Issue #7

When the people who love you don't get it

Hi Reader,

There's a specific kind of loneliness that shows up on a GLP-1 journey that almost no one talks about.

It isn't the loneliness of struggling. It's the loneliness of doing something significant — something that is changing you physically, emotionally, and in ways you're still finding language for — and finding that the people closest to you don't quite have a map for where you are.

They see the number on the scale. They don't see the terrain.

Maybe they're supportive in the way people are supportive of things they don't fully understand. Maybe they make a comment about the side effects they read about, framed as concern, that lands as doubt. Maybe they simply aren't curious about the parts of this that have nothing to do with food.

They love you. And somehow, that makes it lonelier.

I call this the Validation Gap — the experience of feeling unseen in your GLP-1 journey despite being surrounded by people who care about you. And it matters psychologically, because when the experience goes unwitnessed, women tend to convert that absence of understanding into evidence about themselves. If no one is asking the deeper questions, maybe they shouldn't be sitting with them.

That's not a conclusion. That's a pattern. And it's worth interrupting.

A Path Forward

When you find yourself stung by a comment, or hollowed out by a lack of curiosity, try asking yourself two separate questions about the person who said it:

Does this person care about me?

Does this person understand what I'm actually going through?

Those are not the same question, and the answers aren't always the same.

Someone can love you deeply and still have almost no framework for the psychological weight of this journey. Their care is real. Their vote on your inner experience is not particularly well-informed.

Think of the opinions around you as votes, not commands. The people who both care about you and understand this experience from the inside deserve the most influence. People who care but don't understand deserve grace, but a smaller vote. People who neither care nor understand — the internet commenters, the colleagues with opinions about medication they've never taken — don't get a vote at all.

And the most important vote belongs to you. You are the one living in this body, doing this work. Your own experience gets the deciding vote. Learning to exercise it is some of the most important work of this journey.

With you in this, Dr. Jen

Want to go deeper?

This newsletter gives you something to do. My Substack gives you the why behind it — the psychology, the research, the reason what you're experiencing makes complete sense even when it doesn't feel that way.

If you want the fuller picture, you can find me at After the Noise on Substack.

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Educational content only. Not medical or psychological advice. Evolve Integrative Wellness, LLC does not establish a therapist-client relationship. If you are seeking treatment, please consult a licensed mental health professional.