When "It's Probably Anxiety" Becomes Your Inner Voice: The Real Impact of Medical Gaslighting

"It's probably anxiety."

Sound familiar?

If you're living with a chronic condition, I bet you've heard some version of this more times than you can count. Maybe it was delivered with a patronising smile, or with barely concealed irritation when you dared to suggest your symptoms might be something more serious.

This kind of treatment doesn't just affect your medical care; it fundamentally changes how you see yourself.

The Slow Erosion of Self-Trust

When you spend years being dismissed by the very people who are supposed to help you, you start believing them.

You walk into appointment after appointment, hoping this time will be different. This time someone will listen. This time they'll take your pain seriously. Instead, you're met with the same tired responses: "It's probably stress," "Have you tried losing weight?" or the classic, "It's all in your head."

After enough of these encounters, something shifts. You stop trusting your own experience. You start making yourself smaller in medical settings, apologising for taking up time, downplaying your symptoms before anyone else can dismiss them.

The confidence you once had to advocate for yourself is gone and replaced by an inner voice that sounds awfully like all those dismissive doctors combined.

It's Not About Confidence.  It's About Gaslighting.

I see this all the time in my therapy practice. People come to me thinking they're just "not confident people" or that they "don't have the courage" to speak up for themselves. But when we dig deeper, what we usually find isn't a lack of natural confidence but the accumulated impact of years of systematic invalidation.

Medical gaslighting doesn't just happen in that moment when a doctor dismisses your symptoms. It lives on in your head, creating thoughts like "maybe I just don't cope with pain well" or "maybe I'm imagining things." These aren't thoughts that spring from your own experiences, but the echo of every dismissive interaction you've ever had with medical professionals.

The thing is, you do know your body. You do understand your symptoms. What you've lost isn't knowledge. You’ve lost the confidence to trust what you know.

Whose Voice Is That, Really?

One of the most powerful techniques I use with clients is helping them recognise when their inner critic isn't really their voice at all. When that familiar doubt creeps in and thoughts like  "Am I making too big a deal of this?" creep in, I ask them to pause and consider: whose voice is that, really?

Often, they'll realise it's the GP who rolled their eyes when they mentioned fatigue. Or the consultant who interrupted them mid-sentence. Or the family member who suggested they just needed to "think more positively."

Once you can identify where these voices come from, you can start to challenge them. Because just because someone has a medical degree doesn't mean they understand your lived experience. Just because someone is in a position of authority doesn't mean their opinion about your body is more valid than yours.

Whose voice is your inner critic?

Fighting Back Against the Voices

Recognising external voices is just the first step. The real work comes in learning to challenge and reframe them.

When your inner critic pipes up with "Maybe I'm just not handling this well," you can counter with evidence: "Actually, I'm managing a complex condition every single day while maintaining relationships, work, and basic self-care. That's not 'not handling it well'… it’s pretty effing impressive."

When doubt whispers "Maybe these symptoms aren't that serious," you can respond with facts: "I know my body better than anyone else. These symptoms are real, they're impacting my life, and they deserve attention."

It takes practice, but you can learn to distinguish between your authentic voice and the collection of dismissive voices you've internalised over the years.

The Bigger Picture: Living in an Ableist World

None of this happens in a vacuum. Medical gaslighting thrives in a society that already devalues disabled and chronically ill people. We live in a world that measures worth by productivity, that treats pain as weakness, and that sees asking for help as burden.

When you're female, young, or from a marginalised community, the dismissal often gets even worse. Your pain is "hysteria," your fatigue is "laziness," your need for accommodations is "special treatment."

But understanding the systemic nature of medical gaslighting can actually be liberating. It means recognising the problem isn't you, but the system. You're not "too sensitive" or "making a big deal out of nothing." You're responding normally to abnormal treatment.

Rebuilding What Was Broken

In my work with chronically ill clients, some of the most important healing happens when we process these experiences of medical gaslighting together. We look at how being dismissed, ignored, and belittled has shaped their relationship with themselves.

Often, people are surprised by how much these experiences have affected them. They've been so focused on managing their physical symptoms that they haven't noticed how their confidence has been chipped away at.

But there's hope in that recognition. When you understand how you've been impacted, you can start to heal. You can begin to separate your authentic voice from all the dismissive voices you've collected along the way.

The work isn't always easy. Sometimes it feels safer to stay small, to not rock the boat, to accept whatever scraps of care you're offered. But learning to trust yourself again… to believe in your own experience, to advocate for your needs is where real healing begins.

There's Space for You to Trust Yourself Again

Never forget that your experience is valid. Your symptoms are real. Your need for care and support isn't too much or dramatic or attention-seeking.

You have the right to take up space in medical settings. You have the right to ask questions, to seek second opinions, to demand proper care. You have the right to trust your own body and your own experience.

Medical gaslighting may have knocked your confidence, but it hasn't erased your worth. That inner knowing, that part of you that recognises when something isn't right is still there. Sometimes it just needs a bit of encouragement to speak up again.

Because living with chronic illness is hard enough without carrying the added burden of self-doubt. You deserve care, compassion, and most importantly, you deserve to trust yourself again.

And as always if you need a little extra support in this, please do reach out.

Kirsty x