Assertiveness as Theory

A year ago today, I wrote about how I was second guessing myself over the bleeding. This kind of thing is common, of course, especially when doctors and medical professionals aren't taking you seriously. I'd started to believe maybe they were right. Maybe they were handling this with the proper level of attention and I was just overreacting because it was scary, painful, and horrifying.

As we all know, I wasn't wrong. In fact, the situation was even more dire than I thought it was.  I was totally right to trust what was going on with me and I'm somewhat upset that I questioned it. Then again, there are plenty of reasons why that happens.

A lot of the time when it comes to our health and decisions, many people are still treated like children by default. This is both an internal and an external thing. Often we feel we need permission to complain or make changes. We feel we won't be taken seriously unless we have proof and justification. This is one of the reasons why it's always such a relief when they actually diagnose you with something. There is a name for it, a plan to follow. And suddenly, people handle the situation with more gravity.

There is also the tendency to want to believe the medical authorities when they make light of your situation. No one wants to know they're having serious medical issues. I think the best (and most painful) example of this was my grandmother. She went to a doctor for a couple of years, always complaining about the pain in her legs. He told her it was just old age issues. Turns out, she had metastasized cancer in them. She knew something was wrong, but the idea of something being TRULY wrong was so scary, she just ignored it for as long as she could.

If any lesson was learned from this moment of doubt, it was that I am an adult, as scary as that may be, and fully within my rights to be taken seriously. When I deal with medical professionals, I have the right to direct the course of the conversation, to ask the questions I feel should be asked, and to wait until I get answers. I don't have to sit there and just cower and act like they're doing me a favor for even seeing me.

That's always easier in theory than it is in practice. It's so easy to walk into a doctor's office and just meekly accept what they say. That doesn't exactly do me any good though. It really needs to stop.