I’ve had to fight harder than most people can imagine just to be treated with dignity in medical spaces. I’ve been harmed, dismissed, ignored, and treated like a problem to manage instead of a human being to care for. But along the way, amidst the pain, the fury, and the deep betrayals, I’ve also helped shape some damn good doctors.

I did not train them in a classroom or hand them a checklist. Because I showed up as myself: fierce, informed, in pain, and unwilling to be dehumanized.

There was the doctor who gave me my 10th Stellate Ganglion Block (SGB). I think I might have been his first patient for the procedure. He struggled with the fluoroscope, had to reposition the needle, hooked the needle on a vertebral bone spur, and at one point stopped everything to start over from scratch. I didn’t get upset, just stayed present. I needed that shot, and I could feel he was doing his best to get it right. And he did.

But the success of the treatment wasn’t just about technique. It was about the relationship. We talked. We learned from each other. I brought my lived understanding of PTSD and pain to the table, and he listened. That relationship changed how he thought about trauma and regulation. It changed how he treated patients after me.

When he transferred to a practice in a different state, we had about ten minutes to say goodbye. The air was warm with mutual gratitude. He didn’t say he wanted to hug me, but his whole body signaled that he did. So I asked: “Do you do hugs?” And he said, “Oh yes, I do!” and hugged me. It was the best ever doctor goodbye. A real one. Human to human.

I’ve shaped doctors like that, by being a real person with them. By refusing to disappear. By bringing not just my suffering, but my wisdom, presence, and boundaries into the room.

And some of them have risen to meet me. The way they treat PTSD and pain is different now, because of what I gave them and how they received it.

That’s the kind of medicine I believe in and the kind of doctoring I help create.