Soranus: “Maybe the trauma of childbirth is a cause of these issues in women.” Victorians: “lol you have demons in your womb go do cocaine about it”

My sister almost died twice in HS because the hospitals would not believe her or my mom. When she first started feeling unusual back pain, they told her the usual about it just being period pain regardless of the fact she'd never felt pain like this before, and our family dr was the one to suggest appendicitis and sent her to the hospital immediately. After the surgery, my sister's temperature kept spiking and dropping dramatically, but when my mom called the hospital to express concern they told her she was just being a paranoid, hysterical mother. My sister's skin turned gray so my mom took her back to the family dr who realized the surgical wound had abscessed internally to the size of a grapefruit. Absolutely shameful the way women are dismissed and left to die by so many medical "professionals"

In her youth, my mother experienced a crippling amount of pain during her period. It was dismissed and ignored through her teens, and when she finally as a young woman got a doctor to investigate, he told her she was "rotting from the inside", that it was degenerative, that she'd never have children, and sent her home without treatment. She said for years she felt filthy, never clean, rotting. Flash forward to her marriage to my father. My father was the first person to take her seriously, when he caught sight one day of how much she bled. He demanded the medical professionals actually DO something. With much bullying and standing over (he was a large man), he finally got a doctor to do a proper investigation. One microsurgery later, my mother's endometriosis was alleviated and she went on to have two children. Lifetime trauma notwithstanding.

”Oh yes, you have a history of depression, sometimes that makes you imagine pain.” -”No, i was just in a motorbike accident and my knee was dislocated. Thank you.”

“Is your womb running? Then you’d better go catch it!” -transcript from Ancient Greek prank call

As a trans man, it literally changed my life to get my gender marker changed. Suddenly, doctors started listening to me. Suddenly, I was getting referrals that I had been begging to get for years. Suddenly, nearly everything I had been told was "all in my head" when I was seen as a woman was researched and diagnosed as a man. I dealt with sexism in the medical field for over 20 years.

I’m a woman of colour, I’m not femme presenting, I’m disabled, I’m autistic and I’m bisexual. My experience with the medical system is ✨stunning✨

How about the age-old question of "are you on your period, or something?" when a person with a uterus expresses any emotion aside from happiness. Never gets old at all!

My mother, a charge nurse in an ICU for 25+ years, had to go to 4 doctors before one would take her symptoms seriously and not write her off as menopausal. It was a woman doctor who did the tests she wanted. She had uterine cancer.

Hysteria is no longer a valid diagnosis. Now they say “it’s just stress”. 🙄. Yeah it’s a genetic disorder, not stress.

My grandmother for years went to doctors and hospitals with intense pain in her head. They told her that it was just "in her head" or basically psychological and refused to do any diagnostics. She died at the age of 40 from a large brain tumor that they could have found years earlier if they'd just taken her pain seriously.

"Trust women's pain! Don't just tell us we're insane!" is a great T-shirt I'd wear to all my medical appointments.

I mean Plato's not wrong. When my womb is without a child, it becomes distressed and sorely disturbed. That is called a period.

My doctor did mention I might have hysterical tendencies, because they could not find another reason for my fainting. Fun.

The history is maddening. Also maddening is that the medical field went from "everything is because of your uterus" to "leave women entirely out of modern medical research because men are the baseline". Great video!

“Oh you have extreme needle phobia caused by repeated traumatic medical events throughout your childhood/young adulthood? If you were my daughter I’d give you a smack and tell you to grow up.” - my surgeon while discussing my understandable anxiety prior to having my gallbladder removed. -.-

“Well young women often have lots of symptoms like you do, you’ll just grow out of it” Doctors should not be telling teenage girls that it’s normal to be in pain, fainting, vomiting, etc. Apparently losing weight would also solve all my issues. Doesn’t matter that they started before I gained that weight, losing weight cures autoimmune diseases apparently. I have been refused treatment for my autoimmune disease once the first option failed bc “if you’re not sick enough to be in the hospital you don’t need the treatment”

This is how I imagine it going: Wife: You treat me so poorly, I'm struggling to clean the house and cook your dinner at 8 months with child, the other children are sick, I need your help!" Husband: woman, you're getting hysterical. The doctor prescribes more marital sex for that. Wife: no, I just need you to listen to me and help me!! Husband: you're clearly mad. There is no other explanation.

