This burnout

Is your medical provider seeming snippy? Impatient? Cranky?  Do they have a faraway look in their eye that looks like they may be wishing they were gouging their eyes out rather than talking to you?  Do you feel like they have checked out and aren't listening?  Follow this simple checklist to see if you are the reason your psychiatric prescriber has compassion fatigue!

Do you regularly make appts and then simply forget about them and no show, so the provider gets yelled at by their boss for reduced productivity?

Do you regularly wander in 15 mins late for appointments and then loudly demand to be seen, completely uncaring of the 15 clients whose appts are after yours who your provider now has to run to catch up with because they will yell at them for making them wait in the lobby?

Do you show up late and then complain at your provider for making you wait in the lobby for 10 mins because of the other 5 people who didn't bother to show up on time?

Do you demand controlled substances by name and then when your provider agrees but has to give you a urine drug screen because our bosses require it, do you yell indignantly at them about how this is unfair before peeing a stream of pure molly and Jack?

Do you come in to your appointment dressed in pajamas you have been wearing for 3 days straight without having showered or used deodorant while chain smoking tobacco and cannabis so that when you leave the office the miasma of your body odor perseveres?

Do you insist on giving your provider a hug as if we're friends rather than understanding that this is a job they are being paid to do?

Do you try to find and friend your provider on social media and then get mad when they decline?

Do you track down your provider's home address or number and contact them to ask for refills?

Do you refuse to take simple advice like engaging in therapy but at the same time say hyperbolic things like "My anxiety is through the roof off the charts out of control" when you actually mean "I get tense sometimes at work" and then insist that the only thing that works is controlled substances?

Do you insist you need sleeping pills and then argue with your provider when they say that perhaps instead you should cut back the 3 energy drinks you have every day because you think that could not possibly be the problem?

Do you insist on getting benzos and then argue that you have no need for therapy "because I've done it all before" and thus it can't possibly help because of course two different therapists could not possibly have different approaches?

Do you whine to your provider about how the only reason you got a domestic violence charge is because you're a subjugated cishet white male and if you were female you would have been treated better by the courts for giving your partner a black eye?

Do you insist on interrogating your provider about their gender presentation and then make a big deal of how annoying you find gender neutral pronouns, and then insist that they engage in that conversation with you rather than let them focus on their actual job of medication management?

Do you change your med dosages on the fly without consulting your provider first and then yell at them for not releasing early refills when you increase your dose on your own?

Do you miss appts and then request early refills of controlled substances via email?

Do you complain about how hard it is to manage your trust fund/inheritance, while not having to work or go to school, and having no real social responsibilities while being a cishet white male?

If you answered yes to any of the above, yes, you are part of the problem and yes you are part of why we burn out and seem calloused and uncaring.  Don't take it wrong or personally, it's just that we are burnt out because of you specifically and how you are and the things you do and say, that's all.  Thanks for listening.