//------------------------------//
// Typical Doctor Things 
// Story: Mind Over Matter 
// by Boopy Doopy 
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It wasn’t much later before I was set up with a room as an inpatient. After my rabies shot, which my human mind was not going to admit was unnecessary, I was taken to the room where I'd be staying and sat on the bed. It was clean, white, sterile, and just reeked of the smell of a hospital. In there, Doctor Night wrapped my hoof and ankle in a simple-looking bandage, telling me it might be cast if x-rays saw a fracture. Then he started to work on where I’d bitten myself, noting all of the dirt and grass caked in it. All the while, I tried to ignore the fact that my itchiness felt like it was getting worse.
“I’m going to have to scrub the grime off of it,” he told me as he used his magic to pick up a sponge. “It’s going to hurt a bit.”
He lied. It didn’t just hurt a bit, it hurt a lot. It was nearly as painful now while he scrubbed as it was when I’d first bitten myself.
“Can’t you please be more gentle?” my human mind thought as he roughly scrubbed my wounds. Predictably, my colt body started to cry at the pain, and this itch that I tried not to scratch.
Herbal Essence saw my tears, and I felt her begin to stroke my mane. “I don’t need your comfort!” my human mind wanted to snap at her, but my pony body’s tears kept it from doing so. Instead, I continued to cry at the pain, letting her stroke my name, completely fed up with my crying already. And this itchiness! 
“It’s going to be okay,” she whispered to me. "You're going to be okay."
“Whatever did this ripped the skin right off,” Doctor Night commented as he was examining the wound, now finished with his brutal scrubbing. “It’s a miracle you were able to get away.”
“Oh, that’s just awful!” Herbal Essence said.
“Tough little guy,” Thundertail spoke to me, shaking my mane lightly.
“Yeah, right,” I thought as I scratched at my face.
“It’s looking a bit infected. I’m going to have to clean it with alcohol,” the doctor said. He then looked at me seriously. “This is going to burn,” he told me.
“Do you have anything for this itching?” I asked teary-eyed, not concerned by the thought of alcohol touching my wounds.
He looked at me like he’d just remembered that. “Let me get something,” he said quickly and left the room off to somewhere.
“You idiot!” I thought to myself. “Why would you ask that? Are you really that weak? Do you really not care?”
I hated myself for what I’d just asked for. To the three of them, it probably just sounded like I wanted itch cream for my face. But I knew good and well what I meant when I asked that question, and I hated myself for it. Three days into my second chance at life, and I was already screwing it all up. I cried at that thought, and I hated myself for that, too. And I hated this itchiness!
Seeing my tears, Herbal Essence put her arms around me to hug me, but I pushed her away. “Don’t touch me!” I told her bitterly, then closed my eyes and aggressively scratched at my face.
“I know its hard,” Thundertail said, grabbing my hoof and gently pinning it to the bed, “but you have to stop scratching. The doctor will be back any second. It’s going to be okay.”
“It’s not going to be okay!” I choked out.
Herbal Essence once again put her arms around me to hug me, and this time I didn’t push her away. I didn't want her to hug me, but I didn't stop her. “It’s going to be okay,” she whispered to me.
“Of course you think it’s going to be okay,” my human mind thought. “You don’t even know anything about me.”
A few seconds later, Doctor Night came back in with a jar of white cream that he, upon seeing my condition, quickly lathered into my face. "Does that feel better?" he asked me.
"A little," I whispered, still crying, hating myself for my weakness. I hated how little self-control I had, and I hated even more knowing it wasn’t this pony body’s fault. And a small part of me hated the fact that I knew I just had to deal with it. That small part of me already wanted to just give up. Over almost nothing. I knew if part of me wanted to give in now over just this itchiness, then the future wouldn’t bode well for me.
Almost as bad as the itchiness were my tears. I hated these ugly, disgusting tears. They automatically made these ponies sympathetic of me when I didn't want their sympathy. I didn't want to be told that it was okay, I wanted to be told that it wasn't okay. I wanted to be told to just tough it out, that if a little itchiness was what I had to go through to get to the other side, then so be it. I did not want to be enabled, and I hated them for trying to.
"They're not trying to enable you," I tried to tell myself. "They don't know anything about you. They're just trying to comfort you."
"They should know better!" my human mind said. "If they don't know anything, they shouldn't say anything!".
"Stop it," I said. "This is your own fault. Your poor decision making put you in this position. You can't take that out on other ponies."
