Putting My Health in the Hands of Black Women
I trust Black women who have been on both sides of the exam table and understand the dangers of dismissing our bodies and ailments
The last prescription I got from a doctor’s office was a year ago, and I have never used it. It was for anxiety medication.
I don’t have anxiety.
What I did have at the time was chest pain. It was understandable given the fact that I was recovering from several blood clots in my lungs that had landed me in the hospital only a few weeks prior. At least, I thought it was understandable. But when I voiced my questions about how best to deal with the pain of recovery, my doctor (a young white woman fresh out of med school) suggested that what I was dealing with was “psychosomatic.”
psy·cho·so·mat·ic | of, relating to, involving, or concerned with bodily symptoms caused by mental or emotional disturbance.
In other words, she thought it was all in my head.
She thought I was experiencing physical pain because I was just worried about not running or going to my dance classes for a while. She didn’t factor in that I was still dealing with a life-threatening medical condition that had been well-documented and verified with copious…
