I just called adult protective services and had a really terrible experience. I know that people are understaffed, and fed up, but it felt really dehumanizing. It feels like I took a risk to try to protect myself and improve my wellbeing, and they were just irritated with me for calling and asking for services at all.

I know this is a common experience for people seeking anything they need, from healthcare to social services, to transportation to appointments, to medicine, where the person in need is preemptively blamed for hurting and the problem is just minimized, no matter what it is, because that department is tired and unable to respond adequately, so they blame the person seeking their help instead. But it hurts a lot. I’m trying to remind myself that I did the right thing even if it went badly. But ugh, I don’t know how to manage how much more often this has happened to me since I became more severely ill. Just needed to get it off my chest, I guess. It was a bad phone call. I hated it. I just hung up with the feeling I’d done something wrong, even though i know better.