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For Some Women With Serious Physical Ailments, Mental Illness Has Become a Scapegoat Diagnosis

smithsonianmag.com · 2,188 words · saved by 1 readers

Veronika Denner felt like she was dying. She had blood in her stool, an overactive bladder and such severe, debilitating pain that she compared it to barbed wire being cinched around her diaphragm, intestines and pelvis. The doctor ran the standard tests, checking her complete blood count, inflammatory markers and her abdomen via ultrasound. But when they all came back normal, he said that she was probably just stressed, given her history of childhood trauma and busy college schedule, Denner recalls. Upset about this dismissal, she sought out doctor after doctor—with little recourse. Denner says a gastroenterologist called her “a drama queen like many women her age,” while another called her a psychopath, making up symptoms to manipulate those around her. “These doctors were getting frustrated that they couldn’t find the answer to my problems,” she says. In reality, Denner had endometriosis—a disease that affects about 10 percent of women of reproductive age—and a particularly aggressi

More than a third of endometriosis patients are misdiagnosed with mental health conditions. sorbetto via Getty Images Veronika Denner felt like she was dying. She had blood in her stool, an overactive bladder and such severe, debilitating pain that she compared it to barbed wire being cinched around her diaphragm, intestines and pelvis. The doctor ran the standard tests, checking her complete blood count, inflammatory markers and her abdomen via ultrasound. But when they all came back normal, he said that she was probably just stressed, given her history of childhood trauma and busy college sc

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