James Barry says humans survived through community, not isolation, and warns that solitary coping after diagnosis can be harmful. One woman describes being dismissed by multiple doctors about mold exposure symptoms, then expelled from urgent care without examination after a miscarriage, left in shock and abandoned by the system.
When we get diagnosed with anything, there is a moment of feeling very alone with it. This is my problem. It's not anyone else's. I have to muscle through this and make it work. The more ancestral way is to actually lean into community, lean into your tribe. And the people that went alone ancestrally died.
Not only was I constantly brushed off about all the mold symptoms, experiencing the miscarriage, I went to the urgent care. And to this day, I can hear the The sound of the palm of the doctor bursting through the door. No, no, no, no, no. What are you doing here? There's nothing we can do to help you. You have to leave. And I just sat in shock. Like, I'm so confused. All of these emotions, like, I don't know what's happening in my body. Not a single question, not like digging deeper, literally nothing. Just kicked me out. And so I left. I got in my car. I'm bawling. Part of me that felt like this baby was gonna pull me out of this, and now I lost that. Medical system just literally kicked me out. It was so much.
