The Scenario

You are a woman and you go to the emergency room with a severe cough and the ER doctor listens intently at first and acts nice. However, the physician sees on your record that you have a mental health condition or that you have complained about this same problem before. Suddenly, the physician changes with you, and tells you nonsense such as you need to drink more water and the cough will go away. You leave the hospital feeling ashamed, with your self-esteem badly bruised. You feel a fool for ever approaching a medical person for help in the first place and you question yourself and your perceptions, asking yourself, ‘Is it all in my head?’ You have been medically gaslighted and the doctor has committed iatrogenesis.^[1]

 

Gaslighting Incident 3

I was still on a quest to find answers about the CT Neck images from Scotland. I returned to England. My new GP referred me to an Oral Maxillofacial surgeon at an NHS Trust in Northern England. He quizzed me like I was in a police enquiry for an underground bank robbery. I presented the CT radiology images to the surgeon and asked him to explain them.

‘They’re all normal,’ he said. ‘Normal.’

‘These ones,’ I probed.  ‘Please can you explain what all of this asymmetry and white is then?’

‘Your face is lopsided in the scanner,’ he said. ‘That’s all that is. You were tilted when you went in.’ He said it with a swagger and he wore a joker like smile.

These scans were done in Scotland, not England, so how could he know if my face was lopsided or not? My head was not tilted or lopsided. My head was placed onto a headrest, with a hole in the middle. There were cardboard wedges, that looked like doorstops, lodged in front of my ears, to keep my head straight.

I tried to fight my corner, but I was petrified. I had no chance. The two nurses in the room looked terrified, too. They sat with their backs to the wall, like they were under arrest. As the consultation ended, it was his final remark that decimated me.

‘You need to stop shopping around,’ he said. ‘You need to accept your pain, and just live with it, Felicia.’

Shopping around? I have been going to see this many clinicians because NHS Trusts keep closing my case. This is my health that I am trying to recover. I am not hunting around for the best deal on a new Ninja Air Fryer.

The Unequal Power Imbalance

I was kicking myself that I had allowed another consultant to insult my intelligence. I felt shame, actually, but the power imbalance of these consultations is so unequal, that it is difficult to speak up; middle aged woman versa high powered male, stupid woman versa trained medic. No matter how many times I ask, they put the burden back on me. This is not their responsibility. It is my problem. I just have ‘to live with it.’ The Consultant agreed to do an MRI scan of my parotid gland and of my brain. Three weeks later, however, I received a letter in the post, telling me that the two scans had been cancelled and that I had been discharged from his clinic. Another door had been closed.

A Return Visit

I went back to that hospital to see an ENT Consultant about my ear-pain. He had my notes, which contained the previous surgeon’s comments. This was the fourth consultant I had asked about these CT images. That’s just because your face was lopsided in the scanner. This consultant didn’t say it with as much conviction as the previous one. He wore a Mona Lisa type smile. Behind that cryptic smile, I could see that he didn’t believe his own story.

Gaslighting Incident 4

It was at an Oral Maxillofacial clinic at an NHS Trust in Yorkshire. An MRI Neck scan had been carried out at this hospital by the ENT department. The scan had shown abnormality in my Buccal Fat Pad and retromolar region. The MRI report stated;

There is a signal change in the remnant left parotid gland. There is a plaque of increased T2 signal and abnormal enhancement in the medial aspect of the left buccal fat pad, extending superomedially into the retromaxillary region. The masticator muscles do not appear involved with this process but the abnormal region does abut the medial surfaces of both masseter and medial pterygoid. There is no evidence of periodontal disease.

The Scene

It was a high-powered surgeon, a frightened looking nurse, and me with my heartbeat in my mouth. My strategies for dealing with this fight were fading, but beneath my thud of dread, lay a veil of hope. Abnormality had been detected in the scans, so maybe this guy would take some responsibility? No chance.

    The Doom of Trickery

I asked the consultant to explain the abnormality from the MRI Neck Scans. He dismissed the findings and told me that it was to do with a tooth that I previously had a one-year problem with. I pointed out that the radiology report had stated that there was no periodontal disease. He did not reply. I asked him about the masseter enlargement that had been previously detected. ‘That’s a red herring,’ he said.  I brought up these MRI images on my laptop. ‘This is where I have the pain, where the red arrow is’ I said. ‘Please can you explain what this is?’

 ‘That is just coincidence, Felicia. It is coincidence that you are seeing that in the area you think that you are in pain,’ he said.

 I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. ‘I can see that in front of me!’ I replied. ‘What I see, is where I have the pain.’

 ‘No, Felicia. You are choosing to see it,’ he said.

 I was not choosing to see it. Can you see what I see?

‘A Gaslighter will repeatedly twist events to shift the blame to someone else, and this emotional abuse can result in victims questioning their sanity.’

