“you’ll grow out of it” – amongst other lies

“You’ll grow out of it.”

Ah yes. The magical cure for literally everything apparently. Period pain? You’ll grow out of it. Random chest pain? You’ll grow out of it. Full-on anxiety spirals? Don’t worry, you’ll grow out of those too.

It’s wild how those four words are supposed to fix everything — except they don’t actually fix anything. They just make you feel like your pain is a temporary glitch, like you’re being dramatic for even mentioning it. And while you’re busy “waiting to grow out of it,” you’re still missing school, still curled up in bed, still wondering if maybe your body’s trying to tell you something real.

Honestly, “you’ll grow out of it” might be one of the biggest lies young people hear about their health.

Why They Say It

Here’s the thing. Most of the time when someone drops the “you’ll grow out of it” line, it’s not because they’re evil masterminds trying to gaslight teenagers. It’s usually because they don’t actually know what to say.

Doctors use it as a shortcut when they don’t have answers. Instead of admitting, “I don’t know what’s going on but let’s figure it out,” they hand you a vague promise that future-you will magically be fine. Teachers say it because they assume “teenage bodies are messy” explains every symptom ever. Parents say it because they want to believe nothing serious is happening, and sometimes because they were told the same thing when they were young.

It’s lazy comfort. It’s a get-out-of-jail-free card. It’s like putting a sticker over the “check engine” light in your car and saying, “Don’t worry, it’ll fix itself.” Spoiler: it doesn’t.

And sure, maybe sometimes people do grow out of certain things. But using that as the default response? It’s not just unhelpful. It leaves you carrying the weight of pain that nobody else wants to deal with right now.

The Impact

The thing about hearing “you’ll grow out of it” is that it gets under your skin. The first time, maybe you shrug it off. The second time, you roll your eyes and tell yourself, “Whatever.” But by the fifth, the tenth, the every single time, you start to wonder if maybe they’re right. Maybe this pain isn’t real. Maybe you are just being dramatic.

So you wait. You wait for the magical age when it’s all supposed to disappear. You keep dragging yourself to school with a hot water bottle tucked into your jumper. You keep pretending your migraines are “just stress” when really you can’t see straight. You keep skipping sport because your chest feels like it’s caving in, and then apologising to everyone like it’s your fault.

And while you’re waiting, you’re missing things. Sleepovers. Classes. Games. Days that should’ve been normal but weren’t, because your body was screaming and everyone else told you, “Relax, you’ll grow out of it.”

Then one day you realise… you didn’t. The cramps are still there. The fatigue is still there. The anxiety didn’t pack up and leave on your eighteenth birthday. And now, instead of just dealing with the symptoms, you’re also dealing with the years of doubt you swallowed along the way.

That’s the part people don’t see. “You’ll grow out of it” doesn’t just delay answers. It plants this seed of mistrust inside you – towards doctors, towards adults, and even towards yourself. It teaches you to silence your body before anyone else can. And that’s the kind of damage that doesn’t vanish with age.

The Truth

Here’s the thing: pain isn’t always a “phase.”

Cramps that keep you curled up on the bathroom tiles until you can barely breathe? Not just “teenage hormones.” Periods so heavy you bleed through your clothes in class? Not something you magically “outgrow.” Migraines that wipe you out for two days straight? Anxiety that feels like your chest is caving in? Chronic fatigue that makes getting through school a battle? Those aren’t temporary quirks of being young.

Yes, bodies do change with time. Hormones level out. Some symptoms shift as you grow. But that doesn’t mean what you’re feeling right now is fake or unworthy of care. Even if it does lessen one day, the pain you’re carrying now is still real. It’s still affecting your life. And it still deserves to be taken seriously.

The hard truth is this: telling someone “you’ll grow out of it” isn’t treatment. It’s an easy way to avoid doing the harder work of listening, testing, and supporting. It’s like putting your fingers in your ears and humming until the problem goes away. Except the problem doesn’t go away. You’re the one stuck holding it, day after day.

And here’s the kicker – even when some symptoms change with age, the emotional scars from being dismissed don’t just melt away. You remember every time someone rolled their eyes, every time your pain was brushed off, every time you were told to “wait it out.” Those moments linger. They make you second-guess yourself years later, even when you shouldn’t.

The truth is simple, even if the system likes to complicate it: your pain doesn’t need to be permanent to be real. It doesn’t need to last forever to deserve care now.

What We Can Do

Here’s the annoying part: we can’t control what doctors, teachers, or parents decide to say. But we can find little ways to back ourselves, even when the system makes it hard. Not because it’s our job to “fix” the system, but because your voice matters even if theirs fails you.

Some things that actually help:

• Keep receipts. Not the shopping kind – symptom receipts. Write down what’s happening, when it happens, how bad it is. “Cramps so bad I couldn’t walk: missed school.” “Migraine lasted 12 hours – vomited twice.” Those details are powerful. Harder to brush off when you’ve got a paper trail.

• Say it how you feel it. Don’t worry about sounding “medical.” If the only words you’ve got are “it feels like knives” or “it makes me cry,” that’s enough. You don’t need fancy language to make pain real.

• Back yourself. It’s tempting to think, maybe I am just being dramatic. But you live in your body every day. You know when something’s off. Trust that.

• Try again. If one doctor dismisses you, it doesn’t mean the next one will. It’s exhausting, I know, but second opinions can change everything. Sometimes it just takes finding the right person who listens.

• Remember: you don’t have to wait. You don’t need to “grow out of it” before you deserve help. You deserve it right now, even if adults around you act like you don’t.

It won’t always feel easy – and you shouldn’t have to do all this – but these small steps can help you feel less powerless in a system that loves to tell you to be quiet and wait.

What Needs to Change

Here’s the truth: young people shouldn’t have to play detective, keep diaries, and beg for second opinions just to be taken seriously. The system has homework to do.

Doctors need to stop using “you’ll grow out of it” as a lazy shortcut. It’s not a magic spell, it’s an excuse. If you don’t know what’s going on, just say that and commit to finding out. Honesty is better than a fake promise.

Schools need to do better too. Health class shouldn’t just skim past periods, mental health, or chronic pain with “don’t worry, it’ll settle down as you get older.” Imagine if instead, students learned that heavy bleeding, fainting, constant pain, or panic attacks aren’t things to just “wait out.” Imagine if we were taught to notice symptoms early and ask for care before things get worse.

And parents? They need support to unlearn what they were told as kids. Because a lot of the time, they’re just repeating what they heard: “It’s nothing,” “It’ll pass,” “Everyone goes through this.” Breaking that cycle starts with giving them the tools and the language to actually back their kids instead of brushing them off.

What needs to change is simple: stop treating young people’s pain like it’s practice for adulthood. It isn’t. Pain is pain. And pretending it’ll just “disappear one day” isn’t care: it’s dismissal with a smile.

Why It Matters

Being told “you’ll grow out of it” might sound small in the moment, but it leaves a mark. It’s not just the pain you carry, it’s the years of doubt that pile on top of it. It’s learning to question yourself before anyone else even gets the chance. It’s walking out of appointments feeling smaller, not stronger.

That’s why it matters. Because young people deserve real care, not fake promises. You deserve doctors who listen, parents who back you, teachers who believe you. You deserve answers today, not “someday.”

Aletheia’s Reminder

If anyone has ever told you “you’ll grow out of it,” here’s the truth: you don’t need to. You don’t need to wait until some future version of yourself to deserve care. Your pain is real now. Your story is valid now. Your voice matters now and you don’t have to outgrow any of that.

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Originally published by The Aletheia Project on Substack and Medium.