If you're hurting and nobody can see it, this one's for you.
Pain that shows on a scan gets taken seriously. Pain that doesn't gets doubted. Sometimes by other people. Often, after a while, by you.
Mine didn't show for years. I had spinal fractures that nobody found, and in that time I learned exactly what it does to a person when they hurt and nobody believes it's real.
You stop mentioning it. After enough "you seem fine", you just don't bother. You start doubting yourself: if nobody can find anything, maybe there's nothing there, maybe you're the problem. You get short with people, because pain shortens your fuse, and they see the temper, not the cause. And you look for relief wherever you can get it. For me that was gambling and drinking. For you it might be food, pills, work, your phone, or just going quiet.
If that's where you are, I want to say a few things to you that I wish someone had said to me. This isn't medical advice. It's just one person who's been there.
Your pain is real, even if nobody has named it yet. Not finding a cause isn't the same as there not being one. Mine was there the whole time.
It's alright to ask again, or ask someone else. You're not making a fuss. Mine was missed for years, and I stopped asking far too early.
Write it down. When it hurts, where, how bad out of ten, what you were doing. A week of notes says more in a ten-minute appointment than you'll manage on the spot, when you're nervous and it's suddenly not hurting.
Take someone with you if you can. It's easier to be heard when someone else is in the room saying it too.
Tell one person what it's really like. Not the brave-face version. You don't need them to fix it. You just need to stop carrying it alone.
And all of this is true of pain in your head, too. Trauma, anxiety, the low that doesn't lift. You can't see those on a scan either, and they get doubted the same way and carried the same way.
I see you. I know that doesn't fix anything. But it matters more than people think.
Jason
This is lived experience, not medical advice or treatment.