"I Left Their Office In Tears": 31 Patients Are Opening Up About How Their Doctor Or Therapist Dismissed Them, And This Is Hearbreaking
Note: This post mentions disordered eating, body dysmorphia, anti-gay comments, child loss, drug abuse, and suicide.
Going to see a doctor or therapist — whether it's for an annual check-up or a weekly therapy session — can bring up a lot of uneasy feelings, which is why it's so important for a patient to feel comfortable and safe.
And while most doctors and therapists are human and doing their best with what they know (after all, it is an incredibly stressful job, especially these last two years), sometimes, a medical professional's or therapist's bedside manner can make a patient feel uncomfortable, triggered, or simply unheard.
To help bring to light the difficulties some patients have faced during their own health journeys, we asked the BuzzFeed Community: "Was there ever a time a doctor, a therapist, or another kind of medical professional dismissed or disrespected your body or mental health?"
Nearly 200 people shared their stories with us — and we rounded a few for you to read below in hopes to highlight not only their perspectives, but also how certain healthcare bias and practices can impact one's life.
1."A few months after my wedding, I went to the doctor's office for my annual checkup. I had gained eight pounds (because I crashed-dieted leading up to the wedding) and was feeling a little sad with post-wedding blues. My doctor proceeded to tell me how disappointed she was that I gained weight so quickly after my wedding, and that my feeling sad was a clear sign that I had made the wrong decision marrying my husband. After my appointment, I sat in my car and cried my eyes out feeling horrible about myself."
"Once I calmed down and gathered my thoughts, I knew that no doctor or medical professional should ever make me feel worse leaving an appointment than I felt going in.
I switched doctors less than a year later. I'm still carrying those 'extra' pounds (plus some) and I'm still married to my husband, and I'm happier than ever."
—Anonymous
2."I have scoliosis (an abnormal spine curvature) and the first doctor I saw was CONVINCED that I was faking it. My curve is at 54 degrees; they usually recommend surgery at 40 degrees. He refused to talk about a treatment plan. How do you fake that??"
3."I have [had] depression since I was an early teen. By the time I was in my early 20s, I finally plucked up the courage to go and see a therapist. The meeting went well to begin with. She made me feel comfortable enough to talk about my problems. However, after talking about a sexual assault that happened 10 years previously at a party, she interrupted me to ask if I had been drinking and what I was wearing when it happened. I sat in shock but answered her questions. She then replied that it couldn't have been that traumatic of an experience as I was now married with a baby."
"Thankfully, after that comment, it was the end of our appointment. I left the office in tears, and on my way home, I filed a complaint against her and told the office I would not be back again."
4."As I was being diagnosed with non-alcoholic fatty liver, I asked my gastroenterologist how did this happen, where did it come from, and what caused it? He responded with: 'You did it to yourself.' I never want to see that doctor again."
—Anonymous
5."I've had hyperhidrosis all my life, which means that I sweat excessively. For me, it affects me all over my body, but the worst is my head/face/neck, which is obviously massively embarrassing and uncomfortable. This has dictated all my decisions in life and left me with social anxiety and depression. For years, doctors told me to just wear loose clothing and tried to prescribe clinical strength antiperspirant; however, it irritates my skin, doesn’t work long term, and can’t really be used on my face/scalp. It was only in the last few years that I discovered a community of other people with the condition, found out there is a medication that works, and I’m now involved in creating guidance for medical practitioners to understand the condition better."
6."I had been having really horrible, stabbing pain in my back for a few days. I went to the doctor and told him that I also had a bit of pain urinating but it wasn’t super bad. I was thinking he’d probably do a urine sample to rule out a kidney infection but instead, he tells me that I’ve probably just pulled a muscle and prescribes me Valium. When I questioned whether it could be an infection, he just laughed and told me to stick to my day job. I ended up in the hospital three days later with a horrific kidney infection that doctors said was made ten times worse from the Valium I had been taking."
7."My psychiatrist told me that I wasn’t having anxiety — and that it was actually the 5G waves causing symptoms like anxiety, and I need to get a crystal to block them."
8."I’ve [had] mental health my entire life. I first started seeing a therapist when I was 13 because of suicidal thoughts. When I was in college, I started [feeling depressed] again and thought it’d be good to try out medicine to see if it helped. The psychologist I went to was an older man — and after giving him my entire mental health history and struggles, he reluctantly prescribed me medicine. I stopped going to him after two times because both times he told me, and I quote: 'Your issues will go away if you get a boyfriend. You should get a boyfriend and won’t need this medicine.' After that, I refused to seek therapy again for over 10 years."
