3 steps to eliminate anger when you’ve been dismissed.
Maybe you want to stay angry, but is the rage of medical gaslighting leading to self-destruction? Here's what you can do instead.
You’ve probably mustered up the courage to book an appointment, turned up to it, explained your ailment and then left with no meaningful or desirable actions. I bet it felt like a massive waste of time and it even discouraged you from going again, right?
You have every right to be angry. It is infuriating to not be taken seriously by anyone who is supposed to be looking out for you
When I finally got my endometriosis diagnosis, 16+ years after back and forth from doctors, my rage came knocking and paid me a long visit.
SERIOUSLY?! I had endometriosis this whole time?! I was outraged. I felt I’d been extremely hard done by. Behind that outrage was pain, and behind pain, so much sadness.
Lost years. Unattainable goals. Scuppered ambition.
However, you might be surprised to know that I’m pretty chill about the whole thing now. I somehow, miraculously, didn’t let the anger consume me like it once would have.
This is what I did.
Let yourself be sad
In the beginning I felt a range of emotions; anger, guilt, shame, elation, surprise, sorrow. Come to think of it, when any huge thing happens in my life, I tend to go through the entire wheel of emotions.
Scary health news, relationship breakdowns, job losses, death of loved ones - these are big unexpected things I’ve experienced and I know for me that I wouldn’t expect anyone going through these painful life changing events to be happy. In fact, I would expect them to be down, and for quite a while.
Growing up, I sadly did not have the same grace applied to me when I was feeling big feelings. I was told to ‘stop crying’ or ‘be quiet’ or ‘go wash your face’ if I expressed rage or pain. Equally, I heard unhelpful things like ‘it’ll be fine’ or ‘cheer up’ or ‘let’s go and do something that will distract you’, from people who were clearly uncomfortable observing someone else's pain.
The result? I learned how to cry silently, alone, in stolen moments of solitude and I pretended everything was fine when I was around anybody because it was clearly more socially acceptable.
Boy, did that screw me up big time.
Bottled up sadness, anger and frustration would later explode out of me in the most undignified of ways, leading to even more reasons to go and find a corner to cry in afterwards. It was a horrific cycle to be stuck in.
Thankfully, in the presence of coaches or emotionally safe people, I’ve learned that letting my pain out is non-negotiable. To avoid it or brush it under the rug is as good as trying to hold a beachball under water.
I was finally free of the cycle!
Now, I know that letting my tears fall as they come, wherever I am and however many there are, is the best possible solution. Having someone witness them is even more powerful.
One of my clients, Hema, who was holding back tears during a call said she was afraid that if she cried, she may never stop.
When she did eventually let herself crumble during that call, her tears inevitably dried up and ultimately, Hema felt an enormous release. Those tears needed to be expressed after what Hema described as years and years of pain that had been locked up inside of her.
She was so grateful for the safety of the space to cry in.
I too am so grateful for the safe spaces I have that I can let myself be my most vulnerable in.
Giving myself the permission to be sad, and having others around me that permitted sadness, was the first step of not letting my anger consume me.
If you needed permission before reaching this point, here it is...
I grant you the freedom to cry and feel your feelings, especially if no one in your life has given you that before.
Choose your focus wisely
I had spent years angry at a system that had failed me so of course, that’s what I was automatically drawn to think about.
How was that serving me? Not very well.
I could make my blood boil within 7 seconds of recalling memories of being recklessly told to ‘start a family’ to make endometriosis go away, or that ‘we didn’t find anything so there is no reason for your pain’ just 10 minutes after waking up from my first surgery, or ‘this isn’t normal so please go back to your doctor’, after a sonographer tried to insert a transvaginal ultrasound wand and I shrieked in agony.
I got angry just writing that. My heart is racing and to be quite honest, I'd rather not stress my body more given I have an incurable whole-body inflammatory disease.
For me, anger eventually becomes self-destructive and that's the very point. I brought up those three painful memories and I made myself angry by focussing on them.
How not to, though?
Well, now that I had my diagnosis, that was a huge win. I had something that I didn’t have before! “Information is empowerment”, as one consultant I recently heard speak at an event said.
Choosing my focus wisely, for example, on what endometriosis meant and how I could live my life, was hugely empowering and quite exciting!
I went on to read a lot, and was fascinated by how much about the human body I didn't know. I discovered communities and met some wonderful people who educated me more and involved me in their campaigns for better health outcomes for women. I experimented with foods and activities that could improve my quality of life, and my quality of life drastically improved!
By concentrating on what actions I could take with the information I have, I was less interested in concentrating on my anger and the past. I'd accidentally quietened my mind.
Could I go back in time and change what was done to me? No.
Was it worth trying to? No.
Could I eat a gluten-free pizza with friends, go to a women’s health conference and justify spending two weekdays sleeping because fatigue crept up on me? Absolutely.
Bye bye, anger and hello, empowerment! Oh how I missed you!
Take your pain and use it
You are likely aware that I started Carecrows because of my lived experience of chronic ill health.
I felt compelled to do what I do now and I know I’m not alone in not letting my pain go to waste. A coach taught me that phrase and I absolutely love it.
Plenty of people created something after they went through some kind of ordeal. Think songwriters writing about heartbreak, or parents establishing charities after their child became sick with a terminal condition.
I’m not saying the answer is to go big and do something that will change the world or become an earworm, though, be my guest! You do you, and I will support you in whatever you choose!
One of my clients, Beth, had a horrific accident where she lost some of her teeth and had significant facial trauma. Just after a couple of weeks, she made a zine documenting her accident and recovery, which she shared with a handful of people close to her! There was no anger in sight.
A friend I met through improv has been on their own mental health recovery journey and they’ve been writing about their painful childhood experiences. They reported that this process has been making them so happy! Just last month they performed their first stand-up comedy gig in London, on that very topic. Their years of stored anger was transmuted into laughter!
Whether it’s something tiny, enormous, creative, practical, private or public, putting that pain to use seems to be a surefire way of eliminating anger.
The happy outcome?
Right now I know I am the most calm and dignified I've ever been in my life. Though, anyone looking from the outside at my multiple concerning circumstances might think I have every reason to be throwing a fit or two.
I do have licence to throw a fit, but I choose not to.
I love that it is now incredibly rare for me to explode like a volcano, casting scathing ash and raging rock across the vast landscape of my world. Instead, I relish that I have wonderful people and projects to reach for, where I can let my lava gently bubble and steam away.
