When You Are Dismissed

I felt it during an appointment I had been looking forward to for months.

I was meeting with an orthopedic pain specialist, someone I hoped would finally help me understand what was causing the severe pain in my neck and head.

She looked at my chart and asked,

“Have you tried using a trigger point muscle hook tool?”

“I don’t know what that is,” I said.

She reached for one from her counter and demonstrated, hooking it around the base of my neck and pulling hard.

“Ow,” I said, flinching.

She smiled. “You’re tight. That’s why this will work.”

Then she asked, “What type of diet do you follow?”

For a moment, I thought I’d misheard her.

My chart said neck pain.

Occipital pain.

Migraines.

Not nutrition counseling.

But she was serious.

“Keto. Paleo. Mediterranean,” she said, listing each one with the confidence of someone reading from a script.

I told her I didn’t eat much processed food.

She nodded politely.

But it was clear she didn’t believe me, because I wasn’t following a formal plan.

She opened a drawer and pulled out a sheet of paper, writing as she talked about inflammation and “clean eating.” She filled the page with book and podcast titles.

“You’ll want to start here,” she said, sliding the list toward me.

“This will change everything.”

And in a way, it did.

Not in the way she meant.

It didn’t change my pain.

It didn’t bring clarity.

It didn’t move me closer to answers.

What it changed was the goal.

I was no longer someone trying to be helped.

I was now trying to be believed.

That realization followed me into the appointments that came next.

I began choosing my words more carefully.

I shortened my story.

I was trying to make my experience fit inside someone else’s certainty.

I noticed myself hesitating before speaking.

Looking outward for confirmation that used to live inside me.

It wasn’t that I lost my voice.

It was that I stopped leading with it.