I took a few deep breaths, trying to stop myself from being upset. I was going to be okay. They weren't trying to enable me, and even if they were, it wouldn't mean anything because there was nothing here for me to be enabled into using. I was going to be fine. I wasn't going back to my old life. Even if I was weak, it didn't matter because I was here now. I was going to be fine.
The doctor once again started working on my bites, gently cleaning it with alcohol, making them burn painfully like he said it would. While the alcohol in my wounds did make me wince, it combined with the cream on my face made me start to forget about my itchiness. Or maybe there really was something in my coat and I was overreacting.
Once he was done with that, I watched as he grabbed something out of the cabinet above him, making my itchiness quickly come back. “Don’t scratch. Don’t scratch. Don’t scratch,” I told myself as he pulled out two small bottles of pills. He pulled one out of each, one a red and yellow capsule and one a white tablet, and held them close to my mouth, expecting me to open. “What are they for?” I asked, wiping away my tears and resisting the urge to scratch. I was particularly interested in the tablet.
“They’re to make you feel better,” he said. “This one,” he explained as he held up the tablet, “will help better with that itching, as well as any pain in your hoof. This one,” he said, holding the capsule, “is an antibiotic for your bites to keep them from getting infected.”
I knew what antibiotics were, and wasn't concerned about it. However, I was concerned about the tablet. If it was for hoof pain, I wasn’t going to take it. Even though I’d basically asked for this just a few minutes ago, I was going to put that moment of weakness behind me and be strong now. It might have been nothing more than Ibuprofen, but I wasn’t taking any chances. “I don’t have any hoof pain,” I lied, my eyes still wet.
“Are you sure?” he asked me.
“Yes you do,” my human mind said. “Why turn it down? It’s probably nothing. I doubt a doctor would give a colt addictive substances.”
“It’s for hoof pain,” I said. “I’ll tough it out. Besides, weren’t you the one saying you didn’t want comfort?”
“It would be so easy. None of these ponies know. Besides, it wasn’t like he said it was opiates or codeine or something. He probably gives this to all his patients.”
“I’m fairly confident none of his patients are drug addicts who quit using literally three days ago. I'm not taking any chances.”
“I’m sure,” I told him as I kept my hoof on the bed to stop me from scratching.
“Okay,” he said as he gave me the capsule to take and put the tablet back in the bottle, putting both bottles back in the cabinet. "Just let me know if you need it.” He paused, and asked, “How long has it been since you've eaten, Leo?"
I shrugged. I hadn't eaten anything since I had been here, and I couldn't remember the last time my human body ate. It had been quite a while, and I remembered how hungry I was.
"Let me step out to get you something," he told me as he wrapped up my bites. He then looked to the two who found me. "Can you come with me?" he asked them.
"This is the part where they say I'm crazy," I thought as the three stepped out. “Or an abuse victim. Which isn’t technically wrong. They’d just be wrong about who did the abusing.”
As I waited for them to return, I tried to figure out what would happen to me. I was a colt, so I couldn't just live on my own. I would probably be put in foster care, or whatever the Equestrian equivalent was. Or maybe I'd just be given to the care of the couple who found me. That felt like a distinct possibility. I did know that living on the street would be unacceptable to them, which was a slight benefit of being as young as I now was. It would guarantee that I would be taken care of.
Before that though, I'd probably be interviewed by some social worker or therapist. I got the feeling that the doctor thought I was traumatized by something and ran away, and would call the pony equivalent of child protective services to figure out what. Not that I would tell them my problems. They wouldn't understand. I didn't think there were that many ponies who abused drugs.
I would tell Twilight Sparkle my problems, or Starlight Glimmer, or anyone I could identify, but that would require going to Ponyville or Canterlot or the Crystal Empire, which, at that point, seemed like an impossibility. For now, I was stuck here as a colt, subject to the whims of those who found me. Besides, even if I was a stallion, I couldn't leave from here because I didn't have any idea where anything was.
The three came back to me a few minutes later with a small tray of food and set it in front of me. I was disappointed to see that it contained sliced apples, carrots, oatmeal, and hay. I didn't like any of the foods in front of me, and would definitely not be eating hay. I realized that finding food I liked here would be a challenge. However, even if I did like what I saw, there was a problem.
"How am I supposed to pick the food up?" I asked.
The three looked at me with surprise on their faces. It was like I asked them how to blink. "You can't use magic?" Doctor Night asked me seriously.
"No, I don't know how," I said innocently.
