u/Direct_Couple6913

Hi all. I had a really bad experience with a physician today trying to get Contrave prescribed and I wanted to vent about it because it was so upsetting.

This was a telehealth visit with a doc I didn’t know. For context, I am overweight but not obese (should lose ~30 pounds) with no other conditions. I suffer from severe food noise (always have) and I have an otherwise healthy lifestyle, the support I need is with cravings. And for context, I can’t tolerate GLP-1s due to gastric distress. I have no contraindications for this medication.

He* (*that should have been my first sign) approached the conversation with skepticism from the first second. I could tell immediately that he was not into the idea of prescribing me this, and was asking me question after question to essentially make me “prove” that this was a good idea.

And doubting whether I had tried dieting. Implying that I should just, like, not snack. Making me define words like “food noise” “compulsive eating” and “delayed gastric emptying” with a tone that implied he thought I was throwing around buzz words that I didn’t understand. Do you know how awkward it is to explain to somewhat what a specific example of compulsive eating / food noise looks like who doesn't understand it? Me: “so like it was the afternoon and I already ate a good lunch but then I like…ate 5 pieces of toast with jam.” Him: “…ok….?” I am actually a reasonably intelligent person who’s listened to probably 200 hours of audiobook and podcast content on nutrition and health, work in healthcare, and spend hours researching this specific drug, all to be condescended to for half an hour.

And asking me, Have I tired and accountability buddy? Are you fucking kidding me sir……..if an accountability buddy worked for me, I would be skinny by now. (Same with…nutritionist, counselor, personal trainer, labs, carb counting - he literally ask one by one if I had tried these solutions as if I was turning to a drug for the fun of it. Then furrowing his brow as if the thought of one of these tactics not working was my own personal failure). Not believing that I don’t have bulimia and asking for medical records from when I was a child (20+ years ago) to prove it.

I wish I had ended the convo after the first 10 seconds. this happened 6 hours ago and I am still shaking. UGH.

Hi! I am now about 10% through what I hope will be a ~75K word first draft (standalone fantasy with a romance sub-plot). I thought I prepared myself well to write the draft quickly: I have a decent outline, have done some character work, and some rudimentary world-building. What I would consider "just enough, not too much" (though wth do I know!)

But once I started writing...by god is it slow.

I knew in theory that many authors write a few thousand words per day. But I didn't think through the fact that those ~2K words are done over hours, meaning it's maybe 500 to 1,000 words per hour? Obviously I'm the bottom end of that range, so those 7,500 words have taken me 15ish hours to write. But bc I have a full time job, it's being done over many days, which makes it feel even slower. I somehow believed that I'd be able to sit down and bang out a scene in less than an hour. Maybe 1 of my 6 scenes was that fast. But it was probably balanced out by a more strenuous scene that took 3x that amount. Le sigh.

This is not to mention the fact that I still have to pause to actually figure out details around setting, magic system, character backstory etc. that I need for a particular scene. And the dread of knowing I'll have to totally rewrite everything in draft 2 :)

I am saying nothing shocking to those who have actually written before. But I needed to vent! And I am gaining more respect for the craft of writing and the books I read every day (and took for granted). Thank you, authors!