Leaving A Toxic Doctor – This Is What Happened, And This Is What I Carry Forward

I’ve gone back and forth for a long time about whether to write this. 

Because speaking honestly about medical harm from a doctor often comes with consequences of disbelief people find it hard to understand that someone medically professional could be so horrible and get away with it. Unethical and lacking duty of care, who would dare think this could be someone’s reality! 

It happens to people with complex pain and chronic illnesses’s. Endo patients, pudendal neuralgia patients the list goes on.. Doctors can be terrible with no fault of your own, I mean do we have control over something that needs management like chronic pelvic pain that isnt something I wished for myself or would I wish on anyone else.

Being put through awful toxic appointments, unprofessional medical care, dismissive and minimising behaviour, top tear arrogance (a doctor wanting to control the narrative) from a doctor who’s to proud to admit their medical scope doesn’t exist past routine easily fixed health problems and cant admit they cant handle chronic pelvic complexity (like what I live with) so it gets toxic and the cost has been high for my mental/physical health my care being stalled, sloppy work on referrals and as my doctor was unable to control the narrative with me she got personal and toxic. She didnt do her job or reason with me or listen to my symptoms and argued with me about my procedures even down to what a general surgery is even with documented proof of general surgery. 

But silence has a big cost to me mentally, so this is my story. Not to attack. Not to persuade. Simply to name what happened, and what it changed in me.

My Medical Reality

I live with well documented and diagnosed complex chronic pelvic pain illnesses.

My diagnoses are very real, investigated, and supported by specialists. 

They are not theoretical. 

They are not emotional. 

They are not vague.

They involve ongoing pelvic pain, nerve pain, bladder and bowel endometriosis, and repeated medical interventions/surgery. 

These are conditions known to cause persistent pain, including pain after procedures, blocks, and surgeries. Pain that does not simply switch off because an intervention has occurred.

This is my baseline reality.

I did not enter care asking to be rescued. I asked for management, consistency, and acknowledgment of what was already medically documented, to build trust.

What Happened

Over time, the doctor responsible for my care became increasingly closed off to the truth of my diagnoses and lived experience and symptoms. She was nice and seemed reassuring to begin with so I started to trust her I started to feel safe. Building trust takes time but the moment I felt comfortable was the moment she changed and so did her mannerisms and professional behaviour and her ability to listen as well as acknowledge my documented conditions. 

There was a growing refusal to acknowledge that my pain persisted after interventions. That treatments are not guarantees. She held this over me (get the procedure and reduce medication, when that didnt happen she got increasingly hard to deal with) Chronic illness does not obey tidy timelines like she wanted. Or meet the unrealistic expectations from my pain specialist whom I see once a year, which my doctor used as a way to tell me Im not doing good enough and out me down, instead of listening to the woman sitting there in pain the woman asking nicely for alternatives and better care from her as a doctor.

My documented conditions were treated as if they should have resolved simply because something had been “done.” When pain continued it was met with scepticism rather than curiosity and more attention to pain medication than why I was in pain, not acknowledging my symptoms or hearing my voice when I spoke, she was now choosing not to listen but over talk me in every appointment. I ended up writing letters for what I was there for and what I needed because of her cutting me off. 

I felt a shift from care to containment.

Instead of engaging with the complexity of my condition listening to how my body physically felt, there was a push to simplify it but shutting me down and cutting me off. Instead of recognising medical nuance, there was withdrawal. Conversations narrowed. Openness disappeared. Threats to cut the patient relationship became regular and telling me she will lose money and she eventually telling me she doesn’t look forward to seeing me. Inappropriate unprofessional behaviours and unethical behaviour, lacking duty of care to referrals and clinical errors she had made making my care stall and creating more problems for me over extending my already busy life with correcting her mistakes and then fixing them for her with more letters and reasons these things needed attention.

Eventually, it became clear that there was a desire to cut me off, not because my diagnoses had changed, not because my condition hadn’t resolved, but because my reality no longer fit neatly into what was comfortable or manageable for her to hold.