I literally almost died when my gallbladder was in the process of exploding inside my body, and the Paramedics originally refused to take me to the hospital because "As a girl your age, it's probably just Anxiety". I don't have, and have never had, an Anxiety disorder. What I had was a super-infected-and-mid-explosion-gallbladder. I literally almost died, and I would have if I had been alone or hadn't had family present to fiercely advocate for me to be brought to the hospital.

When my mom was in her 20s she went to a doctor for anxiety and depression symptoms and he told her she "just needs a boyfriend"

I may be "hysteric" according to ancient Egyptiana. The perspective of lying down and not getting back up sounds really good

My former general practitioner :"Girls can't be autistic! Your sensory issues come from your female fragility" (wasn't in english, but that's about what he said) ^^Also, my 27 year old self did not enjoy being called a girl either ^^

Here are a few of my experiences. Note: I'm only 20. -Kept being dismissed by psychologists and doctors whenever I brought up my memory issues. They all just chalked it up to depression or anxiety. Wasn't until I moved and found a new doctor who actually listened and referred me to a neurologist did they figure out I have a neurological condition (fittingly, I don't remember the name). -Wasn't told that I had ADHD for years, and when I confronted my psychologist about it, she said I'd "grown out of it, so she didn't think I'd need to know." No, I didn't grow out of it. -School ignored and rejected testing for dyscalculia (a learning disability, like dyslexia but with numbers and equations). When I got to my new school, they tested me and I have it. -Same school forced me to take PE, fully knowing that I have a severe case of scoliosis that makes certain exercises and sports extremely painful to do. -Dozens of doctors thinking I was lying when I said I couldn't see. They refused to refer me to an eye doctor, and when I was referred, the eye doctors told me I was "too young" to have anything wrong with my sight, and didn't even test me. I'm blind. I have been since I was born. Since my eyes look normal, no one bothered to check. -When I was 15, I went to the ER in extreme pain. First time I went, it was just my scoliosis. Second time I went, I was just backed up. Third time, they finally tested me and I had a stomach ulcer. And most recently: -Went to get my tubes tied (I believe it's called tubal ligation). One said she wouldn't do it because I would "change my mind" and that I'd "ruin my life" by getting them tied. Second one said I needed permission from someone else, like my husband. According to a few of my friends, he'd said this to other women before. Apparently I'm not allowed to make my own reproductive choices. Currently searching for someone willing to do it.

I'm a paramedic and a woman, and every time I watch your vids I take mental notes because I don't wanna be THAT medical professional 🙄

It was ridiculous how my birth control wasn’t covered under insurance when the reason was severe abdominal pain but was cleared when the doctor listed it as to prevent pregnancy. Period pain can be agonizing but it still isn’t treated seriously.

I had a doctor tell me there was "little to no chance" I had endometriosis because I played men's sports. Seriously, she thought I was too tough to have endo, despite dealing with chronic pain, nausea, fatigue, heavy bleeding, painful sex, and a majority of the other symptoms associated with endo. 10 years I finally got a proper endometriosis diagnosis. I constantly need to correct doctors who know less about the condition than I do, and it's incredibly frustrating that I still encounter this "you're too tough for endo" rhetoric from some providers.

I was 14 when I learnt that most people aren't in pain all the time and 15 when I learnt I was born with a serious neurological condition and needed brain surgery. Until then I was "dramatic" or "attention seeking" etc even though I am painfully shy. Afew years later,i spent 5years begging doctors for help or referrals due to my symptoms progressing to the point of me being house bound and they put me in the psych ward, where I finally got tests that confirmed my neurological condition had deteriorated severely 🤦 one doctor apologized for not taking me seriously and within 6months they're all back to insisting it's all in my head.

For 29 years I believed not being able to walk during my period was normal. As doctor and my mother told me that it is all in your head. It was not until one day I mentioned it to someone and instead of telling it is all in my head told me that was not normal. Which finally lead me to go to a doctor for second opinion and they told me that is not normal. I cried that day it was so nice to finally hear someone tell me that is not in head.

I literally have a friend who was put in a mental institution when she was a teen (in the 2010's mind you) because she kept saying there was something wrong with her and no one believed her. Turns out she had an ovarian cyst.

