Medical Was i assaulted?? vaginal medical procedure as child.

[Friday]

Medical trauma? Is a thing.

Assault? Is a thing.

There can be both things in the same place (there are doctors who have assaulted patients, just like there are doctors who have raped patients). But trying to call all medical trauma assault? I think has the same degree of unhelpfulness as calling it rape.

It both minimizes the seriousness of medical trauma, which can be pretty freaking severe... Even a great deal more severe that many -if not most- assaults... as well as muddies the waters as to what anything means. Call a thing what it is.

There doesn’t have to be evil-intent on someone’s part for a thing to be trauma. There doesn’t have to be an abuser or a villain. A tornado isn’t trying to hurt people. It’s still life threatening trauma.

 

[Friday]

Similarly? Just because sex organs are involved, doesn’t make trauma TO one’s sex organs sexual in nature.

If someone cuts off your breast during a sexual assault? Yes.
If your seatbelt cuts off your breast during a car accident? No.
If a doctor cuts off your breast during cancer treatment? No.

Calling the car accident or surgery sexual assault? Is ridiculous.

All three may very well have sexual side effects; affect your sex life, your sexual identity, a whole huge long list of very serious and identical issues.

All three are going to have their own UNIQUE issues, as well.

Tip of the iceberg:
The surgery? You agreed to. Or someone did for you. (Yes, happens to adults, as well). And someone is trying to save your life, not getting off on your pain.
The sexual assault? Someone did that to you, on purpose, to hurt you.
The car accident? You didn’t agree to it, and no one did it to you, but it still happened.

All 3 have their own different ramifications. That have worth & value in recognizing and dealing with.

Attempting to label all 3 as sex crimes? Completely minimizes the seriousness, worth, and value of the other 2. Tries to say that only a sex crime could/should/would have issues to address. Nothing could be further from the truth, IMO.

 

[Anarchy]

Let's go back and have a look at what was actually written


Foreport the more geneural principles abstracted from this particular poster's experience;

If we get into all sorts of weasel words about how it was somehow official, or because of position, entitlement or qualifications, it wasn't assault, I'll happily take up that argument is another thread.

OK, what was the OP's experience?

me being held down at a surgeons table without pants or anything( keep in mind I was 7-8) they put a camera tube inside of me. I remember screaming about it hurting and crying

Held down and screaming
Please don't try to confuse that wit has a car accident, or a hurricane.


That was purposeful action, and the restraint shows that it was not consensual. Consent can be withdrawn at any time.

Free will is inalienable, it cannot be separated from the physical possessor of that body. To attempt to do so by force is the very definition of assault.

If a doctor cuts off your breast during cancer treatment? No.

If a doctor does so without suitable pain pain control and sedation or anesthesia, yes. It would be assault.

The OP was not in some emergency life threatening situation in the back of beyond, without access to sedatives, or pain control.

The situation was not one where time was of the essence, she was not losing life threatening amounts of blood, or asphyxiating from a sucking chest wound. Here's a reminder of the circumstances;

My parents took me to a doctor with lead to me being held down...

Why was this done, rather than another appointment being made, at which she could have the procedure explained clearly, and receive pain control and sedative, or maybe even get to control the insertion of the camera herself.

And was the camera even an appropriate tool to use on such a small child? Why are camera rather than a small and we'll lubricated speculum?

As soon as we stop thinking of some people as being specially entitled, and look at them as real people who have to take full responsibility for their actions, rather than ducking behind some equivalent of "it was only following current practice / orders"

Then, a lot of confusion drops away.

There are a lot of things which could have been done very differently in order to reduce the chances of hurting this girl.

She doesn't strike me as some sort of special snowflake that's particularly prone to melting down for little reason, her distress at what happened appears perfectly reasonable and understandable to me.

Why then the traumatising treatment at the hands of the doctor?

Ino my workplace I'm statutorily bound to take all reasonable precautions to ensure physical and psychological safety of myself, could workers and the public.

Did the quack take all reasonable precautions?

I'd say that he didn't

Was that failure a conscious decision on his part? Or the result of a conscious decision? (If I get intoxicated and hurt someone while intoxicated, I'm still liable for any harm caused, as I chose to get intoxicated).

Well, he was acting as a GP, if he was conscious rather than being off on a dissociative fugue, or out of it with dementia...

then yes, he's consciously hurt someone when he could have avoided that hurt.

That's assault.

 

[Anarchy]

FEckington auto incorrect

Time I found a different keyboard app

 

[Renegade26]

Hey friends,

This argument is something to talk about, but here is not the place. The trauma is valid and the experience and what was felt in the experience is valid. If you have not experienced it, you can't argue. give it a rest, or take the argument somewhere else.

 

[Friday]

If a doctor does so without suitable pain pain control and sedation or anesthesia, yes. It would be assault

Right there? Is a very clear difference from assault.

Something an assault victim doesn’t have to deal with? Is that their rapist, abuser, mugger, etc. didn’t use appropriate pain control, sedation, or anesthesia.

That’s part of medical trauma.

That such a thing exists, is in common practice, and wasn’t used.

Did the quack take all reasonable precautions?

Again, not something asked of people who are assaulting people, or asked of assault victims. Did your rapist take all reasonable precautions? Before you mugged him, did you take all reasonable precautions? Because that’s not an assault thing. It’s very much a medical trauma thing, though.

