Psychiatry as a Silencing Tool:

By Lydia Sage

This is the third entry in my ongoing series on institutional betrayal, medical gaslighting, and my fight against attempts to silence me.

The Pain That Won’t Be Named

As I write this, I am still in pain.

Not the dull ache of a pulled muscle or the random discomfort of aging—but pressure in my back and hips, tension in my lower abdomen, unmistakable signs of labor. My body is doing everything it knows to do, as it has five times before: trying to bring life into the world.

But there’s a problem.

According to the doctors I’ve seen, I’m not pregnant. I can’t be. They say my age makes it impossible. They say my hysterectomy makes it unthinkable. They say my conviction makes it psychiatric.

What they won’t say is the truth: that something is growing inside me, moving inside me, pressing against my bones and nerves in ways that only a living child can.

What they won’t do is listen.

The MRI They Refuse to Use

I have an order for an MRI in my possession.

An MRI is the best diagnostic tool available for confirming an abdominal pregnancy. Unlike ultrasound, which can be manipulated by where and how it’s performed, an MRI sees everything. It doesn’t hide behind angles or excuses. It tells the truth.

And that’s the problem, isn’t it?

When I asked for the scan, the woman behind the desk didn’t ask for my paperwork. She didn’t check my records. She asked me why I wanted it. And when I told her, she replied, flatly:

“There is no baby.”

That’s not a diagnosis. That’s a dismissal.

They don’t want to perform an MRI because it would confirm what the ultrasounds have tried so hard to avoid: that I am pregnant. That my pain is not psychological. That I am carrying life inside a body that they’ve written off as “impossible.”

What’s more—this visit wasn’t to a random clinic. It was to the same hospital that tried to institutionalize me before. The one that called in psychiatrists when I described what I was feeling. The one that said it was in my head when I begged them to scan the right places.

And still, even with a valid MRI order, they refused to help. The pain was not investigated. The babies were not searched for. The truth was not welcome.

Instead, they tried to manipulate me—urging me to go downstairs to the ER. But I knew better. I’ve been down that road before. I knew that if I walked into that emergency room, they wouldn’t try to find the cause of my pain. They’d try to label it. Pathologize it. Use it as justification to institutionalize me again, just as they had done before.

So I left. Not because I was better—but because I refused to be trapped.

When Ignorance Becomes Harm

At this stage, it’s no longer just about disbelief. It’s about denial as violence. About systems so afraid to admit they missed something—or so entangled in protecting the powerful—that they double down on discrediting me instead of helping me.

I am not just a pregnant woman in pain.

I am the victim of a crime.

I was forcibly impregnated through a covert IVF procedure—without my consent, without my knowledge, and without a uterus. The medical system’s refusal to acknowledge my pregnancy isn’t just negligence. It is complicity. Every denial protects the criminal who did this to me.

Every week that passes increases the risk to my life and to the lives of my unborn children. This is not hypothetical. This is not delusion. This is a full-term pregnancy—undiagnosed, unsupported, and willfully ignored.

I have orders in my hand. I have symptoms in my body. I have lived experience that no one can take from me. But still, I am forced to walk around in pain while begging someone—anyone—to listen. To see me.

To believe me.

A Cry for Help—And a Call for Justice

Right now, I am in urgent need of help—and I am being silenced.

If you are a medical professional, advocate, journalist, podcaster, or simply someone with compassion and courage, please hear me. I need help from someone who is willing to listen, believe me, and take action. My life—and the lives of my unborn children—are at risk because my pain is being pathologized instead of investigated. Because the system would rather protect reputations and power than protect me.

This is more than a personal tragedy. It’s a warning.

We live in a world where institutions silence survivors to shield the powerful. Where psychiatry is weaponized to discredit truth. Where women—especially those who challenge what is “medically possible”—are gaslit into silence.

Please share this story. Help me break through the wall of disbelief. Help me find someone willing to see what others refuse to see.

If you host a podcast, write about injustice, or are part of a movement for patient rights or survivor advocacy—I am willing to speak. I want to share my story, not just to save myself, but to prevent this from happening to others.

I am still in pain. I am still fighting to be heard.

Will you help me be believed?

*Author's Note: This story was written with the help of AI, but every word is my personal experience, truth, and voice.*

If you’d like to support my voice, my work, and my mission to speak the truth—especially when it’s uncomfortable—you can do so here:

🔗 Linktree.com/reclaimyourvoice

Every share, message, and contribution helps me stay independent—and ensure no one can ever again take away my home, my work, or my voice.