Add to your list older women. I'm 62. At a recent visit to my American health care provider, she suggested a PAP smear. She also told me that at age 65 they will stop giving me PAP smears. I asked her if it was assumed I would stop being sexually active at 65? She said, well, uh, um, do you plan to be? I gave her an emphatic YES, and that right now I didn't have a partner but that didn't mean I was just going to cut off enjoying sex at 65. She had no answer for me.

I remember going to the doctors when I was 14 saying that I often get dizzy. He said it was just puberty. 5 years later I had a blood test and found out that I was iron deficient and that I was probably iron deficient for all those years. It took a year to correct and afterwards I realised my dizziness, drowsiness, problems focusing at school, lack of energy and depression all stemmed from undiagnosed iron deficiency. Iron deficiency doesn't sound that bad but the deppression it caused almost killed me.

i have a severe anxiety disorder and am currently being evaluated for adhd and asd,, i go to a counsellor and the FIRST thing they ask me is 'are you sure this isnt just something to do with your mentstrual cycle?' I AM VERY SURE THANK YOU

My mother was diagnosed with anxiety and depression when she was having trouble with depth perception. Turned out she had a brain aneurysm about to rupture. I will always be filled with rage at the medical system's treatment of women who flag that something is wrong.

I'm a woman. It took four years for me to get a diagnosis for a disability caused by a neurological disorder because I kept being told that I'm fine despite having alarming symptoms such as chronic pain that limits the use of my hands, loss of feeling in fingers, blindness in the morning, migraine halos and numb patches of skin spreading on my body. I was once told "it's clearly from stress, you seem very stressed" and I responded with "of course I'm stressed, I keep being told I'm fine when I'm not." Being a woman with invisible symptoms sucks.

Also I just saw an ad on the TV about how if a man “suffers” with a curved penis there is now a cure. Yet the entire female side of my family SUFFERS from migraines and I am willing to bet if more men had migraines there would be a cure. And only recently have their been ads for medications that may help with migraines. I’m always told “it’s just a headache, take a motrin”

It took me 13 years to get a diagnosis for endometriosis and that was only because I brought my husband with me and let him speak for me.

what bothers me a bit, is how lots of women have painful periods, but have to pretend nothing's wrong since it would seem 'weak' or inappropriate to admit, or to take days off

9 year old me describing chest pain as "cramps in my lungs" because that’s the vocabulary of a 9 year old. Mom says "it's growing pain, it'll go away" nope. It was panic attacks. I still get "growing pains" and I'm almost 30.

my favorite medical misogyny was having bladder cancer that made my *bladder* bleed a lot and being repeatedly asked if i am sure it’s not just my period.

Even though I identify as non-binary, I was assigned female at birth. Ever since I was born, I had very serious sensory integration issues, motor control dysfunction and paralysis, and an inability to express my pain because I was semi-verbal and seemingly emotion less. Every time my mom would take me to the doctor they just told her that she was being an over sensitive helicopter mom. I’ve read the medical reports for me years later and they are grossly dismissive. It was always, “well, no brain damage shows on the MRI” or “well, nothing seems wrong with your bones or muscles”. I even almost died of a urinary tract infection because I couldn’t express to my mom that I was in pain in a recognizable way. These issues persisted and I didn’t grow out of them. I nearly ended my life because later I developed endometriosis at the age of 10 and on top of my sensory integration issues, it was just too much. I am 18 years old now and I finally got my autism diagnosis *last* *year*. LAST YEAR. I WAS 17.

If my brothers and i were hurt and had to go to hospital, my father would always take us. He knew we would be seen more quickly than if we went with my mother. (This was back in the 70's).

When my mother was in labor with me and the nurse offered her pain medication, my father asked if that was totally necessary... 😒

Literally curled around a heating pad right now as I wait another month to just see a doctor about getting an endometriosis diagnosis. This has been my life for 7 years, and because I have “anxiety” it’s always been attributed to “psychiatric issues”. Thank you for posting this!

