You don't know what others are going through...

in Disabilitieslast month (edited)

Everyone with disabilities has likely gone through medical gaslighting, possibly even at the hands of other disabled people, but almost guaranteed from medical "professionals".

Maybe you tell someone about what you're going through. Something hurts. Something doesn't feel right. When I do this, something happens. Then they pull out the gaslighting. "That's normal." "You're just getting older." "Everyone has that." "You just have a vitamin deficiency."

Oh, are they an oracle now? Did they hold up a magical empty picture frame and instantly see an MRI of the affected area? Did a little bird order some labs? Because they likely didn't!

Of course, if they do order labs or tests, they'll tell you they're normal, regardless of whether or not they are, and completely ignore the fact that it's actually alarming if you have an issue and have no clue what's causing it! It's actually REALLY bad to go years without knowing the cause of something. Not everything magically heals or corrects itself.

Then of course later they'll get mad at you about it. As if you should have magically fixed it, after the issue was plaguing you for years and you tried asking them about it. "Oh, you should have gone to a doctor for that!" I did. "Oh, you should have sought medical care for that." I tried. They gaslit me and tried to convince me it was all in my head.

But it's not just doctors and nurses and other medical professionals.

It's other people. Family. "Friends."

You don't know what people are going through! You don't know that something is "in their head". STOP IT!

Gaslight_(5151942999).jpg
Union Carbide advertisement in the 11/04/1922 Country Gentleman.
Most farms had no electricity at that time and used kerosene lamps.
Don O'Brien from Piketon, Ohio, United States (Source) (Source)
Used under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license.

Edit: Additional note: DO NOT recommend exercise or diet crap or supplements. Sure, some of this may help various people, but EVERYONE disabled has heart "Have you tried Yoga?" "You should take resveratrol!" "You need to exercise more!" Spare us your "walk it off" "touch grass" healthy diet BS!