From The Editor: It’s Not All in Your Head

I don’t remember the first time I was told, “It’s all in your head.” But it has been said or implied so often that it lives in my brain as a final check before I do just about anything.

I understand how I ended up here. As the middle of five children in a one-income household, my parents wanted to make sure we weren’t just complaining of normal stomachaches or growing pains before taking us to the doctor. However, with my innate tendency to keep quiet and not speak up to avoid being a nuisance or inconvenience, when I did bring something forward it was only after it had become something I couldn’t ignore. But others didn’t understand that I had already been through that process.

When I was about six, I had a bad cough. Possibly having-to-remove-your-tonsils bad. My dad finally took me to see the doctor, but, of course, I didn’t need to cough at the exact second I was sitting in front of him. Afraid he wouldn’t believe me, I coughed. It obviously wasn’t an involuntary one like those I had been wracked by for the previous week or two, but it still echoed with the raspiness of my ravaged throat.

The doctor laughed at me. He insinuated that I was play-acting for attention – which would be understandable in a family of seven – and that everything I was experiencing was fake or all in my head.

I knew it wasn’t, but after being told this by an authority figure, I suddenly questioned everything I knew. Maybe I really was fine, and I was just playing it up to try and get attention.

This is gaslighting through and through, before it was a buzzword and without any animosity or intentionality. I was made to question my logic and thought processes and even my burgeoning identity as a six-year-old.

I don’t know if this experience was the beginning or just a step along the way, but my family jokingly began to refer to me as a hypochondriac, and my little growing brain and sense of self decided if they all thought that, then it must be true.

I began to question every ache and pain, every weird feeling in my body, even the very thoughts in my mind — is this real, or am I just making this up for attention?

I’m not the only one who experiences this. Recently people have begun to speak out about this, especially in women’s health and medicine. We have been told our whole lives that reproductive issues, pain, discomfort, and a myriad of other maladies are all in our heads. And so, we put up with the pain. We live in discomfort. And because it’s “all in our head” it impacts our mood, our mental state, and ultimately who we are and how we view ourselves.

I’m working hard to unravel this from my identity. I am learning to speak up for myself, to go in prepared with what I’ve honestly been experiencing instead of allowing myself to downplay in the moment. I’m being intentional about asking “Is that true?” after my mind automatically decides something is all in my head. It’s hard. It’s exhausting. But I want to be around for my son for as long as I can and looking after my body and mental health are a huge part of that.

Thankfully, I don’t have to do this alone. When I can’t trust my own judgement, I can lean into the guidance of the Holy Spirit dwelling within me. In the Gospel of John chapter 16, Jesus explains to his disciples that he must go back to the Father so that the Holy Spirit can come to dwell in and among the believers. “But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all the truth. He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come” (v 13).

When the Holy Spirit lives within you, he moves, prods, and nudges your thoughts and actions in the correct direction. When I cannot trust my own mind, I know that I can trust his, because he only speaks God’s truth, and God is omniscient and omnipotent. So, when I’m unsure whether or not something is all in my head, I can pray. It’s a great reminder to reach out to my heavenly Father, my creator, who can sort through all the noise and present me with the truth.

Advocate for yourself. Speak up and speak the truth. If you’re unsure of the truth, lean into the source of truth itself for guidance. If people don’t believe you, that’s on them, not you. You are worth listening to, and you are worth believing. It’s not always all in your head. What you experience is real, and you deserve to be heard.