I'm a professor of Child and Adolescent Psychopathology, and I want to send this video to all my students (and some very old fashioned faculty members). What a light you are, Jessica

I also had a boss who told me I should stay at work when I got eyeliner in my eye causing my eye to burn. I got a stye and my doctors weren't going to be open for 2 days. I was going to leave early and just go to the emergency room and my boss persuaded me to stay. I had a stye in my eye for almost a year till they cut it out about a month ago. I don't listen to men in positions of power anymore. My trust was far too misplaced.

My experience with a Male doctor who wouldnt listen: I, a woman, was presenting with ALL appendicitis markers? But the surgeon I had been passed onto decided "must be her period...no? uterus issue then, send her up to have people poke around down there without explaining what’s going on despite her saying she has sexual related trauma and it being all over her notes not to do exactly that. Then when it comes back she has appendicitis keep her on the gyno ward and basically “lose” her until she’s screaming even though she’s on morphine because her appendix is about to burst and then rush her into surgery while disorientated and have her sign a NDA while doped up so she can’t sue the HSE." My appendix was near bursting, I could have died, just because a doctor decided it must be a womb issue despite my having a letter from my gp stating it was appendicitis, a nurse telling him it sounds like appendicitis and another doctor telling him it was appendicitis, but then again all the ppl who told him it was my appendix were women. We must have been hysterical.

"Wondering womb" makes a good band name, and "running hither and thither in the flanks" a good song title!

When I have my students read "The Yellow Wallpaper" I give them a lesson on hysteria, specifically the "rest cure" by Silas Weir Mitchell. They are so horrified, and rightly so! I'm so glad to be a woman in the 21st century, not the 19th.

Wistful: looking longingly at wisteria wishing you didn't have to deal with medical discrimination...

The cramps I am having right now feels like my uterus is moving hither and thither in my flanks. 😜

Of course, everything a woman experiences is always related to her uterus unless it’s ACTUALLY related to her uterus, in which case it’s stress and/or weight I haven’t had a not-forced period in almost a decade and I still don’t know why because nobody cares about the reason :)

I herniated a disc in my back. I went into the ER, in the most pain I'd ever been in in my life, and the Doctor brushed it off because I was Bipolar and must be having an episode and gave me a prescription for Aleve. My primary care doctor got me in to a MRI three days later and called me before we were even home to verify it was a herniated disc.

The worst thing about misogynistic medicine? That female doctors practice it, too. I have PTSD and I had a female therapist talk to me a couple of times (barely skimming the surface), dismiss what I had gone through as 'not traumatic' and tell me there was nothing wrong with me. OK...new doctor, a proper diagnosis and therapy and I am better. This was years ago, but I will never forgive that first doctor for dismissing me as, basically, being hysterical. Oh and let's not forget the male gyn that told me my PTSD was all in my head. Really? No shit, Sherlock!

In high school I was expressing very obvious signs of serious anxiety and my doctor thought it was my diet and my period...turns out I just needed therapy.

"Trust women's pain, do not tell us we're insane!" I LOVE IT!

I have EDS and to treat suspected endometriosis, a doctor ran steel wires through my ligaments to "stabilize" my hypermobile uterus and it was the worst thing I've ever experienced. They had to undo the operation three months later and the doctor yelled at me for "not responding to treatment". Doctors are now deeply horrified when I mention this.

I was originally told that my pain was my anxiety... three years later and I'm finally on a waiting list for a genetics consult because I convinced my doctor that anxiety can't cause dislocations (I most likely have EDS).

Doctors take one look at my medical history, see the "depression/anxiety" diagnosis and think that I must be imagining whatever pain I'm in. It took YEARS to get my IBS diagnosed. "Oh, it's probably just your cycle". AAAARGH!

