My Doctor Called Me a Liar (She Was Right)
The trauma response of unreported pain
“I'm sorry,” the doctor said, “but I have to accuse you of underreporting your pain.”
I nearly laughed aloud at the grave delivery of such an obvious truth.
But wait, am I not in on this joke? Her kind stare sent a stab of hot shame through me, as though I’d been caught in a lie.
I've had lower back issues for years, thanks to several significant injuries that I can't currently recall if I've shared in my writing.
I won’t bore you with those details–all you need to know for now is that I do my best to stay active largely because every once in a while I’ll brush my teeth wrong, sneeze with improper posture, or drop it too low dancing to Doechii (congrats on the Grammy!!🐊) and end up couchbound for a week.
So I exercise. I do physical therapy. I sleep on an acupressure mat. I heat and ice, the stretch and resistance band, massage gun and rest. I’ve tried meds and cupping and CBD creams.
This time, an awkward move at the climbing gym triggered a flare-up significant enough to actually send me to an orthopedic specialist. I’m motivated to learn if there’s anything more I can do to improve my mobility and reduce my chances of injury.
The budding realization and embarrassment on my face only made her eyes more empathetic. The doctor delivered her allegation with such caring gravity. The knowing in her pierced right through my mask.
Of course, I'm underreporting how bad my back hurts. Isn’t that what I’ve been taught? Did I not do a good enough job of hiding my wince when I stood?
Somewhere in the intersection of chronic illness, years of abuse, and navigating life as a queer woman in an intolerant world, I learned to numb myself to pain. This was often in response to it being ignored or disbelieved by others in my life.
Pain makes me weak. Pain means I did something wrong, which means I deserve it. Pain should be hidden from others, or there will be more where that came from. Over time, this became true for both physical and mental pain.
Those who have experienced abuse are used to being told our experiences aren’t valid. Unable to change our situation, we numb in order to survive.
We cope. Dissociate. Shut down. Even if we manage to escape, we grit our teeth until it causes jaw problems. We take shallow breaths, trying to take up the least amount of space and stay silent.
It doesn’t help that many of us are multiply-marginalized, making us even more likely to face additional discrimination, devaluation, and trauma every step of the way.
Women are more likely to be offered minor tranquillisers and antidepressants than analgesic pain medication. Women are less likely to be referred for further diagnostic investigations than men. And women’s pain is much more likely to be seen as having an emotional or psychological cause, rather than a bodily or biological one.
―Unwell Women: A Journey Through Medicine and Myth in a Man-Made World
As a queer woman, I’m used to being told my pain is in my head, that my own sexual preference is a mental health disorder. I’ve experienced discrimination that’s resulted in a distrust of the healthcare system.
Yet I was worried enough that I’d gone through the effort to make the appointment. I’d swallowed my fear of healthcare debt, practiced reciting my patient history in a way that almost didn’t make me feel like I was being interrogated, and now here I was… trying to downplay it to the doctor.
I was so certain a medical professional, someone I’d researched and gone out of my way to see, would discredit my experience that I almost didn’t even tell her about it. This self-silencing is the effect of a patriarchal system that undermines women at every turn.
This is why we need doctors who understand and can relate to women, especially those with an abuse history.
I’m genuinely grateful to this doctor for calling me out the way she did; had she not, I’d still be in extreme pain. Instead, I’m happy to report that after days of steroids and low-impact exercise, I’m only in about medium pain.
“We are fine,” we tell ourselves, “We are fine. We are fine…”
We are not fine.
I didn’t originally intend for this to turn political, but as many in our country have recently discovered, politics can heavily impact healthcare access and quality.
The female-specific concerns that men fail to factor in cover a wide variety of areas…three themes crop up again and again: the female body, women’s unpaid care burden, and male violence against women. These are issues of such significance that they touch on nearly every part of our lives, affecting our experiences of everything from public transport to politics, via the workplace and the doctor’s surgery.--Invisible Women: Data Bias in a World Designed for Men
For women, LGBTQ+ (extra love to my sweet T’s this week), POCs, those living with chronic conditions, and other marginalized groups, these latest attempts at erasure are nothing new. We’ve been fighting for our humanity for years and will continue to do so until our country manages to learn from its history.
We rigidly absorb all this stress in our bodies until it infects every joint. We don’t talk about the pain because we wouldn’t even know where to start.
Conscious or not, this silence negatively impacts our quality of care and worsens health outcomes across the board.
Everyone deserves access to personalized care by professionals who understand their specific needs. This is why we need DEI in healthcare. This is why we need DEI everywhere.
The actions of the current administration; such as the ongoing dismantling of DEI programs across the country, are completely unacceptable and immoral. Things are hard right now, but there are actions you can take.
Don’t comply in advance. Learn about mutual aid and community advocacy efforts in your area. Check in on your people. Read banned books. Support women’s health (and their writing! 👇)
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Love your writing style and how you nail the points you are making to the ground. I was chatting to my daughter the other day about this problem - women not always taken seriously or pushed back in the medical Q -she experienced it a lot lately - it makes me growl! Grrrrrr
Another incredible piece, Veronica. That line about 'rigidly absorbing all this stress in our bodies' gave me chills. You put into words something I've felt but couldn't articulate. Thank you so much for sharing!