—Anonymous
9."I had severe depression and asked my doctor at the time to fill out temporary disability forms. However, without talking with me, he put 'obesity' as my disability. I filed a grievance and switched doctors."
10."I once had a doctor tell me she would only discuss one or two symptoms at a time with me. I had a list, and she didn't want to hear it. One time before that, I had told her about the pain I was in, and she referred me to a pain psychologist to which I told her, "I am already seeing a therapist, but thank you, anyway." She refused to hear me. I went to a new doctor who ran blood tests and turned out I had an autoimmune disease, a painful genetic disorder, and a circulation disorder. I did file a complaint with the previous doctor's superior."
—Anonymous
11."During freshman year of high school, my mom forced me to go to the school's therapist because I was refusing to go to school. I was depressed, I had no friends, and I just hated going. I shared this with the therapist and he said, 'Maybe you’re just trying not to make friends?'"
"Great thing to say to a 13-ish-year-old who is desperately trying to fit in and figure herself out."
12."About a year ago, I went to a doctor because the pain from my suspected endometriosis was getting worse. She was great and very understanding, changed my meds, and referred me for an ultrasound to make sure there was nothing new going on. But when I called for the results of the scan, she was away, and I got this guy who decided that a clear ultrasound meant I was fine (endometriosis doesn't show up on imaging). He asked questions about sexual history that I couldn't answer because I'm asexual, and then decided that since I'm ace and my medical records say I'm on antidepressants, I was clearly suffering from a sex phobia and needed to see a therapist."
"He refused to refer me to a gynecologist despite an extensive history of pelvic/menstrual issues because he'd decided being queer and mentally ill made my pain imaginary.
I finally see a consultant gynecologist this July, almost a year and a half after this fucking guy, all because he wouldn't believe me when I said my pain was real."
13."I was anorexic and very underweight. Unlike most people with anorexia, I absolutely refused to weigh myself because I was scared. So, once my therapist says: 'I have a scale, do you want to check your weight?' Me: 'No, thanks.' Him: 'Why? What are you scared of?' 'I want to be 88 pounds. If I'm still not, I'll have to stop eating completely.' His response: 'Then stop eating completely, what's the problem?'"
14."I work in the construction industry and often need to wear eye protection. Good quality, prescription eye protection are expensive, so I would use contact lenses and regular eye protection. I went to an eye doctor to renew my prescription and he (an older male) told me (a 25-year-old female) that I only wanted a prescription for contacts due to my vanity — and he was going to teach me a life lesson by not giving me a prescription for contacts."
"I explained my job, and he told me a job that required me to wear eye protection was 'not suitable for a young lady.'
I asked to leave and told him and his receptionist that I didn't appreciate being denied basic care due to his misogynistic opinions. Apparently, explaining that loudly in his office lobby inspired him to change his mind."
—Anonymous
15."My mom spent nine months trying to figure out why she had such a bad cough and rib pain. Every time she went to see her doctor, he passed it off as bronchitis, allergies, smoking (she didn't smoke), and even asked if my dad was beating her and causing the rib pain. At the time, her insurance wouldn't allow her to see a different doctor, but she finally went out of network to a doctor in a nearby larger city, and they almost immediately found she had STAGE 4 LUNG CANCER. She died three months later. That experience taught me that you need to always listen to your body, get second opinions, and advocate for yourself, because not all doctors have your best interest in mind."
16."I went to my doctor with concerns that I was developing an eating disorder. She told me to go to the supermarket and 'buy myself something tasty and eat it,' as if that was going to be an easy fix."
17."When I was younger, I was taken to a pediatrician because although I didn’t know it at the time, I had undiagnosed autism and was struggling significantly. I used to mask at school, and I would have extreme outbursts when I got home from it all building up in the day. My school told the pediatric team that I had lots of friends and excelled in school. I was very good at school, but struggled on the social side and can remember only having one or two friends at a time. The pediatric team told my mum that she was projecting her anxieties onto me and that’s why I behaved this way, and completely disregarded everything my parents had told them."
"By the time I had gotten to secondary school, I was struggling even more and went to a very dark place because I had zero support. By the time I was 13, I had been diagnosed with mixed depressive disorder, anxiety, and autism. If I had gotten the support I needed earlier, I think things would’ve been so different."
