For years, I knew something was wrong with my body. I said it in exam rooms. I said it through tears. I said it while my life slowly became smaller because of pain, exhaustion, digestive issues and symptoms that kept escalating. And like so many women, I was told it was normal. Stress. Anxiety. Hormones. Weight. Anything but the truth. Eight years later, I am now facing surgery for conditions that should have been caught long before they were allowed to grow, spread and disrupt my life.
This is the cost of not believing women. It is not just hurt feelings or frustrating appointments. It is delayed diagnoses. It is disease progression. It is organs adhering together, chronic inflammation, fertility struggles, medical trauma and surgeries that may have been preventable if someone had listened sooner. Women are conditioned to second guess themselves while being taught that pain is simply part of existing in a female body. And the longer doctors dismiss that pain, the more dangerous the consequences become.
I am talking about this because I know I am not the only one. There are millions of women carrying symptoms that have been minimized, normalized or outright ignored. We deserve a medical system that listens before things become catastrophic. We deserve doctors who understand that being forced to “push through” pain is not resilience, it is survival. And we deserve to stop paying for disbelief with our bodies.
Eight years….
8 mother freakin years….and I finally have a diagnosis. But no one should have to jump these kinds of hoops just to be heard.
I am standing with you, I am supporting you and just know that I believe you. You are not alone friend!
Love you mean it,
Katelyn
