The last time I ran off to see a doctor was about 10 years ago when I got a concussion shortly after graduating college. After that, I have visited optometrists and dentists, but not an MD. I had my own insurance at my first big boy job after school, but I didn't schedule any appointments [early 20s with plenty of other priorities] before I got fired after a couple years and lost employer coverage (ain't nobody got money for COBRA nonsense).

After that, I've been rather chronically underemployed and thus avoided the medical system entirely (with the above exceptions of my eyes & teeth) to avoid being told to go fix expensive problems [and not wanting the monthly drain of premiums].

Anyway, I (for better and worse) had an hours cut that got me eligible for Medicaid. I'd like to know what to say to get a head-to-toe physical (including mental health) with minimal hassle and needing to re-clarify what I want. Mental health-wise, I can state a suspected primary complaint: undiagnosed ADD due to lacking the H as a child as well as seasonal depression [the chronic depression was entirely downstream from the abovementioned ADD].

However, I have no idea what to tell the doctor to look for physically. Probably should get some kind of comprehensive blood screening done. Make sure my hormones, iron, etc… are all within normal bounds. Perhaps I have some conditions that should've spooked me into seeing a doctor five years ago, but I'm still alive and well, so they're no longer causes for alarm [even if they should be].

I do hope one of you thinks of a better title or a more coherent structure for the overall post.

This question was inspired by a comment chain about PFAS in Gore-Tex jackets under a different post here, but it's been a bit of a simmering question for me.

When reading through that thread, my immediate reaction was something along the lines of the following.

Unless you're directing traffic in Seattle or Scotland, wouldn't the amount of time you'd wear the jacket be too little to have meaningful exposure? It's not like you're walking into an oven where the polymers would break down from heat. Further, if it's GoreTex-appropriate weather, you'll near-certainly have additional clothing between your skin and the GoreTex.

I was bored at work today, so I had plenty of time for rumination and introspection. What I found so far is that my instinctive skepticism toward health-conscious rhetoric has these primary sources:

1. I listened to Stronger by Science's six-hour deep dive on aspartame. Their eventual conclusion is that aspartame does cause bladder cancer in rats & mice, but the equivalent doses for humans make fears over its use into a major nothingburger. A human would need to spend a year chugging down five gallons of Diet Coke each day for the elevated cancer risk to be statistically meaningful.
2. When I catch someone trying to be convincing in an area where I lack domain expertise, I judge them by their overall demeanor and (if I can catch on) general rhetorical logic [in that order] long before I consider the truth of their specific claims. The IRL people I've met who are most stridently into wholesome natural living have fervency and lack of appreciation that it's the dose that makes the poison to the degree that it makes RFK discussing vaccine policy sound grounded in reality by comparison. Perhaps if they were born in a different society, they'd make excellent temple priests who ensure no lazy shortcuts or "it's all we have available" excuses are made when it's time to ensure a full harvest. Instead, they're the kinds who play 50 million questions and have genuine concerns that the radio waves that connect my wireless headphones are giving me brain damage or control. [To be fair, there is some large selection effects here. My hobbies have a habit of attracting those who are so open-minded that their brains fell out. Since online interactions strip the majority of demeanor and previous interactions, I judge online strangers with strange opinions way less harshly than IRL contacts unless they've gone out of their way to be obnoxious. IRL, I'm exposed to a lot more generic chemicals bad rhetoric than in my usual online bubbles. ]
3. Based on 1, unless I have preexisting trust with a particular journalist, layman's science journalism—when it's performed by journalists dabbling in science rather than scientists trying their hands at public communication—is far too likely to overblow a headline or misrepresent the research conclusions. "Here are 30 links to news articles" doesn't appeal to me because 25 of them are probably copying each other (that's just how internet journalism works). It's highly unlikely that all 5 of the remaining links misread the original paper, but I'm not reading through all those (perhaps AI summarization could help here—at the very least it could identify commonalities and outliers for manual examination later).
4. Related to 2, two additional SMBC comics that share my attitude: Vitamin Water v. Butter and Pronounceable Ingredients Only

That said, sometimes the health nuts are correct. As it turns out, all the coughing smokers do is a strong sign that smoking is bad for your lungs.

What are some heuristics to sort health tips that get passed around without citation into one of the following buckets?

1. You'll notice the improvement within a week once you've finished withdrawal. Smoking, boozing, eating meat or alliums at dinnertime, and heroin are in this bucket.
2. The effect is real and significant, but you may not notice the impact until at least a year has gone by, if ever. Seatbelts and bike/horse helmets are the two examples that immediately pop to mind.
3. Technically non-zero, but ultimately trivial. The opening aspartame example would fit. In a similar line to doctors who recommend against treating prostate cancer because the treatments would shorten your lifespan by more than letting that cancer run its course and waiting for a heart attack or totally unrelated cancer to do you in, these interventions are meaningless to anyone who uses motor vehicles regularly.
4. Playground rumors or outright disinformation. Vaccines causing autism and yellow 5 as an HRT supplement b/c it shrinks your testicles belong in this wastebin.

Circling back to the impact of PFAS in Gore-Tex that inspired today's thinking, my layman's estimate that the effects on the factory workers who make a career out of working with the stuff is a low 2 when following proper safety procedures. Without them, a definite 1. For wearers of the stuff, a solid 3.

