gender and medicine and hysteria, oh my! on confronting TVs in my dr's waiting room

[untonuggan]

so the other day i went to my psychiatrist because seasonal depression was all HA i came AFTER the solstice, whatcha gonna do now? except the better verb is "dragged", i dragged myself there.

she's in a new office because she's with a mega-hospital group, and i am happy because insurance! she takes it, but unhappy because i share the waiting room with an urgent care office which means germs.

also, there is a TV instead of just calming music like her old office.

so there i am the other day, trying to hold my shit together while i wait for my dr, sitting awaaaay from the germy people, which meant sitting under the TV.

some soap opera ended, and a talk show came on. the guest was Lorena Bobbit, which was not great because while I commend her for doing interviews, "let's hear about someone's abusive marriage" in my psychiatrist's office is not conducive to me keeping my shit together. however, what made me go OH FUCK NO was that the (male) interviewer was all "hahahahha penises" and was very disrespectful.

now, let me pause for a moment to note the gendered reactions i noted to the interview.

when a woman showed up on screen and started talking about her abusive marriage, people presenting as female in the room glanced up from their phones or knitting or whatnot, paused for a moment, and then went back to what they were doing. in my case it was "oh, the media is showing more stuff about violating women's bodies? fff. well, that is to be expected." i did not notice masculine-presenting people really do anything different.

then lorena bobbit mentioned the words "penis" and "knife" in the same sentence. every masculine presenting person in the room (except for the psych front desk person, who was on the phone), FROZE in what they were doing, and stared at the screen. female-presenting people had already written the show off as not-worth-watching.

and i was FED UP with the Patriarchy and also what the hell is up with this show in a doctor's office waiting room? so i summoned a negative spoon and went up to the desk and asked one of the frozen masculine people if we could possibly change the channel or turn the TV off. as he considered where the remote might be, his colleague got off the phone. he did not know context, so he just saw "pscyh patient having a hard day who is upset asking for the TV to get turned off." so he went all "Ma'am, the TV is for everyone, but I can put you in a different room" and whisked me away to a group room with some stuff on the white board that made me rage internally about "From Love to Above" (i shit you not).

(then i texted various people i know snarky things and cried a bit, because wth, I did not appreciate being treated like a potentially unhinged crazy lady when I was in fact being an advocate for people not having to hear about domestic violence when they were sick and waiting to seek treatment.)

i *did* tell the front desk person what was on TV as he whisked me away, and I think they changed the channel after I left.

but Fucking A.

(although if I knew before I could go sit somewhere quiet if I complained about the TV, I'd start doing it every office with a TV on in the waiting room, especially the places with Fox news.)

so, I'm going to:

1. make that Arduino thing that lets you turn off nearby TVs, because necessary and I will have the (stealth) POWER.
2. write to the big mega board about what they show in their waiting rooms (but not the front desk guy, because I have to interact with him whenever I see my dr, and it is not worth making an enemy of him, and I think we are chill now even though I am still kind of offended)
3. speak up more often (in person or after the fact) when there's TVs showing bullshit in waiting rooms.

that is my latest rant about gender and medicine and also people thinking I'm a hysterical psych patient, all rolled into one. *sigh*

Comments

Ugh sympathy

[alexseanchai]

...I am so glad the TV in my primary care's waiting room is just health TV. And my psych and therapist, their office waiting room is Sirius XM Seventies On Seven.

Re: Ugh sympathy

[untonuggan]

♥

i am also glad of those things.

[the_rck]

Gah. At least the one waiting room TV I dealt with over the whole surgery prep thing was tuned to HGTV. That's a lot less likely to be upsetting and triggery for most people. (My mother had trouble with it because, during the 7-10 days she was with my sister, HGTV was on all the time.)

[untonuggan]

ahhh. yeah. i mean, at least like "fish in a tank TV" or "AMC movies" (though gods knows a lot of the classics are problematic) or something...not...that.

ugh.

[vintagewitch]

... that is infuriating. I'm so sorry you had to deal with all that while waiting to get treatment.

[untonuggan]

♥ thanks

[altamira16]

Yes, Make a TV-B-Gone
http://www.instructables.com/id/Arduino-TV-B-Gone/

[untonuggan]

yes! that thing. I think of it as a "TV put-outer" a la Dumbledore.

[lilacsigil]

lilysea once hid a waiting room TV remote after turning down the volume and thus she is my role model for such things! Last time I was at the dentist I did the same, because they're always tuned to aggressively loud talk shows with ULTRA DIET NOW!!! ads in between.

[untonuggan]

oh wow, A++ lilysea i wish they actually had the remotes out, I would totally hide them.

as it is, I'm just going to build one of these (as linked by <user name="altamira", though I like to think of them as Dumbledore's TV Put-outers personally): TV-B-Gone http://www.instructables.com/id/Arduino-TV-B-Gone/

[chalcopyrite]

That is immense bullshit. I am sorry you had to deal with that.

[untonuggan]

thanks. <3

[tyger]

Fucking hell, what a cascade of fail. :( *huuuuuugs*

Also, really? Really? Putting any kind of commercial TV in a psych waiting room seems like a really terrible idea. (Another reason: twitchy person and SUDDENLY LOUDER ads. I could go on but I know I don't need to. <3) I suspect also bad for a holy-shit-hospital-NOW waiting room! Because I bet there's a lot of tired/upset/unstable because pain/etc. people there! LE SIGN. Just. Fish TV. This is the perfect place for Fish TV. Or a defrag screen. Something like that.

(My doctor's has commercial radio, which is still annoying, but a lot less. My brainpoker has nothing on. Nothing. There's just couches and magazines and a few toys for kids. A side table with a jug of water and glasses if you're thirsty. That's it. It's so great.)

Still, at least you know the secret code to get somewhere else to sit, now? I mean, doesn't solve the problem, but at least you can waste less spoons, which is sometimes the best result you can actually get. *huuuuuugs*

[untonuggan]

<3 thanks

*huuuugs* back

[silveradept]

That's very much not listening, also, what the hell with putting in talk shows in a place where people might not want to have their mental state exacerbated.

Build ye the device to turn off the televisions and marvel at your power. And all the sudden quiet in your life.

[untonuggan]

device of magical powers! yes. mwaahhahaha.

[umadoshi]

UGH, so vile. >.< *hugs* Sorry you had to deal with that! (And I thought the horrifically obnoxious kids' programing I used to sit through in a waiting room was bad--well, it was. But clearly it could be worse.)