He picked up his clipboard and wrote something down. "That's interesting," he said. "We'll get somepony to work on that with you."
"Great," I thought. "Now they think I've been locked in a basement my whole life."
"Until then," he said, looking back to me and picking up an apple slice, "I guess we'll have to help feed you."
Since I'd been here, I'd been itchy, hungry, dirty, in pain, and had a mental breakdown. I was not about to humiliate myself being spoon-fed. "It's fine," I told him, picking up a carrot with my mouth and biting into it. After chewing and swallowing, I continued, “I can feed myself,.”
I ignored the oatmeal and hay and worked my way through the carrots and apples. It wasn't much, and did little to relieve my hunger, but I was not going to be spoon-fed oatmeal, and I was absolutely not going to eat hay. They watched me curiously as I ate, and after I finished the apples and carrots, waited expectantly for me to continue on to the rest. I stared back at them, waiting for them to realize that I was done. There were a few seconds of awkward silence before it was broken by my growling stomach.
"Is something wrong?" Doctor Night asked.
"I don't like hay," I told him.
"What about the oatmeal?" he asked. "It's no problem for me to feed that to you,".
"No, that's fine," I said as my stomach growled again.
"It's okay to ask for help," Herbal Essence tried to tell me. "That's what the doctor is here for."
"I already cried enough in front of you," my human mind thought. "I'm not going to be spoon-fed by you, too."
"You're a colt," I told myself. "They won't care. Just suck it up and accept the help. You won't even remember by tomorrow."
"I'm an adult, and I don't need to be spoon-fed. I'm not going to humiliate myself in front of them."
Despite my hungry pony body's growling stomach, my stubborn human mind convinced me to shake my head no. "Okay," Doctor Night said, writing something else down on his clipboard, “all that’s left to do is to get you some x-rays and get you cleaned up.”
"I'm working on getting cleaned up," I thought, as Thundertail lifted me onto his back.
I quickly had x-rays of my hoof and fetlock taken in another part of the building, being carried there by Thundertail. There weren't any other ponies there, and all of the rooms we passed by were empty. It was an eerie feeling to know that I was the only one there. It gave me the impression that I was in a psych ward. Or maybe a rehab facility.
Doctor Night quickly had x-rays taken of my hoof, revealing that my fetlock was indeed fractured. He explained that my walking on it made it worse than what it might have been, and told me it'd be several weeks before it healed, and that I shouldn't walk on it for a little while. He told me it would probably be cast later, and then I was quickly taken back to the room to get cleaned. 
Since I didn't know how to use magic, I had to be helped in the bathtub, which, despite my situation, was embarrassing. Not humiliating like being spoon-fed would have been, but embarrassing nonetheless. I knew I shouldn't care. Three-quarters of the ponies in Equestria didn't wear clothes, and even if they did, I was a colt. Besides, I'd done way more embarrassing and humiliating things than that, but my human mind tried to convince me it wasn't the same.
I was silent while I was scrubbed, as were they. Despite my embarrassment, it was a nice feeling to be cleaned, to watch the dirt and grime on my coat sink into the water. I hadn't been clean in months, in more ways than one, and I knew my human body would have certainly appreciated it.
I closed my eyes and let the doctor scrub my coat, trying to be positive about being a colt. I was getting clean. I would be taken care of. I had an excuse for anything I couldn't do or didn't know. I'd actually be able to get the full My Little Pony experience. I would get a cutie mark. I would go to school. If I played my cards right, I might be able to go to a certain school founded by a certain princess. I started to wonder why I was so turned off to the idea of being a colt in the first place.
"Because you have all the time in the world to screw it all up again," my human mind thought. "Because you can try to convince yourself that your a colt so your decisions don't matter yet." 
I tried to ignore what my human mind told me. I wasn't going to fall into the same traps. These ponies would make sure I didn't. At the same time, however, I  tried to ignore the fact that I was still itchy and that I had kept track of which cabinet the pain medicine Doctor Night offered me was in.
I guessed it was okay that I didn't know how to use magic. I couldn't reach the cabinet he put the hoof pain medicine in, and even if I could, I'd have no way of opening the bottle. Which was a good thing. I was effectively being forced to have self control.
"It probably wouldn't even get you high," my human mind thought. "It's probably just Aspirin or something."
"Guess I'll never know, will I?" I told it. “There’s no way for me to get it myself.”
“Like the doctor said,” my human mind said, “just let him know if you need it.”