Daneka Etchells turns medical gaslighting into powerful stage show

Daneka Etchells is bringing medical gaslighting to the stage with a show built around the years it took doctors to identify the condition that left her permanently disabled. BBC News says Etchells was 12 when her period started and she immediately knew something was wrong, because her periods were extremely heavy and the pain was excruciating.

Her case captures a pattern disability and health advocates have been warning about for years: symptoms in women and disabled patients are too often dismissed until the damage is done. Disability Rights UK reported in 2021 that disabled women with chronic illness are frequently gaslit by medical professionals, left undiagnosed and accused of hysteria. It said the material would be submitted to the Department for Health and Social Care for the Women’s Health Strategy consultation.

Medical gaslighting is usually described by Harvard Health and Cleveland Clinic as the dismissal or minimisation of a patient’s symptoms and concerns. In Etchells’s story, the warning signs were not subtle. Heavy bleeding and severe pain arrived in childhood, yet the hidden condition was missed for years. That kind of delay can turn a treatable illness into lifelong impairment, and it is one reason disability groups have pushed for faster referrals, more careful listening and policy that treats chronic pain and abnormal bleeding as urgent, not routine.

Etchells has also used her platform to challenge barriers outside medicine. Equity said that in February 2022 she launched a formal complaint process with Spotlight over its Deaf and disabled members discount, arguing that the scheme lacked transparency and created barriers for disabled members. Equity said Etchells successfully campaigned for Spotlight to remove those barriers.

Her struggle has also carried a financial cost. A GoFundMe page in Etchells’s name, titled Help me to fund essential healthcare, showed £5,140 raised toward a £5,000 target, underlining how often disabled patients are forced to crowdfund care when their needs are not met through the system.

The wider impact reaches beyond one performer. Etchells’s show turns a private medical failure into a public account of how disbelief, delay and bureaucratic obstacles can shape a person’s health, career and independence for life.