![]() ![]() In this study, we document accusations of medical gaslighting by Long Covid patients, and analyze these claims as a form of ontological politics ( Mol, 1999, 2003), where patients demand that their reality be recognized and also point an accusatory finger at the distorting effect of experts’ gatekeeping power, which they frame as a form of “abuse”. ![]() Like patients of other forms of contested illnesses, Long Covid patients have criticized medical professionals for “not taking their complaints seriously due to physicians' lack of knowledge about the condition, or the general inability of medicine to provide effective treatments” ( Sebring, 2021). In effect, Long Covid has galvanized a new movement of long-haulers that seeks treatment, remedy, and recognition of their ailments. Even when post-Covid care centers were established to provide integrative care for Long Covid patients, patients continued to play an active role in referring each other to such centers, working with physicians there, and participating in patient-led research to better characterize the condition (e.g., Davis et al., 2021). In a quest to understand better their illness, educate other long-haulers, and gain public recognition for their symptoms, Long Covid patients have turned to each other online to share information and collectively define the condition ( Callard & Perego, 2021 Miyake & Martin, 2021 Rushforth et al., 2021). Long Covid comprises a wide range of ailments ranging from brain fog, fatigue, and prolonged weakness to severe and debilitating conditions causing memory loss, impairment in concentration, and degraded mobility ( Lopez-Leon et al., 2021). adults suffer from Long Covid ( CDC, 2022). In the United States, where our study is based, a June 2022 nationally representative survey conducted by the Centers for Disease Control, estimates that 19% of adults who have had Covid-19 are experiencing Long Covid, thus about 7.5% of U.S. Even though we are limited by characteristics of our sample, there is good reason to believe that these experiences and their contentious reframing as medical gaslighting are exacerbated by gender, class, and racial inequalities. In short answer responses about their experience obtaining medical care for Long Covid, our respondents described encountering medical professionals who dismissed their experience, leading to lengthy diagnostic odysseys and lack of treatment options for Long Covid. By analyzing results from an online survey of Long Covid patients active on social media in the United States (n = 334), we find that experiences of contention and their reframing as “gaslighting” were common amongst our respondents. Not only do patients demand that their version of reality be recognized, but they also blame the experts who hold gatekeeping power over their medical care for producing a distorted version of said reality. Long Covid patients have responded by labeling their contentious interactions with medical professionals, organizations, and the broader medical system as “gaslighting.” We argue that the charge of medical gaslighting can be understood as a form of ontological politics. Thanks so much to Lisi Tesher #TorontoStar for thoughtfully answering a writer’s question and for hearing what Bev Young, MD, FRCPC and I had to say about paying attention to women’s mental health concerns, even if they don’t fit into a tidy box.While we know a lot more about Long Covid today, patients who were infected with Covid-19 early on in the pandemic and developed Long Covid had to contend with medical professionals who lacked awareness of the potential for extended complications from Covid-19. They are too often told they are “crazy”, or that they just need to “get over it” or that there is nothing anyone can do to help them feel better anyhow.īut we know that when peoples’ hormones are shifting, bodies are changing, self-perceptions and roles are in flux, suffering is very real. ![]() People at every life stage who are struggling with mental health and physical concerns tell us that their symptoms and voices have been dismissed by health professionals, friends and family. Sadly, as women’s mental health care providers at BRIA, we see this frequently. The Merriam Webster dictionary defines it as “psychological manipulation of a person usually over an extended period of time that causes the victim to question the validity of their own thoughts, perception of reality, or memories and typically leads to confusion, loss of confidence and self-esteem, uncertainty of one’s emotional or mental stability, and a dependency on the perpetrator.” ![]()
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