Yes, There Are Things We All Lie To Our Doctors About, But Here’s Why We Shouldn’t
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Sexual safety
The CDC reports that less than half of sexually active adults use condoms – way less than half. These are figures your doctor is likely aware of, so if you tell her that you use condoms with every new partner and do not quit condoms until you’ve reviewed recent and clean STD test results…she knows you’re probably lying. It may seem like no big deal to just quit condoms after sleeping with someone a couple of times, without both of you getting tested. But if this person is ready to be lax with you, they’re probably lax with everyone, meaning they likely rarely use condoms and you risk a fertility- or life-threatening STD by not using condoms with them.
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Checkup frequency
Maybe you go a few years between checkups. In order to avoid the lecture from the last doctor on how long it’s been since she saw you, you may just get a new doctor. You can lie to this one and say you had a checkup last year, but with somebody else. And you can do this over and over again, only getting checkups ever few years. Maybe every decade. But it is very important to get regular checkups so that you can catch issues before they become big, irreversible, and possibly life-threatening. Most of the time, if you wait to see a doctor until symptoms are severe, treatment will also have to be severe. Or, perhaps the issue has become untreatable. Here are a list of physical exams women should receive regularly.
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Mental health issues
One in five Americans experience mental health issues, according to the National Alliance on Mental Illness. There is no shame in admitting if you don’t feel one hundred percent well mentally or emotionally. Life is a battlefield. Perhaps the only thing that’s truly crazy is to not feel a little crazy sometimes. Or stress, depressed, anxious – you name it. In this article, MadameNoire covers some of the things holding the Black community back from seeking therapy and how to change that. Many mental health experts would say that people should treat their mental health like their physical health, doing regular check-ins with a professional, even when they feel okay.