I had cancer and endometriosis that were dismissed by doctors for 18 months. My PCP was good and knew i was in pain and managed that, but I was in the ED like 2-3 times a week because of how bad my pain was and how much i was bleeding. My cancer was in my appendix so i had appendicitis pain for 18 months straight. I got into an endometriosis specialist and the day i met her, she scheduled a surgery for 3 days later. If they hadn't gotten my appendix out that day, i could have died. I also had stage 4 endometriosis and my organs were literally fusing together and it took a LOT of cutting scar tissue and endometrial tissue out. I had been kicked out of a pharmacy because i "was too young to be on that amount of oxy, even old people with cancer were on less' and i was so upset. I was treated like a drug seeker for 3 years because that's how long i was on opiates because of the pain. It was horrible. I was very lucky my PCP understood that i was in so much pain and took me seriously, but it was out of his scope. I had a neuroendocrine tumor in my appendix (an NET). They are an incredibly rare type of cancer and basically never happen in the appendix/are found before death. Mine spread to my liver and i had to have a chunk of it cut out. There is still not a day that goes by that i want to go scream at that pharmacist for telling me that i wasn't in pain. She actually got in trouble for stealing narcotics from work and she lost her license and i think she's in prision now. Just because I was 19-22 doesn't mean that i wasn't in constant pain. I was bed bound and spent like 40% of my week in the hospital, every time i got sent home, i'd be back within 2-3 days. My cancer wasn't visible with the scans they were doing but after the appendix one was discovered, i had to do a 'liver study' where it was an MRI that was almost 3 hours long and focused on getting deeper images in my abdomen. Then like 3 hours later I got a call from my oncologist and they had surgery scheduled the next day. It was so validating to have an answer after a year and a half of appendicitis pain and bleeding CONSTANTLY. Like, i bled for 18 months straight. I was told SO MANY times that it was 'period pain' and that i was just drug seeking. It was disgusting. I am now 4 years NED :)

It's almost as bad when you do have genuine concerns about your cycle/hormone levels, etc. I went to the doctor because I was having bleeding between my periods, random cramping, missed periods, sudden weight changes, etc. My family's usual GP wasn't working and an older doctor was taking the clinic while he was away. I calmly and clearly explained my symptoms and concerns but he just looked positively scandalised that I was talking about my period to him and tried to tell me to go away and come back "in a few months" if I was still experiencing problems. Because I insisted the symptoms weren't normal for me and I was concerned about it, he ended up calling in a female nurse to run some tests on me, she was the only one to ask about my medical and family history (which includes a history of ovarian cysts, uterine cancer, and PCOS), etc. and she ended up convincing him to refer me for an ultrasound at a local private women's health clinic. Male healthcare professionals will try to blame literally any symptom we have on our menstrual cycles and hormones, but then dismiss our concerns about those very things. It's infuriating.

I work in health care (16yrs) and everything you said is 100% truth for female patients. There is also SO MUCH sexism working in health care. Misogyny runs rampant in it! It's repulsive.

when I was 15, I was rushed to the hospital with severe abdominal pain (they suspected appendicitis). they did some tests and told me it was just period cramps, told me to take up to 1000 mg of ibuprofen, and sent me home. this pain started when i was 13 and gradually worsened every month for years before I was able to self-advocate and get an endometriosis diagnosis. most doctors were just sympathetic, but ignored my concerns and refused to run diagnostic tests.

I was told my fibromyalgia was "just stress". When I tried to challenge the doctor, he told me "everyone hurts more when it rains" and asked me why the diagnosis was so important to me. 😒🙄😑

I get insane migraines monthly. After years I was finally diagnosed with “hormonal imbalance migraines caused by the female cycle” I do not want children. My husband does not want children. Asked my female doctor about the possibility of a hysterectomy. She informed me that even though it would most likely considerably help my migraines, because of my age she would not consider it. As I may still one day want children. I then informed her that my husband has had a vasectomy and we have already made a permanent choice. She still will not do it because if I one day divorce my husband and find someone new, I may want children with that man. I have had this conversation with at least 3 general practitioners. In summary, my female Dr. will not do a procedure that would help my chronic pain because it would cause me unable to have children. Even though my husband is unable to have children. Just in case.

"I got it from my dad." I hit the floor. I am still chuckling (while I thank God I have a Y chromosome). If this is not your best ever, absolutely top notch, to be widely envied episode, it is in the top two. When I moved from California to the American Midwest, I immediately noticed the level of healthcare my wife received was comparable to the care a vet gave to my dog. Seems the message that women are not cattle has been stillborn at the state line. Love you two. Hope for no complications on delivery. You are great parents.

Women have been considered, and are still often considered, dramatic and overly emotional, even by other women. Ej. the annoying "is it that time of the month" when a woman gets mad, or thinking that your feelings are invalid and that you're being "dramatic" or "overreacting" when you are not.

