Mar
25
Learning to Trust Myself
Filed Under Personal Stories
There was, at first, the occasional numbness, but as friends were quick to point out, everyone gets pins and needles, right? Then there were the words I couldn’t find . . . but that happens to all of us as we age. Stranger symptoms came and went. My speech was slurry, and then not. I was depressed, and then not. I was confused and overwhelmed, but then moments later clearheaded and capable.
I’m 45 now, and for years I suspected I had a biological brain illness. Yet I was told by many medical professionals, including my own husband, that there wasn’t anything wrong with me. Or rather, they said, there was something wrong, but not what I thought. I was not physically ill, I was just nuts. They suggested that I was simply imagining my troubles.
I’m not the first woman to be jollied into believing it’s better to be neurotic than ill. In fact, several studies have shown that women’s medical problems are more likely than men’s to be interpreted as emotional issues or complaining, a mistake that can have grave consequences. What was unusual in my case was that the people who scoffed the loudest were those I trusted the most: my husband, several close friends and a few relatives—all doctors.
When I finally got a diagnosis, the verdict proved that I was not, as my husband had frequently said, a hypochondriac who was “too tuned in” to my body. It proved that my intuition had been correct. So my story is about more than sleuthing out the source of my symptoms. It’s also about a patient’s journey from self-doubt to self-trust.
read the rest via Learning to Trust Myself – MORE Magazine – For Women 40 Plus.
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