[goblin89]

It seems to be nearly impossible for me to advocate for myself at a place like a hospital.

It might be easier to do this for someone else, but it seems narcissistic to assume I of all the patients is so special. If there’s nobody to advocate for me, clearly I’m not!

Let’s say I try it anyway. I tend to be a slow rational thinker in real-time situations, especially under pressure. If I try to advocate for myself and ask questions, I would need to have time to consider the responses (did I even get the information I requested, what are the implications) and maybe do some research in order to make an informed choice as to whether to proceed or not, or whether to ask further questions. However, if I actually request time and have people wait for me, I enter a high-pressure mode in which I can’t think well. The clock is ticking, the stakes are high.

Even if it’s a simple routine case, I am entrusting myself to people who have the power to kill me. If it’s anything beyond routine, killing or harming me may not even be consequential to them (mistakes happen). It is a very particular type of situation.

The natural thing for me to believe is that all of these people are professionals. If I have reasons to supervise them, it automatically implies I believe they are either unprofessional or malicious, in which case I really should not be there in the first place. The arrangement is that I am not supposed to know better than them. If I try to supervise them, that implies I think I do. At worst it would be disrespectful or offensive and would make them hostile on a personal level (which is always at play between humans, regardless of the protocol), at best it would make me look like a crackpot not to be taken seriously anyway. Besides, if I already assume they make mistakes or are unprofessional, their answers can be false anyway.

On the other hand, I am aware that many, many mistakes are made in hospitals daily, so I know they are not such infallible professionals.

As a result, this makes me very reluctant to go to a hospital or a clinic for any reason. It’s probably bad.

Anyone has advice for overcoming this? Maybe training to think quickly and finding ways out in high-stakes situations like this? Tricking yourself into a mode where you feel natural advocating for yourself and act in a way that makes people treat you seriously without being offensive to them (considering the power they have over you)? Learning to not care what people think in a healthy way? (Please don’t suggest LLMs.)

[Fire-Dragon-DoL]

That would be useful for me too, similar problem