The amount of times I've been referred to a psychiatrist after explaining my physical symptoms to a doctor is heart-breaking, even now, when I have medical tests results to back me up. If they have never heard about some diagnosis, they just ignore it.

" It couldn't be my incompetence, it's obviously demons. - " some ancient doctor, probably

You know, I actually like that you smile the whole time. I feel like it's an accurate depiction of how women act in reality as well. If you're not smiling or speaking in a calm demeanor- even about something as upsetting and important as sexism in the medical world- you won't be listened to, you won't be heard. If you're not smiling or calm you're disregarded and called- you guessed it- hysterical. Over emotional. Dramatic. Blowing things out of proportion. But even then, if you can smile and speak calmly, it must not be a big deal after all. You must see the dilemma?

I broke my finger for the second time in 6 months. My finger was swelling up, turning purple and I couldn't move it without it hurting. The doctor didn't believe that it was broken since I was acting very chill and not bawling my eyes out. Thankfully I was in high school and my mom acted as my advocate and forced him to send me to radiology. Surprise, surprise, it was broken.

As a trans man I've been told that it's just my cycle, or if I missed my period I may be pregnant. I also happen to be asexual to the point I'm repulsed and getting interested in people is difficult.

I hate that whenever I go to the doctor they do a pregnancy test (even though I'm a gay virgin), and when that comes back negative, they tell me I'm too fat and call it a day.

The amount of times I've been totally ignored by doctors because my two year CONTINUOUS headache is "just hormonal migraines". None of the pain medication they gave me worked, I was completely debilitated and couldn't finish my studies. Ended up going to see a private neurologist and was diagnosed with a spinal CSF leak and eventually IIH. I'm still disabled but my life is so much better because someone actually LISTENED and didn't just assume there was nothing wrong with me because my imaging was negative. And it wasn't just doctors - almost everyone I know lacked empathy. Thank you so much for sharing this. Would be great if you did a video on how medicine is racist too!

this is going to be a rant: i am pretty sure i have chronic fatigue syndrome but i am still in the process of getting diagnosed and, let me tell you, it has been a PROCESS (: i literally had a male doctor dismiss all of my symptoms because "you're just a hormonal teenager, my daughter has that too" and another male doctor tell me that i should be happy about having lost almost 10kg within a month because "isn't that a good thing?", my dad wants me to go to church because "your inner self is out of balance", my mom just wants to wait for it to go away and even my female friends routinely ask me if i'm sure that it's not just bad mental health manifesting as physical symptoms... it is really frustrating and discouraging constantly being gaslit like that, especially when i notice it working and i start second guessing my intuition :/ but reading though these comments and watching the video made me feel really validated, so thank you Jessica for opening up the conversation ^^

Honestly the amount of times I’ve been told “this is just what happens” and “you’ll grow out of it”and “oh you’re just tall” when I tell the doctor about my problems is ridiculous and patronising. No one should just settle for “this is how it is” because it was obviously causing them problems. Still don’t know what’s wrong with me yay 🥲 Edit - another thing I get told is that I should just exercise more. Like half the problem is I’m too exhausted to do anything never mind extra activity

I’m AFAB. I’ve spent the last 10 years being told my rapidly declining health and mobility was...Conversion Disorder, psychosomatic, attention seeking, hormones, anxiety, and depression. I’ve now been diagnosed with Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome, POTS, Mast Cell Activation Syndrome, and it’s suspected that I have Craniocervical Instability and Chiari Malformation. And I am highly privileged. The medical system is so broken and causes so much harm to so many people.

Great book about this "Doing Harm: The truth about how bad medicine and Lazy Science Leave Women Dismissed, Misdiagnosed and Sick" by Maya Dusenbery. Brilliant book.