I could keep ticking down items on your list, nearly every reference you make to why is should be considered assault, aren’t things that are involved in assault... but respectfully suggest that you do so, yourself. You’re smart enough to argue any link I show you, but also smart enough to see them for yourself.

She doesn't strike me as some sort of special snowflake that's particularly prone to melting down for little reason, her distress at what happened appears perfectly reasonable and understandable to me

The idea that medical trauma would only affect some special little snowflake prone to melting down? You might also really want to examine / look at. In the whole core beliefs kind of thing.

No one else in this thread has ever even implied that what she went through wasn’t traumatic or that her distress is unwarranted. Several of us have said the exact opposite. Saying it’s not assault, doesn’t mean it’s not trauma. Medical Trauma really IS a thing, an important and valuable thing in its own right, regardless of the end effect... and one that also rises very easily to CritA all on its own, no other trauma needed to cause PTSD. Heck, we’re writing right now in a whole subforum here devoted TO medical trauma.

Held down and screaming
Please don't try to confuse that wit has a car accident, or a hurricane.

That was purposeful action, and the restraint shows that it was not consensual. Consent can be withdrawn at any time.

I’ve had field surgery, which meant I was being held down and screaming. And, even as an adult who gave my full consent knowing exactly how bad this was going to hurt (not my first rodeo) begged them to stop. Tried to fight them off. Because that’s just what one does when you reach a high enough level of pain. If they’d taken me at my word and stopped? I’d be dead right now. There was no way on earth -logically- that I wanted them to stop, but the mind/body in pain? Is no longer logical. So even knowing I didn’t want them to stop, all I wanted in the entire world was for them to stop.

Adult.

A child? Isn’t going to even understand the level of pain involved, much less the conflicting realities.

That doesn’t mean either (adult or child) has no say.

Consent in medicine is more complicated than a simple yes/no.

Which, again, is a very difficult problem unique to medical trauma.

 

[Friday]

@Renegade26 Are you the OP?


ETA

I ask because only the OP, gets to make the determination of what is helpful to them in their own thread. No matter how well intentioned, it’s impossible to mind read what someone else wants. If you’re not the OP, they may agree with you, they may not, but it’s still their call.

Sometimes tangential discussions are useful & wanted; naturally following lines of thought they themselves wish to explore, or that they hadn’t thought of. Other times, the OP wishes for a discussion to remain strictly targeted & on topic.

Both are perfectly acceptable.

As are members deciding to continue an aspect of a discussion in a different thread. Any member can, at any time, start a new thread.

It’s usually a bit easier to tell who the OP is, but as guests frequently register as members later, sometimes asking is necessary.

 

[Anarchy]

Consent in medicine is more complicated than a simple yes/no.

If we get into all sorts of weasel words about how it was somehow official, or because of position, entitlement or qualifications, it wasn't assault, I'll happily take up that argument is another thread.

Starting new thread

 

[littleoc]

Your snake reference...I will never get over the fact that I jumped out of the way of a Copperhead strik...

I want to nerd rant about that nerve system on the peripheral sides of the eye that aren't connected to consciousness (exactly), and how someone who is visually unable to see can still know "subconsciously" to tilt a letter before putting it in a sideways box, despite being blind...


But I'm tired :(

 

[littleoc]

Hi Littloc
I think that you are reading a little too much into the DSM's definition

The critical poin...

I think you have some good points, and maybe I'll feel like debating later :P But wanted to thank you for the feedback anyway.

 

[joeylittle]

Assault is assault.
Medical trauma is medical trauma.

Is medical trauma assaultive? Sometimes. Is it a form of assault? One could call it that, but that's not as specific as calling it medical trauma.

We're talking about language now. It's the same debate that goes into whether or not X is Trauma or traumatic...definitions exist to give us all some amount of consistency with how we talk about these things, both amongst ourselves and with our care providers. Looking at non-clinical definitions, one would say that most forms of big-T-Trauma are assaultive; that's sort of the point of them, they are an assault on our bodies, or on our senses, or both.

Bitching at each other isn't going to change any of that. @EveHarrington - I'm not thrilled with members calling other members trolls, and I'll ask you to not do it again. @Anarchy - it's not a straw-man argument when it's just a point of view. Turning everything into a debate doesn't always serve anyone. So both of you, get each other on ignore or cool your heels, you're bringing disagreements from other threads across the board. Cut it out.

OP, you clearly had a traumatic experience, and (as has been said) I don't believe anyone posting here disagrees with that.

If you are defining virginity based on whether or not your hymen is intact...that's hard to know. The hymen breaks often, on it's own, just in the course of living one's life through childhood and adolescence. It could have been broken during this procedure, or not.

If you're defining virginity as: not having had sexual intercourse, you are most certainly still a virgin.

But you went through a very frightening experience, and it would be good if you can find someone (therapist, counselor) to talk with about it. My advice would be to focus on the events - on what happened - and not get too worried right now about labeling it for yourself. Anything that happens to our genitalia can feel like it's a kind of sexual assault - and then, it can get confusing, because of all the other things we have in our lives that we connect with our sense of self as sexual beings. But the bottom line is, you were a kid, and you were terrified and didn't understand. Doesn't matter what you call it right now - but hopefully, you can get some help and support.

 

[Gs172003]

Well I should say for things of a sexual nature it doesn't have to be.

I want to clarify this only has to do with the life threatening statement not the OPs experience.