When the Doctor Becomes the Patient | Dr. Gowri Aragam | Golden Hour, Episode 68
Golden Hour
What happens when you're a physician, you know how the healthcare system works, and you still can't get answers about your own body?
In this episode of Golden Hour, Dr. O sits down with Dr. Gowri Aragam, a UCSF psychiatrist and host of Sense of Self, for a deeply personal conversation about chronic pain, motherhood, medical dismissal, and the experience of no longer recognizing the person you thought you were.
During pregnancy, Gowri developed debilitating pelvic pain that continued well beyond childbirth. Despite her medical training, finding an explanation and effective support became a prolonged, exhausting journey. She eventually learned she was living with significant hypermobility, a discovery that changed how she understood her body and its limitations.
For the first time in a public conversation, Gowri shares what this experience cost her: physically, professionally, and personally. Together, she and Dr. O examine why unexplained symptoms are so often minimized, how physicians can become defensive when medicine doesn't have an answer, and the invisible sacrifices people with chronic illness make simply to participate in everyday life.
They also explore the complicated relationship between motherhood and identity, the pressure to appear capable even when struggling, and what it actually means to listen to your body.
This isn't a story about finding a silver lining in suffering. It's about learning to take your own experience seriously, even when the people and systems around you haven't.
Listen to Golden Hour wherever you get your podcasts.
#motherhood #motherhoodjourney #postpartum #postpartumjourney #mom #momlife #pregnancy #pregnancyjourney #mentalhealth #mentalhealthmatters #maternalhealth #maternalhealthmatters
Thank you for listening ❤
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