We've sadly experienced medical gaslighting with my daughter's care over and over again during the past 13 years. All I can say is it's heartbreaking and brutal. I've cried more tears late at night thinking about how she was dismissed than I care to remember. And surprisingly, even in my current leadership role at CODA with my scientific expertise, I still face doctors looking at me sideways as I explain her multisystem illness. I've learned to handle far their response far better than early on but their approach still hurts, still angers and still deflates. We shouldn't have to work this hard, when she's working so hard already. "New Daily Persistent Headache, Migraine, hEDS, gut dysfunction, pelvic pain, orthostatic intolerance, MCAS." She says those words and we watch them start to type, ask her about trauma and stress, which are part of the equation, but also isn't her history of gut dysmotility since age 6 even more so? The concussion she suffered. The propensity to faint when she didn't even know why. Her severe menses. Her illnesses that had her in bed far longer than her siblings. Put all of that in one young woman who got sick seemingly out of nowhere at age 16, and suddenly the story sounds like its too much. Too many symptoms. Too many systems. Too many diagnoses. And, I have access to tools and relationships others may not - it literally breaks my heart to think of the thousands and thousands of patients, so sick, looking for help and being turned away. We cannot continue to rely on a handful of expert doctors who understand how to recognize and treat chronic multisystem illness. Millions of patients bring different biology, histories, triggers and combinations of symptoms. Individual clinical expertise alone will never meet that scale or complexity. People diagnosed with cancer, diabetes, stroke, heart attack, appendicitis, and other recognized illnesses aren't disbelieved. They are treated. Patients with chronic multisystem illness deserve that same scientific credibility and access to quality care. Because when medicine can measure what has gone wrong, understand it and treat it, it becomes much harder to turn away from the person sitting in front of you. It’s time. apa.org/monitor/2026/10/harm…