18."I was hospitalized for suicidal ideation and the social worker at the place learned I had PTSD. She asked if I had ever experienced physical, sexual, or emotional abuse. I said no. She then said that I didn’t really have PTSD and reprimanded me for lying. She also tried to send me home the day after I attempted because 'It didn’t matter if a liar died.' I filed a complaint and she got fired."
19."Five years ago, my wife got pregnant. And just about three months into the pregnancy, she started spotting and having heavy cramps. We rushed to the hospital to see her OB/GYN, but the doctor had a family emergency so we were passed to another. He dismissed us and said it was completely normal, especially in the first trimester. My wife and I both knew it wasn’t normal but we didn’t have any medical knowledge so we just went back home. In the middle of the night, my wife woke me up crying because she was in so much pain. I drove her to a different hospital and after a few tests, we were told that it was an ectopic pregnancy. We ended up losing our child, but the doctor told us if we had waited longer or listened to the other doctor, my wife would have also died."
20."I went to a therapist because I was diagnosed with major depressive disorder and anxiety, as well as having dealt with PTSD and generational trauma. She gave me tools to help me understand triggers for my depression, but I wasn't able to do it every day like it was required to make the tool work. After a few weeks, she said I wasn't trying hard enough to fix my depression."
"It was really discouraging to hear that because the problem with my depression was that I didn't have the energy or memory to do certain things, which is why I sought help in the first place.
I no longer go to her because I didn't feel like I could trust her when my mental health gets to its worst."
21."I had a high fever with chills, stabbing lower back pain on one side, and brown pee (dark, like tea). The shade of my urine wasn’t improving, no matter how much water I drank. I was also throwing up and shaking violently. I was 18 and had no health insurance, so I waited three days before seeing my doctor. My doctor shrugged it off as a 'virus going around' and suggested I go home and rest and 'drink some Gatorade.' I was annoyed at how dismissive she was. I ASKED for her to draw some blood to see what’s going on. She scoffed and said, 'You wanna get stuck?' I said, 'Yes, if it’ll help me feel better!' My blood work came back with elevated white cell counts, and she said, 'Wow, you’re sick.'”
"She sent me to the emergency room, and I was admitted and stayed four days in the hospital. I had a kidney infection that was so advanced that my right kidney was shutting down. I’m so glad I had the courage to advocate for myself — taking her advice at face value may have killed me."
22."I was diagnosed with ADHD when I was 24, and was about to start medication when I visited my neurologist to talk about how my medications would interact with other medications I was taking. As soon as I mentioned the word ADHD, my doctor went on a lengthy monologue about how ADHD isn’t real. I was attention seeking and looking for an easy way to score drugs; I was going to become 'just another junkie,' and I had so much potential if I didn’t let other people diagnose me with made up issues. His ranting took so long that the appointment actually ended before he did, and I didn’t get to address any of the concerns I had wanted to."
"I had only just been diagnosed at this point, and I felt so alone already, as my parents and my then-boyfriend weren’t supportive, so to have a medical professional tell me I was wasting my life by getting diagnosed was just such an isolating feeling.
I paid $150 for that appointment so I could be yelled at and not helped, and I haven’t been back since."
23."I saw a certified counselor with my mother when I was young. It was her counselor and my mom and I had had several issues to work through. In the appointment, when I disagreed with my mother and tried to state my point of view, the counselor threw me out of her office. She claimed that I was argumentative and she would not listen to me until I learned to be more agreeable with my mother. I was 10 years old."
—Anonymous
24."As a teenager, I often had pain and swelling in one of my knees, and I would be unable to bend it easily. Every time I told my doctor, he told me I should lose weight and that would fix the problem. Mind you, though, I was slightly chubby — my BMI was and is well within a medically 'normal' range. For years, the pain and movement issues made it difficult for me to be active; at any moment, my knee might just get stuck, causing me to lose my balance and fall. In my mid-twenties, I finally went to urgent care, and the doctor there immediately scheduled an X-ray (without mentioning my weight once). They found a slow-growing tumor in my knee joint."
"I got surgery within a month and have been pain-free since. The ironic thing is that the surgery has allowed me to be much more active — I recently ran a 10k, something that would have been impossible before surgery!"
