I saw Castaneda years ago when my insurance changed and I was no longer able to see my regular endocrinologist and ended up seeing her for about a year or so, it's hard to remember. Her receptionist was always pretty rude but not why I'm here. Dr.Castaneda is very "old fashioned" as in extremely blunt and flat out rude. She'll tell you what you may not want to hear, and I thought that's what I needed at the time. I was obese for my age (15) and have been seeing endocrinologists since I was 9 due to my thyroid being removed at that age, I was dealing with multiple mental illnesses from childhood trauma, including pretty bad body dysmorphia that led me to develop an eating disorder. I hated myself and my body and Dr.Castaneda was the "harsh truth" I thought I needed to get my life on track, but that was not the case at all. When I first visited her, she had me remove some clothes to examine me (not out of the ordinary for any endocrinologist I've seen), and began commenting on the shape of my body and how I'm ruining it with my diet. She pointed out every flaw I despised about myself including my body hair, acne, stretch marks and hyperpigmentation, depression/anxiety and blamed it all on my weight. Though her intentions were to help, this sent me spiraling for months after, hating my body even more than before. Looking at my body in the mirror and seeing "what I'd done to myself" impacted my mental health in the worst way, after every visit I'd go days without eating, spending an excessive amount of time sleeping (12-18 hours a day) then would end up binge eating until I made myself sick, all to punish myself. I even ended up taking my medication less and less because I couldn't bring myself to care anymore. I dreaded every visit with her because I knew I'd "be in trouble", she'd yell at me (yes, actually yell) for not changing my diet or exercising more. I gradually became more and more depressed until I began having suicidal thoughts, luckily my family changed insurance again and I was able to return to my normal doctor.
For the record, I see my doctors for my thyroid issues, never for my weight. I never faced any issues with blood sugar, blood pressure, cholesterol or any of that besides from some vitamin deficiencies, and I understand that my diet and physical activity needed major change if I wanted to continue to be healthy, but that being said, during my time with her, I was never actually "unhealthy", I was fat. Her concern was with my health if my weight went up and my bad eating habits continued and I understand that, but making my appearance the motivation for losing weight is not the impactful genius tactic you might think it is. My mental illness is not her fault by any means, as I said I'd dealt with childhood trauma that left me with many self esteem and body image issues, but the approach she took when addressing my weight was not only super unprofessional, but extremely harmful and dangerous to my mental health. I expressed my issues and concerns around this and she never once recommended I see a therapist or psychiatrist, she resorted to scolding and shaming me for doing this to myself, I would break down in tears in front of her literally every visit and she never once thought that maybe my weight wasn't the only issue here. Her blaming me for the mental illness I had absolutely no control over was one of the darkest points of my life. Now as an adult, almost ten years later, I've been able to address my weight, my mental health and relationship with food and my body. People like Dr.Castaneda will say things like "I don't sugarcoat", they claim they refuse to enable such unhealthy behavior but don't seem to understand that taking care of your body starts with the mind. It starts with very basic things like brushing your teeth, washing your face, things that may seem like a no brainer to most people, but the reality that a lot of people don't see is that some people are not capable of even those simple tasks, a lot of us hit points in our lives where we don't even want to be alive and people blame it on laziness and think that we've been babied or spoiled. The fact that anyone could ever think that I CHOOSE to be like this is beyond idiotic, no one CHOOSES to hate themselves and lose all drive and motivation to take care of themselves, it's literal chemical imbalances in the brain caused by extreme trauma. A big lesson I've learned through therapy is "my trauma is not my fault, but my healing is my responsibility". I'd like to reiterate AGAIN that I'm not blaming Dr.Castaneda for my mental health issues, they were there with or without her, what I'm saying is she approached a whole house that was on fire, and only watered the lawn.
TL;DR
If you have mental health or self esteem issues, don't waste your time here. read more