What was most painful was not the boundary itself. Doctors can have limits. It was the lack of honesty and acknowledgement around it. Instead using lines like “Im human” or “Im older” just disjointed views to prove she knew better or can only handle so much. Never have I been spoke to like this by a doctor it became clear she didn’t know what she was doing.  

When needing attention to my chronic conditions this left me feeling alone and more anxious also so stressed of the next appointment the next conversation. From a mother and partners outlook I didn’t want this cold hearted woman seeing my family at all she was incredibly untrustworthy and unprofessional.. 

There was no genuine engagement with the evidence in front of her. No meaningful discussion about why my pain persisted. No validation that my experience aligned with what is medically known about my conditions.

Instead, I was left feeling erased, muted, tolerated, undermined, minimised and dismissed.

The Emotional Impact

When a doctor refuses to acknowledge the seriousness of your diagnoses, it does something profound.

It makes you question your body.

It makes you question your sanity.

It makes you feel like a problem rather than a person.

I found myself constantly defending facts that were already documented. Explaining pain that was already known. Proving illness that already existed. Or obvious symptoms someone would feel after invasive procedures and nerve blocks or even general surgery.  

Over months, this created a state of constant self-protection. I became hyper-aware, cautious with my words, afraid of saying the wrong thing, not because I was being dishonest, but because honesty no longer felt safe but I refused to hold back! I told her when she was wrong I asked her to correct mistakes I told her strongly what I needed and why I didn’t give in, I advocated so much it felt unnatural to continue going down that path with her, it became harder to respect her so I looked for her mistakes I followed up her dodgy referrals I made a stand eventually where I knew I just couldn’t trust her to have my best interests at heart or give me correctly filled out referrals pr even have a conversation where I felt acknowledged.

I wasn’t just managing pain anymore. I was managing a toxic doctors behaviour, I was managing fear, shame, and the threat of abandonment by the very person meant to support me.

That kind of stress compounds illness…

What This Was Really About?

This was not about medication alone.

This was not about compliance.

This was not about me failing to improve “enough.”

This was about a doctor’s refusal to sit with complexity.

A doctor’s discomfort with chronicity.

A doctor closing off to realities that don’t resolve cleanly.

A doctor who didn’t like a woman coming in who knew her stuff about her own documented conditions better than her, she wasn’t having that type of confidence! 

And when that happens, patients like me become inconvenient, pushed out and all events twisted into making “me seem like the problem”

What I Carry Forward

I carry grief, for the care I needed and did not receive for six months, care I had to fight for literally and push through the doctors disbelief to get the care I deserved from the beginning else where. The understanding I deserved with all the pro active input in my chronic pelvic pain my strong understanding of it and my experience was all put to the test by someone who detested it all because they lacked accountability and responsibility for a patient with complex conditions.

I carry disappointment because denying the seriousness of a patient’s diagnosed condition and stalling care is its own kind of medial harm.

But I also carry clarity.

I now understand that being cut off does not always mean you were wrong. Sometimes it means the truth was too uncomfortable to hold.

I carry a deeper trust in myself. In my body. In the part of me that knew something wasn’t right even when I was being told — directly or indirectly — that it should be.

I carry stronger boundaries. I no longer accept care that requires me to minimise my pain to make someone else comfortable.

And most importantly, I carry self-compassion.

I did not imagine this.

I did not exaggerate.

I did not fail to heal correctly.

I lived the reality of complex illness in a system that struggled to meet it. A doctor that didn’t have the ability’s required to care or ethically treat me with respect.   

I am not writing this to stay stuck in the past.

I am writing it to stop carrying it alone.

What happened matters.

What was denied matters.

And my diagnoses (my lived experience) matter.

I am moving forward now with my eyes open, my voice intact, and my worth no longer up for debate.

This is what happened.

And this is what I carry forward.

A new respect for myself, respect for what care means to me, to know better when looking for the right doctor who is honest open and helping, knowledgable and resourceful. To empower me than deflate me to accept me and factual information than tear me down for knowing my story and its truth. 

I have recently found a new doctor and he is amazing Im building a solid open doctor patient relationship and have work to do with finding good care to extend my hand to ask for help from better professionals through this amazing doctor. Im carving a new path 2026 looks brighter already!

Cassie x