25."I went to the gynecologist one time because I was having trouble using tampons and I was getting weirdly localized cramps around my left hip. She did a pelvic exam and basically told me that I wasn’t relaxing enough and that I just needed to calm down when I was trying, and that I just needed to take ibuprofen for the cramps. Fast-forward a few years, I still couldn't use tampons, and I had horrible cramping right around my left hip almost every day. Went to see another gynecologist, got another pelvic exam and an ultrasound, and it turns out that I had a micro-perforate hymen that was keeping me from being able to use tampons, AND I had an endometrial cyst the size of a tennis ball growing on my left ovary that needed to be removed surgically."
"During surgery, they found out that a good majority of both my ovaries were COVERED in lesions and scar tissue, and not all of them could be successfully removed.
I get that endometriosis can be tricky to diagnose, but you’d think that any good gynecologist would be able to tell that someone’s hymen is micro-perforated versus them just not being relaxed, right?"
26."I had back pain in August, so I went to the doctor and by September, I had three MRIs and physical therapy, but I was still in pain. In the following year, I had surgery for a tumor in my neck that the doctor had known about for nearly a year! I had cancer and my ex-doctor thought it was a good idea to send me to physical therapy. Thankfully, I am healthy and cancer-free, and I have a new doctor who cares!"
—Anonymous
27."A psychiatrist put me on medication for chronic nightmares that had the side effect of lowering my blood pressure. When I told her that I would nearly black out when I got up in the morning, my vision would tunnel, I'd be hit with nausea, and I had to sit down while brushing my teeth in the morning, she called me dramatic and completely dismissed what could have been severe side effects. I was scared, and I told the truth without exaggeration, and she insulted me. I don't take that medication or see her anymore."
—Anonymous
28."I gained 70 pounds in under five months. For context, I am on medications that can cause weight gain but not at the rate it occurred. When I went to my gynecologist, she told me that weight gain is just every woman’s concern. Basically suggesting I was only worried about gaining weight because I am a woman. The icing on the cake was after I suggested some conditions that may be causing the problem that I wanted tests for, she decided to act like a therapist and diagnosed me as a hypochondriac and said I was imagining all of my problems."
"It’s been over a year now, and I still do not have any answers because she does not believe me and will not run any tests. I’ve been trying to switch to a different doctor but most have been booked for over a year from now.
This situation has definitely made me not want to go to a doctor for any issues now because the entire situation was so belittling and upsetting, and I am afraid I will be treated the same way."
29."I suffered from extreme fatigue and tremors for years; however, my doctor kept saying it was caused by either stress or depression. They refused to send me for any tests. Finally, a simple blood test showed I had basically no vitamin D. I started on a high-dose supplement, and it cured me overnight. About two years of my life was housebound for nothing."
30."I was seeing a new therapist and told her that I felt like I was ready to speak to my family members about the years of sexual abuse that they knowingly enabled. She asked me whether it wouldn't be better 'not to make waves.' I was shocked and upset that someone was once again shutting me down about the abuse. I never went back."
"The worst part is that I was still within the statute of limitations for child sexual abuse and could have gotten justice if I had felt heard and empowered. Now I will never get justice from those who did it or those who allowed it."
—Anonymous
31."I am an obese woman and had been experiencing a pretty typical pregnancy. Until I got close to seven months and started swelling terribly. Not only my feet and ankles, but also my hands, face, and arms. I had gained only 5 to 10 pounds through most of the pregnancy, but in a two-week period between OB visits, I gained 45 pounds. The doctor scolded me for eating too many carbohydrates and junk food. I told her I wasn't — I actually didn't feel good at all and wasn't eating much. I got the, 'Yeah, well, you might just be absentmindedly snacking and not realizing.' Cut to me being hospitalized less than a month later with severe preeclampsia and blood pressure of 220/180. I almost died."
"I had a C-section with a failed epidural, and my baby was born preemie at 33 weeks. I wish I had stood up for myself more.
As a fat woman, they only saw me getting more fat and didn't spot the warning signs that would have been far more obvious on a skinnier woman."
Has a doctor or therapist ever dismissed you? If so, tell us what happened in the comments below.
The National Alliance on Mental Illness helpline is 1-888-950-6264 (NAMI) and provides information and referral services; GoodTherapy.org is an association of mental health professionals from more than 25 countries who support efforts to reduce harm in therapy.
The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is 1-800-273-8255. Other international suicide helplines can be found at befrienders.org.
