Ep. 14 — How to Advocate for Yourself When Nobody’s Listening

2026-06-03

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Lindsay Scola on late diagnoses, medical gaslighting, and never taking "you're fine" for an answer Have you ever known something was wrong — in your body, your gut, your bones — and had someone else tell you that it's just fine? Lindsay Scola knew something was wrong at 16. She didn't get answers until she was 35. In the nearly two decades between those two moments, she worked at the highest levels — Congress, the Obama's advance teams, the Emmys — whi...

Lindsay Scola on late diagnoses, medical gaslighting, and never taking "you're fine" for an answer

Have you ever known something was wrong — in your body, your gut, your bones — and had someone else tell you that it's just fine?

Lindsay Scola knew something was wrong at 16. She didn't get answers until she was 35. In the nearly two decades between those two moments, she worked at the highest levels — Congress, the Obama's advance teams, the Emmys — while taking secret naps in bathrooms and on airport floors, because every doctor she saw handed her a sleep hygiene pamphlet and sent her home.

She was eventually diagnosed with narcolepsy at 35 and ADHD at 41. And what she found on the other side wasn't just relief — it was grief, and then clarity, and then a completely no-BS framework for what it actually takes to advocate for yourself in systems that are very good at making you feel like you're overreacting.

This episode will make you laugh (the child ghost story alone is worth the runtime) and it will make you a significantly more effective advocate for your own health and your own truth. Lindsay gives everyone listening an explicit permission slip that everyone needs to hear.

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