One final reason I may have been so fired up on this topic is that I listened to a highlight reel from a Congressional hearing round table on food & pharmaceutical safety last week. During the testimony, I had a nagging feeling that at least half of what they said was true, but the truth percent is below 75, and I had no idea which was which because all claims were presented with the same urgency.

I posted my own thoughts here, TLDR: I am afraid and catastrophizing and thinking very black and white and spiraling quite a bit and I'm not even American.

This is not meant to be another ~news thread.

Please keep discussion in this thread to mental health only.

How are you doing?

What will the impact of this be on your life?

*TRIGGER WARNING: Racist and Anti-LGBTQ topics contained below with hurtful language *

Hello all,

TL;DR: I am wondering if there's any generally recommended resources, books, or general advice (peer-reviewed research would be ideal) on dealing with racist, close-minded family after you have made the transition to more progressive worldviews? I don't really like my family these days because of their Trump support as well as their generally close-minded, reality-denying views. It's weighing on me, because I miss having some sort of good connection with them like I used to. Their health is starting to decline, but I've gotten to the point that I don't really like them that much, and I haven't been going to see them. These two parts of me are kind of at odds with each other, and I'm struggling to find a balance.

Background & Context: I (33M) and I grew up in a rather conservative family (2 older brothers), to the point that a "light" level of racism was generally accepted and talked about in the family, and as an example, jokes using the N-word with the hard R were told by my dad and grandparents semi-regularly. I say "light" racism because we don't have a family history of racial violence or owning slaves (we're descendants of 1900's European immigrants, mostly.) I also think my family generally supported the Civil Rights Act back in the day. As a result, I grew up finding racist and gay jokes funny and frequently repeated them, and generally had a close-minded approach to the world before I went to college - but I never truly wished anyone any ill will. I got along well with my family, and while we were never super close, I at least talked to my family about stuff but we never really shared emotions or talked about depression with each other. None of us ever really learned how to deal with their emotions and talk about them. My family never traveled, either, so I never got out of my home state till I was in high school, and it was of my own volition. My parents are also conservative Christians, so they have generally anti-LGBTQ views. My mom calls LGBTQ people "abominations" per the bible, for example. It's disgusting.

Once I got out into the real world working with people of other cultures and befriending them, my worldviews began to change. Especially once I went to college and started working in scientific research, wherein your critical thinking and objectivity are especially stressed, I started to pivot more and more to progressive views. Beyond that, the more I saw that data generally supported progressive views and policies, I started to disagree harder and harder with my parents on political topics. Additionally, I slowly lost my faith, and started to become more and more annoyed by my mother citing the bible as a reference for topics such as LGBTQ marriage rights. I now commonly refer to myself a recovering Catholic.

And then Trump happened. Honestly, in his first run, I could understand why people voted for Trump. They were tired of traditional politics and feeling like it wasn't working for them, especially in midwest and blue collar areas, so they figured "fuck it, throw some chaos into the system." But after COVID and January 6th? I just can't fathom still having a SHRED of support for that disgusting shell of a man. And yet my parents do. My mom watches Newsmax, thinks COVID vaccines are deadly, and thinks the 2020 election was stolen. She thinks Biden was kidnapped and was being impersonated by the Deep State. I can't. I just can't with her. It's all she wants to talk about, and my dad won't say anything to her about how fucking crazy the shit she spouts is.

I was also close to one of my brothers for many years, as we went to concerts and played games together mostly. We just "click" when it comes to gaming together, and it feels seamless and fun to play with him in a way that it doesn't with anyone else I've ever played with. But then, politics comes up. My brother would probably be aptly described as an incel, in that he reads 4chan still, and also has some batshit crazy views. One, for example, is that he doesn't think the races should mix, because something along the lines of black and white genes don't work as well together. He has straight up said that to me, and I regularly wonder if I should cut off contact with him for that alone. He often blames women in sexual assault cases or characterizes them as gold diggers. A part of me wonders if I am doing a disservice to the aforementioned groups by even still associating with him after saying things like that. If I am also doing a disservice to myself by even sometimes associating with someone who has such an awful worldview?

And herein lies my dilemma: I haven't gone to see my family in over 6 months, now (I live <30 mins away). My parents' health is declining - it is likely that one of them is going to die in the next 5-10 years, and yet I don't even want to go be around them, especially my mom. I still game online with my brother, but this dilemma is slowly eating away at me.

But also? I feel a deep empathy and sorrow for them, to the point that I'm choked up as I'm writing this post because they are lonely people who, in my opinion, have been grossly manipulated and mislead throughout their lives. I wouldn't want someone to give up on me, as I feel I am doing to them by avoiding them. I also used to be deeply entrenched in close-mindedness, and I wouldn't be where I'm at without people who kept trying to convince me of a better path. But the other part of me thinks: Is there a line somewhere? At some point, do you become too deeply entrenched that I can't convince you out of it? What do I do at that point? How do I even define that point?

Are there any resources or books on this topic? Are there any objective things I can do to try and improve this situation and feel better about it? I have spoken with a therapist about this in the past, but I wouldn't describe the feedback I got as very helpful. I would like to go see a therapist again, partially about this, but it's so damn expensive thanks to the American healthcare system. Any input anyone has is appreciated, even if it's anecdotal. This post is also partially just cathartic to write out as it is also to ask for feedback. Thank you.