 How To Recognize Gaslighting and Respond to It. Angela Haupt, The Washington Post, April, 2022

Descent Into A Stygian World

The scene turned dark. I asked the nurse if she could see what I could see in the images. She looked at the floor and did not reply. The room went quiet. I asked the consultant to explain further images from the MRI scans. I explained that the highlighted area around my eye and cheek is where I have the pain. The pain in my eye and cheek is connected- I tried to explain.

The consultant brought these radiology images up on his computer. He proceeded to photoshop and play around with them. All of the white in figure 3 disappeared. It moved over to the right side. ‘Look, he said. It’s all gone now. It’s on the right side.’

‘But you have played about with them,’ I replied.

Each image that I presented to the consultant, he photoshopped it on his computer, so that the abnormality disappeared or moved to the other side. He was a magician. It was like sitting next to Paul Daniels. Now you see it. Now you don’t.  I brought up some images which showed the left sided masseter enlargement.

He played with those images, too, so that the left masseter enlargement in figure 5 popped up on the right side. ‘See,’ he said, it shows on the right side, now. It’s just the angle of the scan.’

‘But you just manually manipulated that.’

‘No, I didn’t.’

‘Well why does the abnormality keep showing up on only the left side, where I have the pain?’ I asked.

‘I told you, Felicia. It’s coincidence.’ He slammed his hand on the desk.

‘You’re gaslighting me,’ I said.

‘I am not gaslighting you,’ he replied.

I was not only being told that I was seeing things, but the consultant was editing the radiology images in front of my eyes. It was honestly like being at a magic show.

Off Axis and Squint Angles

He told me that all of the radiology images were ‘off axis’ and ‘squint.’ According to him, all of the data is therefore unreliable. These images may be off-axis and squint, but how does that explain why over two hundred radiology images show this difference between the two sides of my face? Why does the abnormality always show up on the affected side? I do not believe that it is ‘coincidence.’ I asked the consultant about my facial asymmetry, and I showed him Figures A, B and C, along with others from that CT series.

He looked down at my iPad.

‘The quality of your iPad is s**t,’ he said. ‘If you looked at that on a better quality screen, you wouldn’t see all of that.’

‘I have looked at these images on my laptop. It is the same,’ I replied. I was so shocked by what he said, that I thought that I was dreaming.

The quality of my iPad is crystal clear. It’s not s**t. Blaming the detected abnormality, on the ‘off axis’ and ‘squint’ angle of the scan is poor, but attributing it to ‘coincidence’ and to ‘the s**t quality of my iPad,’ is scraping the barrel. I couldn’t fight him. After three hours of gaslighting, I decided to end the meeting. I was not going to get any truth out of the man. This was manipulation of the truth at its very worse.

I Felt Like I was Going Mad

I felt crazed when I walked out of that consultation. Was it me seeing things?  Am I going mad? Is it my eyesight? ‘Am I nutter?’ That is how gaslighting works. It makes you question your judgement. It is a wicked and cruel misuse of power.

That was the end of the road. After ten years of attending these medical appointments, I decided that I was not going to go to any more. I was finally going to alight the merry-go-round of bullying. It was too damaging to my morale and mental health. I was going to find some self-respect and walk down a new road.

  Please Stop This

This is my life. It is not a game of cowboys and Indians. I am asking reasonable questions about radiology images and symptoms which are real. I am not imagining anything. There is no history of delusion on my medical records. Answers and medical treatment are what I am seeking, to enable me to lead a normal life again.

This is a sensitive case, and I am mindful of that. I do want to make it clear that I have had enormous respect for the expertise of all of the consultants who I have seen. I have been polite and dignified with them all, and I have never doubted their clinical capabilities. What I have doubted, is the behaviour, the choices that they have made about my care or non-care, and the dismissive way in which I have been treated by many of them.

My life is of no less value than yours. If this was a relative of yours; a spouse, a lover, a parent, or a sibling, you would not stand by and watch them go through this. You would fight for them. I am no lesser of a person than any of your loved ones or relatives. Please stop treating me like this.

Gaslighting can have dire consequences leading to further harm or even the death of patients. Women are by far the group that is gaslighted the most. Medical professionals tend to see women as hysterics and do not heed a woman’s complaints or take them as seriously as men.’[2]

Recommended Articles

On Medical Gaslighting #1

Gaslighting

What is Gaslighting? Forbes Health

What is Gaslighting? Examples and how to respond.

Medical and Mental Health Gaslighting and Iatrogenic Injury

Towards a sociological understanding of medical understanding in western health care

Foot Notes

[1] Shirley Davis; Medical and Mental Health Gaslighting and Iatrogenic Injury, CPTSD Foundation, June, 2020

[2] Shirley Davis. Medical and Mental Health Gaslighting and latrogenic injury. CPTSD Journal. June, 2020.