Lived experience is a source of empathy and embodied understanding — it is not a source of clinical competency.

Those are two genuinely different things, and conflating them does harm in both directions.

There is a version of this post that starts with something like, "Every chronic illness journey is unique!" And while that is technically true, it doesn’t actually tell you anything useful.

So let's try this instead.

This post breaks down what medical trauma looks like, how common it really is, and what best practices in care and recovery look like for patients, families, and providers.