Doctor "no, you don't have EDS, you just have anxiety." 2 years later I got my EDS diagnosis. Thats funny, I didn't think that joints popping out was an anxiety symptom. Love this video, its great to have this issue highlighted

My “doctors don’t trust women” story doesn’t have any physical pain involved, but definitely a lot of emotional damage. Context needed for the story: I’m 18, I have multiple mental conditions including (but not limited to) autism, ADHD, and depression. I graduated high school at 16 and immediately went to college. So I’ve understood I was different from everyone my whole life, but I hadn’t started realizing what that could mean until I came to college a few years ago. After that I started researching mental health conditions, as I regularly do. I started looking up symptoms for autism and realized I related to them a lot more than I probably should. But everywhere I was reading was talking about boys with autism, so I assumed “I can’t have that because only boys have autism”. Skip forward to many months of research later, and I finally found girls talking about having autism and struggling with finding people who would believe them. I was absolutely relieved to find out I could have it. It would be an explanation I was looking for for years. Unfortunately, not many people in my life seem to see eye-to-eye with me. I have been told by many members of my family that I can’t be autistic because I’m “normal” and I can talk or I’m not “crazy” enough to have it. Medical professionals seem to think I can’t have it because I don’t fit all the “boy” stereotypes and they don’t seem to know enough about the “girl” traits. It’s extremely frustrating. I know with 100% certainty that I have autism, but I can’t get anyone in my life to believe me.

For months last year I had my doctors telling me my stomach pain was just me being "backed up". It took an emergency trip to the hospital and a day full of scans and doubting doctors to find that I had a perferated stomach ulcer. 10 days in hospital during a pandemic and several months of recovery taught me to speak up and fight for my pain. It's real and we deserve to be believed.

I hadn't realized how much I'd internalized the "It's just in your head" thing until I had my own experience with it. In 2019, when I was 31, I started noticing mood swings that correlated with my cycle and were much more intense than the emotional changes I'd experienced thanks to it up until then. I ignored them, chalking them up to other things or, "Well, it's just my cycle," until they became unbearable and I finally told my mom about them. She took me to the doctor and it was explained to me that women's hormone levels during their cycles change as they age. The doctor prescribed birth control pills (which would go on to make me feel better). As I was leaving my appointment, the gravity of having ignored my body sank in and I said, "Thank you for making me feel less alone. I was starting to feel like Jekyll and Hyde and think that I was going crazy, and I know if I'd lived in another time period, I WOULD HAVE been called crazy and locked away somewhere." The doctor laughed, gave me a smile of solidarity, and she said, "Oh, sweetie, you're welcome! Trust me, you're not the first woman to go through this, don't worry." It IS scary how the medical field and patriarchal society teach women to ignore or doubt ourselves. One of my favorite movies that deals with this is "Cat People" (1942). It's about a woman named Irena who believes she's under a curse in which she'll literally turn into a panther if she becomes sexually aroused and tear her partner to pieces. And while we, the audience, know the curse is an actual thing and that Irena's in the right, all the men in her life either dismiss her fear or try to manipulate it to get into her skirt because they think she's speaking metaphorically to say she's wild in bed. It's an amazing film and surprisingly bold for something made in the '40s, when sex and women's health were still very hush-hush things, especially in movies.

Oh yes that time my doctors told me my headpain was coming from stress because I am a "young woman with a busy schedule", till one doctor (actually a men who was really nice and supportive) was able to have the hospital to make an MRI of my head. Well I had a brain tumor and would possibly be dead or completely crazy by now. But no it was just the stress...

Being told you're just anxious when you actually have POTS is also a lovely modern equivalent to being told your hysterical tbh.

"the more we're told our pain is nothing, the more women believe that pain is normal" 😭 this is so true in my case. Tank you 💜

Not only do men still dismiss womens' pain, so many women do it as well because they have been told that their entire life. I have begged my mother on numerous occasions to go to the doctor with me and see if I can go on birth control because of how heavy and painful my period is but every time she just tells me that its normal and I shouldn't be such a baby about it and that all women go through it.

New Change.org petition, change every mention of hysteria in medical textbooks to a biological breakdown of Wisteria.

I was told in the ER that I was “to young to have these issues” I was “paying too much attention to my body” it was “probably just stress” “ could it just be your period?” and I live in America and my visit to the ER cost me $8,000, I didn’t take a trip to the ER for fun or because I thought it was a minor issue. I was LITERALLY given medication I was allergic to when I left. No one listens to women in medicine and especially not young women.

