As soon as I was done this book I turned to my husband and said read this book! To know more about me, about my pain, read this book. Have you ever been told your pain is imaginary? Has your doctor's office ever made you feel anxious or unheard? Have you ever felt like you were a nuisance or your presence at your doctor's office was a burden, annoying, or that you come too often? That is because the medical field has become a business at the expense of the patients, who are meant to listen to what their doctor tells them and take whatever they prescribe. Doctors have become synonymous with infallibility, as though they are not humans continuously learning. As though the medical field cannot change and adapt. The patient must automatically defer to the more "knowledgeable" doctor, even if the patient knows their bodies and symptoms the best. This book, phew, was the first book I ever felt that I could give to someone and they would know me 10x better after reading it. The gaslighting at the doctors office, the fear and anxiety to make appointments and then gaining the courage to actually go, and never feeling like my pain is truly addressed. I have had terrible period pain since I first started getting my period at 13. This is not something I talk about often, because there is always this stigma of periods being something that happens to a body but is not discussed in public. But, when I was a teenager I was out of school almost once a month due to the pain I felt from my period. When I finally went to the doctor about my pain, my doctor prescribed the birth control pill. Unfortunately, I was given the pill without having been told how damaging it would be to my mental health. I suffer from anxiety and the pill only heightened it, and the first time I experienced depression was while I was on the pill. I stopped taking the pill and seemed to come back to myself, but have since felt that it changed me mentally (and according to research in this book possibly physically too). I understand the pill is a good thing for some, but it can also be detrimental to others. This book was so close to home and everything within it either brought me to a raging boil or had me in tears. Several times I had to set the book down, or stop listening, in order to breathe through a panic attack. I stepped away from it for a week, as it was so triggering, but needed to come back and finish the book because it felt so relevant and it finally felt as though I was being seen and heard. Listening to all of these stories so similar to mine was utterly cathartic. Also, the hope that maybe this book could start a revolution and change this broken system for the better, for everyone, not just those with a uterus. Tons of medical research went into this novel. Even with all of the facts and figures it was an easy read. Throughout the novel there are testimonies from people who have gone through the system with endo and what they encountered. Such a mix of people, all dealing in their own way with similar situations. I was enraged by how the medical field came to be, the stripping of midwives power, the disgusting mistreatment of Black women for medical testing, the revolting way that drug companies function solely off of men's reactions to drugs and not women's. Or the way the medical system has only one pain chart, even though women often tolerate pain at a higher level than men. Truly I could talk about this book for hours on end, but all I want is for everyone to read this book, soak it in, realize there are so many people who deal daily with invisible illness and be more empathetic. Also, the medical system needs to be reworked completely, so that everyone can go to a doctor and feel that they will actually be helped. No one should suffer from severe anxiety at having to go to the doctor. No one should feel like the author did, who suffers from PTSD because of her medical visits and history. A doctor is meant to be someone you can trust to have your best interests at heart. Their job is to help you as much as they can, not just to prescribe the easiest thing at their disposal so they can move on to the next patient.
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