Jessica Woodville | Memoir & Musings

There’s a particular kind of grief that comes not from losing someone, but from losing faith — in a system you were told would save you.

I’ve spent the last five years trying to figure out what was wrong with my body. I don’t mean in the way we all joke about being tired all the time or needing more coffee. I mean: collapsing in the middle of the night, vomiting until I’m shaking, heart racing while I’m lying perfectly still. I mean: being so dizzy I can’t stand up without seeing stars, or waking up with my blood pressure so low I wonder if my heart just forgot how to be a heart.

I knew something was wrong. My body screamed it, over and over.

But what I kept hearing back — from some of the most prestigious names in medicine — was silence, suspicion, or worse: suggestion that maybe this was psychological. Maybe I just had anxiety. Maybe I was overreacting. Maybe I needed to drink more water and do yoga.

This is the story of what it’s like to be medically gaslit — and still have to keep showing up to life.

When I finally got into Mayo Clinic — the supposed holy grail of answers — I told myself, Maybe this is it. Maybe someone will finally see the whole picture. I came in with a notebook full of symptom logs and heart rate data from my Apple Watch. I had tracked patterns, crashes, dizzy spells, blood pressure readings — the kind of data no one else had ever taken seriously, but that felt vital to understanding my body.

The doctor waived it off with a smile and said, “The tests I’ve ordered will give us a better picture.” (They didn’t, they left me weak, nauseous, and alone 100 miles away from home.)

She laughed at an email from a colleague (briefly apologizing) while I was explaining my most distressing symptom — violent vomiting flares that hit with little warning that leave me on the bathroom floor for hours. She blamed it on the cannabis tinctures I had tried to help curb the nausea, something that had temporarily stopped the frequency of the vomiting.

She didn’t review my previous medical records because “the system didn’t sync.” She didn’t recheck the labs that had shown abnormalities. She didn’t perform a complete physical exam. She told me drink more water and ride an exercise bike.

And when I tried to follow her advice? I fainted. Like so many times before.

And when I tried to follow up? Ignored. Submit a complaint to Mayo Patient Experience? Dismissed. Insurance coverage? Denied for “unnecessary testing.”

What happens to a mind and body that keeps asking for help but never gets it?

It begins to doubt itself. And that — that’s almost worse than the illness.

Because when a doctor dismisses you, especially one with a white coat and a world-renowned name stitched into their badge, it’s not just about that moment in the office. It echoes. It unearths every other time you weren’t believed — by your parents, your teachers, the people who were supposed to protect you.

For survivors of trauma, medical gaslighting isn’t just frustrating. It’s re-traumatizing. It triggers the deepest ache: What if it really is me? What if I really am just broken, hysterical, too much?

I know I’m not alone in this. Chronic illness warriors, trauma survivors, those of us with complicated bodies and nervous systems that don’t follow the rules — we know what it’s like to live in limbo. To fight not just to feel better, but to be believed.

The truth is, I’ve spent years being dismissed. It took a nurse practitioner — not a specialist, not a fancy clinic — to ask the right questions. That’s how I was finally diagnosed with secondary adrenal insufficiency. But even that came with a caveat: No known primary cause. The microadenoma on my pituitary was labeled “too small to be significant.” The symptoms remained.

And still, I kept researching. I kept writing. In trying to piece together the story of what happened to me — the trauma, the illness, the storm that wouldn’t end — I started to find a terrifying but illuminating thread: that maybe this isn’t just psychological. Maybe CPTSD isn’t only a mental health condition. Maybe it’s physical, too. Maybe the damage trauma leaves behind doesn’t just haunt our memories — maybe it rewires the body itself.

That’s not a comforting conclusion. It doesn’t come with a clear treatment plan or a tidy recovery arc.

But it does explain why I still feel like I’m fighting something no one else can see.

I want to believe I’m strong. I want to believe I’ll get through this. But if I’m honest — brutally, heartbreakingly honest — I’m running out of strength. Out of fortitude. Out of whatever it is that kept me trying to chase down hope in the form of another referral, another test, another shrug.

I am still here. But barely. And that should be enough for someone to care.