I have a seizure disorder called somazation disorder. Basically what it is, is my mental illness in my brain has gone so out of whack that its sending a signal to my body saying "help me!" Its pretty rare (0.02% to 2% of the world has it) and for some it can be blindness or hearing loss, but in the medical world they aren't really blind or deaf it only "feels that way." Its also way more come for woman than in men (only 0.01% of men can get it and usually its because their mother had it (so its also genetic)). Psychiatrist don't have an exact reason why some people develop it but its takes at least a year of treatment for it to go away but it can always come back later in life (yahhhh 😒). So when I found out I had this condition I did some research and found out it was once called Hysteria because doctors thought it was a woman thing and or where making it up. So this video really spoke to me because of my disorder and I really appreciate you, Jessica, for talking about this! 😊

Six years ago I had a video EEG because of seizures. When it turned out I had non-epileptic seizures, the neurologist on the floor told me I had "Women's Hysteria" and should "have [my] teeth pulled and stop bothering neurologists". SIX YEARS AGO. I have since been diagnosed with Functional Neurological Disorder, which, it turns out, is, in my case NOT linked to psychology at all, and recent studies are showing structural changes in fMRIs and a new study shows that it's caused, at least in some cases, by inflammation that is causing changes in our mRNA. Basically this means that my brain misinterprets stimuli (in my case pain, exhaustion, and weather changes primarily) and then *over reacts* to it.

I think what is worse is that I find I am dismissed by more female medical professionals than male. Every time I’ve been dismissed, it turns out to be I actually have a legitimate medical issue.

A man named Soranus being known for warning against sex-induced womb inflammation...that's a special kind of nominative determinism.

I have been shrugged off by so many doctors my entire life as just having "growing pains" or "it's all in your head", and the best one was "well I can't see anything so it must be okay" while she was just looking at my bare leg. Now I have a really nice physiotherapist who listens to me and thinks all my issues stem from having EDS and suddenly everything else is starting to make sense.

Doctor: just take ibuprofen for your debilitating period cramps Me: I already do that it doesn't help... Years later, it was multiple overian cysts

Dealing with eight years of bulls**t from the medical system and being told nothing is wrong with me is why I now have an entirely female team of doctors and specialists and why I am FINALLY on my way, after 3 years, to getting my diagnosis for Hashimoto's and Mast Cell Activation Syndrome.

My dad told me I had hysteria- even brought diagrams showing how physicians “treated” (aka assaulted) their patients.

ER doctor: "you don't look like you are in pain", "you're only in your early 20's, that's too young", "you can't be in pain ALL the time", "how do you know so much about this". yes because when I'm not masking it, I'm looked at as dramatic or over-reacting. Sometimes I'm in too much pain, too drained to react or show pain because I'm focusing on functioning. I know so much about it because it's my reality and I need to be informed because my rare conditions mean I often have to advocate for myself and explain them to a health care professional who has never heard of them before. The amount of side-eye I have had off medical professionals because they don't know about hEDS, MCAS and PoTS is ridiculous. I don't expect everyone to know about them, but don't dismiss them because they are unknown to you.

You would make the most interesting history teacher.

I was sent to the ER from my doctor for abdominal pain. I couldn't drive and was vomiting from pain. Thankfully after x-rays and ultrasounds we found out it wasn't serious. I'd been given pain meds when i got there so by the time I was discharged I felt pretty good. I was given a prescription for heavy duty pain meds if I had another attack and asked the nurse about it as I was being discharged. She (yes a woman) literally told me she didn't know why they prescribed me pain meds and I didn't look like I needed them... The woman that's being discharged doesn't look like they're dying? How weird, it's almost like I was on morphine had had medical treatment... I flat out told her I had been brought in from intense pain that could come back and I did need them. She looked annoyed. Seriously I was in so much pain they were concerned my appendix had ruptured and you're telling me I don't need pain meds or the issue that can resurface at any time???? We need to remember that women can perpetuate misogyny as much as men. (P.s. I did need the pain meds because i did have flare ups, but even if I didn't it was still the right thing to prescribe them)

even in therapy as a woman we are told that it's just our periods. i didn't come here to get a explanation i want to know how to stop it and feel better.

My Uncle who is white always comes with my aunt who is black to her doctor's appointments to ensure she receives the care she deserves. He used to not - because she's an adult - until she almost died from an easily diagnosable heart problem. She said the care she received from him coming is so vastly different than before. When she explains symptoms she is believed now that my uncle is there backing her up. They are rich so they receive private care out of their nation's health system but still encounter gender and racial disparities.