When Self-Invalidation Almost Killed Me (Literally)
This post is #7* of 30 in a 30-days-of-writing challenge.
The same morning I suffered from a heart attack at age 29, I had attended an appointment with my primary care doctor. He had given me the “all-clear.”
I had thought about mentioning to him the pain in my calf that had been there for about a week. It felt unlike previous pains I’d had, but in a very strange, hard to describe way… No matter how much I rested or stretched or massaged my calf, the pain didn’t shift.
I was worried I’d truly injured myself in some way. But, I’d ended up not asking him about it, because I didn’t think he’d actually do anything. I predicted he would tell me to keep an eye on it, call back if it didn’t go away in another week or so, and then we could talk about getting some scans before referring to some other specialized doctor.
I didn’t want to go through all that. I didn’t want to feel the embarrassed by the thought that my doctor was thinking that I was overreacting. I didn’t want to be perceived as an “anxious woman.” I didn’t want to be told something I already knew: that pains and aches are normal, and most go away on their own. IAs a serious lifelong athlete, I was familiar with pain.
At that point in my life, I’d undergone 7 major surgeries, 13 MRIs and X-Rays, and 2 bouts of stitches. I’d experienced a broken femur, a broken wrist, 4 ACL tears, 5 meniscus tears, 3 eye injuries, and countless bouts of mild tendonitis. My body has gained 1 titanium rod, a handful of surgical screws and stables, and one fake tooth. Whenever I’d been able and allowed to play sports through or despite these injuries, I had. I had learned that pain alone was not something I needed to fear, and that aches were the entry price to competitive athletics. I understood that aches and pains were normal.
I had also learned that doctors rarely trusted me when I told them early on in an injury’s progression that something was wrong. Unless my arm was visibly bent from a broken bone, or I couldn’t walk because my knee was swollen like a balloon, they’d tell me to wait, ice, rest, and come back. There was nothing they could do for me yet. It was probably nothing anything. Until a scan revealed it was something, weeks later, after the doctor had agreed to check since I’d returned to complain again.
So. I didn’t bring up the pain in my calf. Even though I’d never before had a pain like the pain I was experiencing in my calf, which concerned me, I had talked myself into the idea that it would just go away on its own. It wasn’t swollen. It wasn’t shooting pain. It wasn’t interrupting my daily life. It didn’t even really impact my exercise. It was just this dull, deep ache that appeared when I flexed my leg in certain ways. It was just a sensation that felt so weird and wrong to me, but I couldn’t explain why.
It wasn’t until the next day that I’d learn it was a DVT—a blood clot in my calf—and that that blood clot had caused my heart attack.
My years of experiencing invalidation had led me to invalidate myself at this key moment. It almost killed me. I’m glad it didn’t. I’ve been working ever since then to make sure I never invalidate myself like that again.
*This was post #7 of a 30-day daily writing challenge I’m doing until November 7th, 2025. To read more about why I’m doing this challenge, check out this post.
Heads up! Tomorrow’s post will again not be posted here. Instead, it’ll be the first weekly newsletter entry of my new substack “How To Queer Joy.” Come join me there!
