By Lucy Griffiths

A sharp pain pierced my body. Though I was sitting, it felt as if my feet were swept out from under me. I lost the ability to speak or move. The ambulance was called. After I was rushed to the nearest emergency room, I waited hours to be seen by a doctor. With no pain medication, I rocked back and forth to soothe myself. 

The doctor assigned to me was a middle-aged man who smiled down at me as I clutched my abdomen, tear in my eyes. As I listed off my symptoms, he hummed and nodded, his fingers flying across the keyboard. 

He suspected that I was experiencing ‘bad period cramps’. I slid my gaze to my friend in confirmation of what I had just heard. Her face, slack-jawed in shock, mirrored mine. Period cramps? Period cramps had rendered me unable to move or speak? 

Even if, hypothetically, it was period cramps, monthly cycles should not cause pain so intense that it requires a hospital visit. I was sure that something was seriously wrong with me, despite the doctor’s persistent and condescending reassurance.

I was scared, hurting and tired. Hours in the hospital will do that to a person. I knew that this pain was not the sort of discomfort that occurred around my usual period, but no one was listening to me. It felt as though someone had pushed a mute button and no one could hear me. I was in pain! Did no one care? 

It came to the point that I am sure many people who identify as a woman has come to. I realised that I had to keep fighting for myself because no one else was going to do it for me.

Advocating for oneself is probably the most difficult and most important thing anyone can do. It’s demeaning and, to be honest, it can be a little embarrassing. When I took my first steps in my own self-advocating journey, I felt like a crazy person. Eventually, after I had fought back many tears and envisioned many scenarios that involved throwing heavy furniture at him, the doctor allowed me to get an ultrasound. 

The sharp stabbing feeling had been a bursting ovarian cyst. My body had been telling me that something was wrong. When the doctor told me why I had been in pain, I felt relief wash over me. Not at the diagnosis itself (that part was quite concerning), but at the fact that I had been right. My pain was real and had actually meant something.  

When you discredit a person in pain, you take away their feelings of autonomy and sanity. Advocating for yourself in the medical care system is vital for anyone, but in particular anyone who identifies as a woman. Too often we are dismissed for being overly emotional and sensitive. Pushing for proper healthcare may feel like a demeaning uphill battle. You may see red (or, as in my case, imagine hurling furniture across the room). 

The truth is that it’s unfair that you will most likely have to jump through extra hoops to get your voice heard. But every time you push back and raise your voice so it is beyond being ignored, you harness the power to alter the system that’s in place right now, if only a little. 

Your pain is valid. Your voice is worthy of being heard. The medical system is, in theory, there to help you. It just needs a bit of a push to put that theory into practice. It shouldn’t be your job to change a system that perpetually ignores you and labels you dramatic. Unfortunately, nothing will change if we don’t work for that change.

Growing as a woman is painful. It is painful not out of necessity, but because of systems that invalidate the wellbeing of women. Grow loud, give your pain a voice, and remember that you are a valid human being.