Teach Medical Gaslighting Now!
If you are studying to become, are, or know, a medical practitioner please share this message and teach them why gaslighting is so harmful to patients and must be added to med school.
Medicalgaslighting is when patient testimony (normally from women, POC and other marginalized groups) is dismissed or overlooked due to stereotypes about patient groups such as…
"Women are just dramatic"
"Young people don't have serious medical conditions"
"Black people have higher pain tolerance"
"Extreme menstrual issues are normal"
"All fat people's health issues are due to weight"
"The only disease survivors of childhood trauma have is PTSD or mental illness"
"All chronic health issues are due to stress or trauma"
These assumptions do real harm by causing delayed diagnosis, causing patients to question their own bodily feeling and reactions, and turning patients away from the modern healthcare system altogether. Over time it can cause C-PTSD and medical trauma in chronic illness patients, worsening mental health, quality of life, and health outcomes.
These stereotypes come out of the myth of hysteria, that women's health issues (typically chronic autoimmune neuroimmune and autoinflammatory diseases) are simply caused by the uterus wandering around the body causing havoc. While I doubt you'd find many doctors who say that is the case today, you will still find dozens who will say "have you considered that you subconsciously do not want to get better" or "perhaps this is simply related to your hormonal cycle".
Personally, experience with medical gaslighting means I must rely on monitors and outside observers like my husband to tell me when I am declining and getting sicker because I have been told so many times that my illness is psychological I am no longer able to rationally process my bodily pain and fatigue. It has cost me some of the most crucial times for me to take proactive actions to protect my health and while I do not know whether I would be bedbound today without this gaslighting I can certainly say that I would have a higher quality of life, self sabotage my recovery less, and be healthier in my relation to myself and my body.
