Trigger warnings: chronic illness, medical gaslighting, and discussion of reproductive health.

Episode 12 of Traumatically Speaking shifts the chaos into the medical system as Sloan and Lex talk about something that has shaped both of their lives: endometriosis. In honor of Endometriosis Awareness Month, this is part one of a conversation about what it’s like living with a condition that affects millions of female-bodied people while somehow still being wildly misunderstood, underdiagnosed, and frequently dismissed by the very people meant to treat it.

In this episode, Sloan and Lex share pieces of their own stories — the symptoms that were minimized, the years spent wondering if the pain was “normal,” and the exhausting reality of trying to advocate for yourself in rooms where your pain is treated more like a personality trait than a medical condition. Along the way, they unpack the uncomfortable overlap between childhood trauma and medical gaslighting, and how growing up in environments where your reality was denied can make it dangerously easy to internalize the same dismissal from doctors later in life.

Between personal stories, statistics, and the kind of dark humor that makes unbearable things slightly more survivable, they break down what endometriosis actually is, the symptoms many people are told to ignore, and why it can take years — sometimes nearly a decade — for people to finally receive a diagnosis.

It’s educational, it’s personal, and it’s a reminder that sometimes the hardest part of being sick isn’t the illness — it’s convincing someone to believe you.

Want a chance to have your story shared on the pod?

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We are not here to heal you, just to keep you company between sessions.

okay love you bye,

Sloan & Lex