I left the appointment feeling like I'd done something wrong.
I hadn't. But I spent the drive home replaying every word, wondering if I'd been too much, too emotional, too insistent. That feeling has a name. And it's not yours to carry.
I remember the exact moment. I was sitting in the parking lot, keys in my hand, and I was going over everything I'd said. Had I been too insistent? Too emotional? Had I pushed too hard?
I had asked for a referral. I had explained my symptoms clearly. I had been, by any reasonable measure, a good patient. And I left feeling like I'd done something wrong.
I hadn't. But it took me a long time to understand that — and longer still to understand why I felt that way in the first place.
Medical gaslighting is a real phenomenon
The term 'gaslighting' gets used broadly, but in a healthcare context it has a specific meaning: when a patient's reported symptoms are minimized, dismissed, or attributed to psychological causes without adequate investigation — and when the patient is made to feel that their concern itself is the problem.
It doesn't always look dramatic. It rarely involves a provider saying anything overtly dismissive. More often it looks like a slightly too-long pause before responding. A gentle suggestion that you might be anxious. A referral to a therapist instead of a specialist. A follow-up appointment scheduled six months out for something that has been happening for two years.
And then you leave, and you sit in your car, and you wonder if you imagined it.
You didn't.
Why women absorb the blame
There is a long history — cultural, medical, institutional — of framing women's health complaints as emotional rather than physical. The word 'hysteria' comes from the Greek for uterus. For centuries, unexplained symptoms in women were attributed to the uterus 'wandering' through the body. The diagnosis was retired, but the instinct behind it — to locate women's suffering in their psychology rather than their physiology — has been slower to leave.
Dr. Katarina Hamberg, Professor of General Practice at Umeå University in Sweden, has published extensively on gender bias in clinical medicine. In a 2008 review in Women's Health, she documented how physicians consistently rate identical symptom presentations differently depending on the patient's sex — attributing the same symptoms to psychological causes in women and physical causes in men. Her research found this pattern across primary care, emergency medicine, and specialist settings.
A 2003 study by Dr. Anke Werner and Dr. Kirsti Malterud at the University of Bergen, published in Social Science and Medicine, found that women reporting chronic pain were more likely to be described as 'emotional' or 'difficult' in their medical records — even when their pain scores were identical to men's. Werner and Malterud described the experience of women with chronic pain as 'performing credibility' — constantly working to be believed rather than simply being heard.
When the system consistently frames your symptoms as emotional, you start to internalize that framing. You start to wonder if you're being too much. You start to apologize for taking up space. You leave the appointment feeling like you did something wrong.
The parking lot feeling has a name
Researchers who study patient-provider communication call it 'medical invalidation' — the experience of having your symptoms, concerns, or self-knowledge dismissed or minimized by a healthcare provider. Dr. Debra Roter at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health has documented that medical invalidation is more common in women, in people of color, and in people with chronic conditions that don't have obvious physical markers.
The effects are not just emotional. A 2004 study by Dr. Anke Werner at the University of Bergen, published in Social Science and Medicine, found that medical invalidation was associated with delayed help-seeking, avoidance of future care, and significantly worse health outcomes at 12-month follow-up. When people feel dismissed, they stop going back. And when they stop going back, things get worse.
The parking lot feeling is not a personal failing. It is a documented response to a documented pattern. And naming it is the first step to not letting it stop you.
What to do when it happens
You are allowed to go back. You are allowed to ask for a second opinion. You are allowed to say, plainly: 'I don't feel like my concerns were taken seriously, and I'd like to discuss them again.'
You are also allowed to find a different provider. Not every provider is the right fit. Not every provider is equipped to hear you. Finding one who is isn't giving up — it's advocating for yourself.
It's not yours to carry
The feeling that you did something wrong in that appointment — that you were too much, too emotional, too insistent — is not a reflection of who you are. It is a reflection of a system that has, for a very long time, asked women to make themselves smaller in order to be taken seriously.
You were not too much. You were a person with a body that needed care, asking for that care. That is not a problem. That is the entire point.
Put the keys in the ignition. Go back. Ask again. You are allowed to take up exactly as much space as your health requires.
Some things that help
- Bring someone with you. A second person in the room changes the dynamic. They can take notes, ask follow-up questions, and serve as a witness to what was and wasn't said.
- Write down what you want before you go in. Not just your symptoms — your questions. What do you want to know? What do you want to happen? Having it written down means you don't have to hold it in your head while also managing the emotional weight of the appointment.
- Ask for things explicitly. 'I'd like a referral to a specialist.' 'I'd like this documented in my chart.' 'I'd like to schedule a follow-up in four weeks, not six months.' Explicit requests are harder to sidestep than general concerns.
- Request your records. You are entitled to your medical records. Reading them can tell you what was documented — and what wasn't.
- Trust the parking lot feeling. If you leave an appointment feeling dismissed, that feeling is information. You don't have to act on it immediately, but you don't have to dismiss it either.
Sources & Further Reading
Every claim in this article is grounded in peer-reviewed research or primary reporting. Full citations are listed below.
Hamberg, K. (2008). Gender Bias in Medicine. Women's Health, 4(3), 237–243. Umeå University, Sweden.
Read the studyWerner, A., & Malterud, K. (2003). It is hard work behaving as a credible patient: encounters between women with chronic pain and their doctors. Social Science and Medicine, 57(8), 1409–1419. University of Bergen.
Read the studyWerner, A., Isaksen, L.W., & Malterud, K. (2004). 'I am not the kind of woman who complains of everything': Illness stories on self and shame in women with chronic pain. Social Science and Medicine, 59(5), 1035–1045. University of Bergen. Documents that medical invalidation is associated with delayed help-seeking and worse 12-month health outcomes.
Read the studyRoter, D.L., & Hall, J.A. (2004). Physician Gender and Patient-Centered Communication. Annual Review of Public Health, 25, 497–519. Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.
Read the studySamulowitz, A., Gremyr, I., Eriksson, E., & Hensing, G. (2018). Brave Men and Emotional Women: A Theory-Guided Literature Review on Gender Bias in Health Care and Gendered Norms Towards Patients with Chronic Pain. Pain Research and Management, 2018. University of Gothenburg. Systematic review documenting that women's pain is consistently rated as less credible and more psychological than men's across clinical settings.
Read the review