The Art of Being Politely Dismissed
There is a special kind of skill required to make someone feel completely unheard while still sounding helpful. The medical system has perfected it. It’s called being politely dismissed.
You’ve probably heard the greatest hits:
- “It’s just stress.”
- “Have you tried yoga?”
- “Results are unremarkable.”
- “You’re too young for that.”
- “Everything looks normal.”
- “Maybe cut back on caffeine.”
- "You're just need to lose weight."
These phrases are delivered with a calm smile, a slight nod, and the quiet confidence of someone who has already moved on to the next appointment. They are the linguistic equivalent of a pat on the head.
On the surface they sound reasonable. Stress can cause symptoms. Yoga is good for some people. Normal results should be reassuring. But when you’ve been dealing with real, persistent, life-disrupting symptoms, these lines don’t land as reassurance. They land as erasure.
“It’s just stress” is particularly efficient. It takes whatever complex, messy, physical experience you’re having and shrinks it into a personal failing. Suddenly the problem isn’t your body — it’s your inability to relax hard enough. The burden shifts from the system that couldn’t find an answer to the patient who apparently isn’t coping correctly.
“Have you tried yoga?” deserves its own special place in the hall of fame. It’s the Swiss Army knife of medical dismissal. Exhausted? Yoga. In pain? Yoga. Dizzy, nauseous, losing sensation, unable to work? Have you considered downward dog? It’s not that movement or mindfulness are bad. It’s that the suggestion often arrives instead of investigation, not alongside it.
Then there’s the classic: “Results are unremarkable.” This one is almost poetic. Your suffering has been reviewed, measured, and found… unremarkable. The scans are fine. The bloodwork is fine. Therefore you must be fine. The fact that you still can’t function becomes an awkward administrative detail rather than a medical problem.
What makes these phrases sting isn’t just that they’re sometimes wrong. It’s that they close the conversation. They gently but firmly shut the door on further curiosity. You’re left holding your symptoms in one hand and a polite dismissal in the other, wondering if you should apologise for taking up time.
The real art of polite dismissal is that it rarely feels openly cruel. It’s wrapped in concern. It’s delivered by people who are often overworked, under-resourced, and following protocols that prioritise efficiency over exploration. Many clinicians don’t realise how much these lines can hurt. They’re using the tools the system gave them.
But for the patient, the impact is cumulative. Each “unremarkable” result, each suggestion to try yoga, each implication that it’s probably just stress chips away at trust. You start second-guessing your own body. You become hesitant to speak up. You learn to shrink your symptoms so they sound more acceptable.
And that is the quiet damage of being politely dismissed. It doesn’t just delay diagnosis. It teaches people that their experience is inconvenient.
So here’s to everyone who’s ever left an appointment feeling smaller than when they walked in. You’re not overreacting. You’re not too sensitive. You’re not failing at wellness. You’re responding normally to being told, in the kindest possible language, that your reality doesn’t quite fit the available boxes.
The system may be fluent in polite dismissal. That doesn’t mean the rest of us have to accept it as the final word.