The Day I Finally Advocated for Myself

I have marched for communities. I have shown up for racial justice. I have fought for children with special needs who did not yet have the words or the power to fight for themselves.

I knew what advocacy looked like.

What I did not know...not yet... was what it looked like when the person who needed advocating for was me.

I was sitting in a doctor's office when it happened. The appointment that changed everything. I had been struggling with my insulin absorption. And I mean struggling. I could literally squeeze the insulin out from under my skin. It was not absorbing. It was pooling right beneath the surface, visible, undeniable, sitting there like proof that something was wrong.

I knew something was wrong

So I went to my doctor. I explained what I was experiencing. I showed up ready to be heard, ready to get answers, ready to solve this together. And she told me I was allergic to insulin.

No testing. No investigation. Just a label, handed to me across a desk, wrapped in the kind of clinical confidence that makes you question your own reality before you even have a chance to process what you just heard.

I left that office gaslit. Shaken. My experience had been rewritten for me in real time, and I had almost let it happen.

Almost.

Here's what the doctor did not know about me

I grew up as a bubble kid. Real allergies. Serious ones. I did not just learn about allergies from a pamphlet or a quick Google search. I lived them. I know what an allergic reaction feels like in a body because I spent years navigating exactly that.

This was not that.

And the moment I got home, something shifted. Not anger exactly. Something quieter and more powerful than anger. Clarity. I thought about every march I had ever attended. Every meeting I had sat in for children who needed someone to speak up for them. Every moment I had stood in the gap for someone else and said... this is not right and we are not going to accept it.

And I thought: why have I never done that for myself?

So I went back

This time I came with questions.

"How can you tell me I am allergic without testing me?"

I let that sit.

And then I kept going. I pointed out that if I were truly allergic to insulin, my glucose levels would tell that story. They would be dangerously elevated. The evidence was not there because the diagnosis was not right. I knew my body. I knew my history. And I knew I was worthy of a provider who would actually do the work to help me.

So I advocated for my right to a second opinion. And I found a new doctor.

What believing in yourself looks like

The new doctor looked at me differently from the start.

She did not just look at my chart. She looked at me. She saw the lumps of unabsorbed insulin sitting under my skin. She did not question them or explain them away. She saw them, she believed what she saw, and she acted.

The solution was a different cannula for my insulin pump, one that uses an actual needle. Simple. Straightforward. Life changing. That appointment took maybe twenty minutes. But it only happened because I refused to accept a diagnosis that did not fit. Because I walked back into that system and demanded to be seen correctly.

Because I finally advocated for myself.

What I want you to sit with

You might be someone who shows up for everyone else. You sign the petitions. You make the calls. You show up to the meetings. You pour yourself into causes and communities and people who need a voice.

And then you walk into a doctor's office and you shrink.

I see you. I was you.

But here is the truth I learned in that exam room: the advocacy you give so freely to others? You deserve that same energy directed at yourself.

Your body is not required to match the textbook to deserve proper care. Your symptoms are not less real because they look different on your skin, because your skin was not always represented in what was taught. Your concerns are valid. Your pain is real. And you are worthy of a provider who treats them as such.

Here is what advocating for yourself can look like in practice

• Ask for the evidence. "How did you arrive at that conclusion?" is a complete sentence and you are allowed to say it.
• Bring your own knowledge. You live in your body every single day. That is expertise. Use it.
• A second opinion is your right. Not a betrayal. Not an overreaction. Your right.
• Find a provider who sees you. Not the textbook version of you. You.

Danica Collins, MS, NBC-HWC is a health and wellness coach and diabetes advocate. Follow her journey at @DanicaTheDiabetic.