Right now, anger swells inside me like a balloon about to pop. But it doesn’t. Instead, it simmers just beneath the surface of my skin, perfectly expanding into every space of my being, yet so neatly confined. This anger—buried beneath sadness, or perhaps the sadness is buried beneath the anger—it’s hard to know which fuels the other. But mostly, I am left with despair.

The weight of it all crushes me: How the hell have we been living like this for so damn long? How is this even okay? Why are women still being treated this way—brushed off so casually, as if our concerns are nothing more than a passing hello or goodbye?

Right now, this particular anger pulses inside me as I face something new—something terrifying. A strange lump in my left breast. They prepare you for this, or so they say. They remind you to check your breasts, they press cold hands against your skin during every exam from the time you’re young until you’re old. But nothing ever prepares you for the moment when you actually find something. A lump. Large. Undeniable. It appeared out of nowhere, firm and unshakable like the panic now spreading through me.

I do what so many of us do—I turn to the internet, researching, self-diagnosing, grasping for control. Then, I tell my mom. She urges me to get it checked. I book the appointment, request a biopsy, and prepare myself for the process. But instead of a biopsy, I’m scheduled for a visit with my primary care doctor. Protocol, they say. A year ago, a mammogram showed small cysts—ones I couldn’t even feel. Protocol, they repeat. I try to steady myself, take deep breaths. But I am not informed, only instructed. I am not comforted, only processed.

No one looks me in the eye with compassion. No one asks how I’m sleeping, what my diet is like, or how I’m managing life as a single mother. No one even asks about my family history of breast cancer. Instead, I am shuffled through the motions.

The mammogram is humiliating. My breast is flattened in a cold plastic machine while I contort my body into awkward positions, holding my breath as they snap images. Surely, a man designed this machine, for his pleasure and our humiluation—because if it were for his testicles, this technology would have been reinvented a thousand times over.

Then comes the ultrasound. The technician makes small talk about something unrelated, avoiding any real engagement. She lubes up the device and moves it over my breast, eyes fixed on the screen, not on me. I bring up the lump since she hasn’t. “Oh, okay,” she says quickly. “I’ll get to that when I’m ready.” As if I’m a whining child demanding attention.

I entered this appointment vulnerable, terrified that I might have breast cancer. I need answers. I need reassurance. But I feel like an inconvenience. And thank God for the women in my life—mentors who have taught me that the doctor’s office is one place we must stand in our agency. Because without that knowledge, I might have just let this moment pass, accepted the dismissal, swallowed my fear in silence.

After what feels like an eternity, the technician steps out to show the images to the doctor. I am left alone in a cold room, exposed and waiting. She returns minutes later, barely making eye contact. “You’re fine, just a large cyst. Come back when you’re 40.” And then she leaves.

Just like that.

No doctor. No questions answered. No explanation of the images. I stand there, half-dressed and teary-eyed, feeling small, dismissed, and utterly alone. I write to my primary care doctor again, insisting on a biopsy. Another appointment. Another round of justifying why I deserve to know what’s happening in my own body. She looks at me with mild concern but also a quiet resignation, as if to say, this is just the way it is.

Then, she tries to dissuade me. “Biopsies have a high infection rate. They’re painful. Are you sure you want to go through with it?”

YES. YES. YES. That is what I have been asking for. That is what I need. Just check your damn boxes and let me access the care I deserve.

And that’s when the anger bubbles over again—not just for myself but for every woman who has had to beg to be heard. For every mother, every daughter, every sister who has had to make a grand performance just to be taken seriously. For every one of us who has had to shrink, to bottle up emotions, to shape-shift just to get an ounce of attention. It is exhausting. And it is infuriating.

I think about all the things we are not taught. Why is it that I have never heard that cysts in the breast are common? Why is that not part of the conversation? Why are we only told to check for lumps in fear of cancer, but never educated on how to tend to and heal our bodies? Why are we always left alone in the unknown?

I am angry. Angry that it takes illness for me to learn about my own body. Angry that no one at that doctor’s office could sit down, look me in the eyes, and give me real answers.

We deserve better. We always have.