You tell yourself it’s nothing—but it’s been happening more often lately
You shrug it off at first.
One of those things.
Minor.
Random.
Probably temporary.
You’ve had these little episodes before.
And they always faded.
This one doesn’t.
It stays.
Sometimes quiet.
Sometimes stubborn.
But present enough to remind you it’s still there.
It doesn’t hurt exactly.
It just pulls your attention in subtle ways.
You start noticing patterns.
Small shifts in your energy.
Changes in your sleep.
You feel like you’ve lost 5% of yourself.
Not a lot.
But enough to make the rest feel harder.
You live around it—you adjust in silence
You start organizing your day around how you feel.
Not how you want to feel.
You cancel small things.
Then big ones.
You make little excuses.
To others.
To yourself.
You change your habits.
Not for improvement.
For protection.
You Google.
You search symptoms.
You read articles late at night.
You take screenshots.
You mean to make an appointment.
But every time, something else comes up.
And somehow, weeks turn into months.
You’re used to waiting
You wait because you think it’ll pass.
Or it’ll get clearer.
Or worse.
So then you’ll be “sure.”
But certainty never comes.
Only the same dull rhythm of feeling slightly wrong.
Some days it fades.
And you think you imagined it.
Other days it returns.
And reminds you—no, you didn’t.
You’ve been waiting for it to justify the call.
But maybe the waiting is the reason to call.
Part of you knows—you’re not okay
You tell yourself you’re functioning.
You’re showing up.
You’re doing what needs to be done.
But you’re not fine.
You’re tired in ways that rest doesn’t fix.
You’re heavy in ways that don’t show on a scale.
You smile through meetings.
But your concentration slips.
You reply to messages.
But not the ones that ask how you are.
You sleep, but wake unrested.
You eat, but without taste or hunger.
And you wonder—how long has it been like this?
They take your silences seriously
Family doctors aren’t just there for coughs and prescriptions.
They listen to pauses.
They watch how long it takes you to describe something.
They notice the moments when your eyes drop.
The shifts in your tone when you say “fine.”
They know what silence can mean.
You go in thinking it’s physical.
And maybe it is.
But maybe it’s also something else.
Something your body’s been holding.
Something waiting to be named.
You didn’t plan to say it—but they made room for it
You might’ve booked the appointment for a rash.
Or a recurring headache.
But once the door closes, something else surfaces.
You mention your sleep.
Or your appetite.
Or how you’ve been crying more than usual.
And they don’t flinch.
They nod.
They wait.
And you say more than you thought you would.
Feeling off is reason enough
You don’t need a fever.
You don’t need a dramatic injury.
You don’t need something visible.
Just a sense that your body isn’t where it used to be.
A knowing that your rhythm is off.
A fatigue that isn’t just from work.
You’ve ruled out the obvious things.
And now what remains is the quiet kind of discomfort—
the kind that asks to be taken seriously.
They hold your health as a whole
They remember your last visit.
Your last blood test.
Your family history.
They see the small changes across time.
The slow creep of symptoms.
The way one thing turns into five.
And they piece it together.
Because they see you as a whole body—
not just a complaint.
They make connections others might miss.
Because they’ve seen you before.
And they know what used to be normal for you.
You want someone to listen before you fall apart
You don’t need to collapse in order to be heard.
You don’t need to be in crisis.
Sometimes all you need is space.
And a quiet room.
And someone who asks,
“So when did this start?”
And waits long enough for you to tell the truth.
Not the polite answer.
But the real one.
The one that starts with,
“I’m not sure.”
And ends with,
“But I know something’s not right.”
You see your doctor when you’ve run out of reasons to wait
You see them not when it’s “bad enough.”
But when you’re tired of pretending it’s nothing.
You go because the thing that’s been manageable
isn’t manageable anymore.
Because the waiting has become its own burden.
Because care should not only exist after breaking.
It should begin before you do.