My reflections on dismissal, medical misogyny and self-advocacy following episode 10

This is one of my solo reflection episodes. Just me, sitting with what the conversation with Dr Catriona Anderson and Neha Visavadia stirred up.We covered a lot of ground in that episode: chronic UTI, the gap in the medical definition, what it means to be dismissed by the healthcare system, and what you can actually do about it. This reflection picks up on three threads that I couldn't let go of afterwards.The first is the psychological cost of not being believed - not just as a frustrating experience, but as something that actively changes your behaviour, closes down your options, and makes the next appointment feel harder before it's even happened. Neha described this so clearly, and I've seen it in clinical practice more times than I can count.The second is medical misogyny - the expectation, embedded across centuries, that women will absorb a higher baseline of pain and difficulty without it being fully investigated. Dr Catriona named it plainly in the episode and I want to sit with it plainly here too, because naming it is part of shifting it.And the third is what self-advocacy actually looks like in the room — not as a performance, but as a regulated, grounded way of communicating that actually changes how the person in front of you responds.This reflection is for anyone who has ever left an appointment feeling smaller than when they walked in. And for anyone who works with patients and wants to understand why that happens.This podcast is supported by Convatec Continence Care and their Me+ programme, which supports people using intermittent catheters with both practical guidance and emotional wellbeing resources. Find out more at www.howwereallyfeel.com/in-partnership-with-convatec.Show notes and resources at https://www.howwereallyfeel.com/episode-10-when-youre-not-believed