The Great Con: women actually do ask for help.

I keep reading newspaper reports about how women keep depression and anxiety a secret and don’t seek help. I then speak to women who mouth the same thing that they didn’t ask for professional help BUT then they outline all the ways they did in fact ask for help, all the while saying they didn’t. The same goes for physical conditions. Women tell me how they told partners and doctors how they were tired, how they were gaining weight, how they didn’t have energy, how their memory was faltering and yet still finish off with saying they never spoke to anybody about their depression.

Now why would women detail to me a whole bunch of symptoms that are linked to depression that they have told their doctors about and then say that they didn’t tell anyone about it? Clearly they have told their doctor symptoms by their own admission so why do they then claim they didn’t speak about it? Because the great con is that women have been conditioned to think if they don’t get medical help it is because they didn’t ask properly. They’ve been convinced that they haven’t asked for help because they didn’t provide the doctor with a diagnosis and ask for help with that specific thing. Women are expected to do the the doctor’s job of diagnosis in order to get help. This is an ongoing issue in the medical profession as outlined in the study, The Girl Who Cried Pain: A Bias Against Women in the Treatment of Pain, women are routinely dismissed. They’re asking just fine, they shouldn’t have to diagnose themselves, that’s actually the doctor’s job, but there is an inherent bias against them.

It’s time to stop meekly standing by as we lose more and more women to suicide and watch more and more women lose mobility because of lack of treatment and continue to say, “Oh, it’s our fault, we mustn’t have asked correctly.” Men are given treatment and further testing when they give their symptoms, women are sent away. Women are forced to come back time and time again trying to get help. It’s the real reason why women see doctors more often than men do. They have to because they are forced to go back because they keep getting dismissed and the problem continues.

Women, you shouldn’t have to do the doctor’s job in order to get help. You shouldn’t have to be medically trained and able to diagnose pancreatitis, or stroke, or anxiety, or pelvic dislocation, that’s the doctor’s job. If you’ve mentioned your symptoms you have in fact asked for help. Let’s not be part of this system that undermines women. Let’s back ourselves and say we are worthy of treatment and we are perfectly capable of communicating symptoms. We actually do deserve treatment and this bias needs to stop. We’re not the problem, the unconscionable bias against us is.

Here are some further articles I think many of you will relate to. Happy reading.

She Thought She’d Pulled a Hip Muscle, But Six Doctors Couldn’t Diagnose Her Pain.

Diagnosis: Sexism

When Gender Stereotypes Become a Serious Hazzard to Women’s Health

Endometriosis and the Dangers of Period Pain Dismissal

I Screamed and Screamed and Screamed but Nobody Would Listen to Me.

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Rage against the machine… everywhere and anywhere?

P.S. If I had a penny for every female who told me that they were told by medical professionals that women just got tired, grumpy, fat, weak, and lose memory at x age, x ranging from 16-60, but persisted and after countless dismissals finally got a diagnosis and got treatment, I’d have a lot of pennies…. Sadly, I’d have way more pennies than I earn from writing. You don’t have to accept that women just fall apart. We don’t. No more so than men.

If you or someone you know has postnatal depression you can find good resources on the following sites:

1. Gidget Foundation http://gidgetfoundation.com.au/
2. PANDA http://www.panda.org.au/
3. PIRI http://www.piri.org.au/
4. Black Dog Institute http://www.blackdoginstitute.org.au/
5. Lifeline https://www.lifeline.org.au/