when is the anxiety supposed to stop?
  
  That's your problem, you went dead inside because of the anxiety. You should have died inside first.
  Jokes aside, I hope you are going to get better!
- Anxiety is like anger, everyone experiences anger and statistics say the average person gets angry 6+ times a day, but for some people that's killing them, and for others is manageable. Having anxiety, like when you're playing a video game, isn't the problem, it's managing it, and reducing it, if you have a panic disorder, you're getting high leaves of anxiety in situations you shouldn't be having any anxiety.
- Or filthy rich
  
  I have to say, it is indiscriminate, and part of the issue with generalised anxiety is the perception that it relates to specific stresses rather than your body's uncontrolled response to them.
  Wealthy people have better access to treatment.
  
  Naw they just have different anxieties. Pretty sure Elon is a walking anxiety.

"Do you think about self harm?"
"Just the normal amount "
"The normal amount is zero."
"Oh..."

Great clown Pagliacci is in town tonight. Go and see him. That should pick you up

She wouldn't admit it anyway
- My first thought too. "She's lying".

The doctor was lying

At 70 i thought ... "Hey! I may last till 80!"
At 71 i, i think "oh hell i may have to last till I'm 80"

She was correct. There are some billionaires that have different mental health issues, but not those.
- I'm sorry but you seem to be mistaken.
  Billionaires are a different species and we don't have enough research data to refer to in order to determine what mental illnesses, if any, they might have.
  Don't lump them in with the rest of humanity because they aren't even people anymore. They are inhuman scum that has mistakenly evolved. A fucking virus. We went out of our way to eradicate smallpox but unfortunately we haven't successfully purged Billionarisim from humanity. I genuinely do not care how that is done. I don't care. They need to be removed from society at all possible costs before they destroy it.
  
  technically the threshold for "different species" is "can't reproduce with other species through normal biological means" so I think while it's hard to argue that with other billionaires, Elon Musk is an interesting case since AFAIK all those kids with his genes were conceived through artificial insemination. you may be on to something; maybe we're watching a divergence in action.
  
  Billionaires

' "Uncontrollable" feelings of anxiety or depression' isn't normal.
Everyone has had anxiety and/or been depressed before. It's when it doesn't go away shortly after feeling it that it is a real problem.

The doctor likely has a private practice, so without the heinous pressure of working in a hospital and all the money that comes from being part of the medical industrial complex, its no wonder the doctor isn't depressed.
- Contrary what you may perceive on the internet, most people aren't depressed, not just doctors with their private practices.
  
  Well, they probably never bother to reflect on their own actions, nor the backdrop dumpster-fire we call society. That, with the rapidly approaching line-of-no-return heating of ocean water is enough to realize Humanity is a pox upon the Earth, and yet somehow we are supposed to reconcile these feelings and our very existence and desire for personal fulfillment in the face of overwhelming evidence that we are mostly powerless in the grand scheme of things.
  So yeah, stupid people and narcissists are generally happier.
- LIES! SLANDER! How dare this person reply with a nuanced take!

That's when I tell him I'm mostly just anxious about my prostate and make him check. What a tool

And it was a lie

"oh doc, liar liar pants on fire"

Removed by mod

The doctor gave you or insurance a $300 bill for the visit. Why would they be depressed?

Anxiety is useful for survival.
- Maybe in the wild but not at my corporate job
  
  If something at the job is causing anxiety, perhaps you need to have it.
  If something other than something at the job, is causing anxiety, it'd probably be useful if it happened at a better time.
- I would imagine small spouts of depression would also help understand self worth and assist in overcoming obstacles.
  
  spouts
  not sure if usage I’ve never heard, or typo, or boneappletea for “bouts”
  
  help understand self worth and assist in overcoming obstacles
  So are we taking "deep thought" and naming it depression nowadays?
  No wonder everyone is being diagnosed and drugged for the disease of thoughtfulness.
- During the old hunter gatherer days where resources are scarce, yes. However, we're now in a world of abundance, but our lizard brain hadn't coped with modernity.
  
  I guess it's time to convert that lizard brain into a human brain then :P

That doctor lied.
It may not be every person every second of every day, but it is way too common to pretend that "doesn't everyone" isn't accurate enough
- You should change the people you come into contact with once in a while.
  Feeling sad once in a while is common. Feeling depressed or anxious is not.
  
  Man, when the incidence rate of only major depression is right under 10%, that's common.
  Expand that upwards for all severity, and it gets worse.
  Throw in anxiety, and you're at around 20% for all forms of anxiety, though there is a lot of comorbidity between depression and anxiety.
  But that still means there's some percentage of people with both to some level.
  This isn't sadness we're talking about here, this is diagnosed cases.
  If you're at a Thanksgiving dinner, and there's a dozen people at the table, at least one of them is dealing with one or both of anxiety and depression. Maybe more of them.
  Now, if you want to play circle jerk over "common" being used, whatever, I'm not playing that game, so you'll be doing it alone.
  But the ugly fact is that you absolutely know enough people dealing with the issues that it sure as fuck isn't rare. It's right there, all the time. It's been worse since covid, and even worse with the younger folks. People under their thirties? Some data runs as high as a fucking quarter of them experiencing one or both of depression and anxiety.
  So, maybe, if you aren't seeing it in the people you come into contact with, that's a you problem. Maybe you're missing it, maybe the people you know just don't trust your snarky ass to talk about their problems with you. Maybe they should change who they come in contact with by avoiding you. There was assiduously absolutely no need for you to be a dick in your opening line, btw. That's extra true if you thought that maybe I'm dealing with depression and anxiety myself. Like, someone expresses that a doctor might be lying about the prevalence of anxiety and depression, and your first thought is to be a dick to them? Fuck that

Sorry but not a good doctor if they shame you like that.
- This isn't shaming, this is helping to realize there might actually be a problem.
- Actually I think that's the right answer. Saying "it's normal to feel miserable" is what a 50s doctor or a Catholic priest would say, not someone who wants to do no harm.
  
  Wait, it's not normal to feel miserable?
  
  Because they got singled out in the process.
- How? Natural state shouldn't be negative a state.
  The lol isn't in quotes so it not the doctor laughing just the narrator laughing at the situation they are in.
- You'll have to explain why you made it personal before I engage with your statement.