Medical Genital exam as a child.. QUESTIONS

[Is-it-just-me]

When I was a child I remember the doctor touching and examining my genitals. I remember feeling violated and uncomfortabl and asking my mom if I had to let the doctor do that part of the exam. She said yes and I was forced to have another genital exam as part of my physical. I have ptsd from this and can’t have a sexual relationship with anyone because it just brings back feelings of being violated.

Is it normal for doctors to do genital exams on children?

Does anyone else have ptsd from this?

 

[Friday]

Is it normal for doctors to do genital exams on children?

Yes.

The exact same way it’s normal for them to check your eyes, ears, throat, elbows, and every other part of your body. Genital exams are performed at birth, every well-baby checkup (every 1-3 months for about 3 years), every pediatric annual physical, and every sick child visit that involves a diaper rash/ yeast infection/ urinary tract infection or a suspected one (like for bedwetting)/ accident or injury/ or unknown something is wrong (testicular torsion, Cheerios up the hooha, etc.).

Does anyone else have ptsd from this?

Genital exams aren’t something that can cause PTSD (unless by “genital exam” you mean some version of parents sent out of the room and you were raped, which isn’t a genital exam, it’s sexual assault). If you have PTSD it wouldn’t be from a genital exam, but from criterion A trauma.

 

[Is-it-just-me]

Genital exams aren’t something that can cause PTSD (unless by “genital exam” you mean parents sent out of the room and you were raped, which isn’t a genital exam, it’s sexual assault). If you have PTSD it wouldn’t be from a genital exam, but from criterion A trauma.[/QUOTE]

Who are you to say they can’t cause PTSD? You don’t get to decide what someone else’s brain processes as a trauma. Being helpless and violated can certainly cause ptsd.

 

[EveHarrington]

Yes, you were touched against your will.

Your mother gave consent for you, against your will.

Fortunately times are changing and people are starting to recognize that children actually have rights to their own bodies.

 

[Friday]

Who are you to say they can’t cause PTSD? You don’t get to decide what someone else’s brain processes as a trauma. Being helpless and violated can certainly cause ptsd.

Someone who has read the DSM5. You can look it up yourself, but I’ll paste the first criterion below. It’s the abosolute basics of PTSD - What can cause it?

Criterion A: stressor (one required)

The person was exposed to: death, threatened death, actual or threatened serious injury, or actual or threatened sexual violence, in the following way(s):

• Direct exposure
• Witnessing the trauma
• Learning that a relative or close friend was exposed to a trauma
• Indirect exposure to aversive details of the trauma, usually in the course of professional duties (e.g., first responders, medics)

 

[Is-it-just-me]

Someone who has read the DSM5. You can look it up yourself, but I’ll paste the first criterion below. It’s the abosolute basics of PTSD - What can cause it?

Okay, well an actual doctor diagnosed me with PTSD. But nice googling. You are over simplifying things.

 

[Friday]

Okay, well an actual doctor diagnosed me with PTSD.

Then either they’re a complete idiot... or there’s a lot more to your history than a standard medical exam.

If you have a history of CSA? Then, yeah, it makes complete sense on why you would hit the roof over a very normal life event. It’s called being triggered, or dealing with a stressor. You wouldn’t even have to have been sexually assaulted to have a symptom spike in relation to stress, just already have PTSD from something else. You could be having your skinned elbow examined, and have the exact same reaction as having your genitals examined. Because that’s simply how stress & triggers work. (More on the differences between triggers & stressors here >>> Stressor vs. Trigger - What Is A Trigger? )

But that normal life event, whilst it can activate PTSD symptoms, cannot cause PTSD.

That’s not my opinion. That’s the medical experts published opinion. The DSM & ICD. Normal life events don’t cause PTSD. Some of the most profoundly difficult experiences in life do not cause PTSD. Only a very narrow range certain types of trauma cause PTSD.

 

[Ronin]

Compare contrast:

a child crying for help anywhere, because she survived FGM & watching most of her cousins and sisters come through that. She is uncomfortable, the village doctor told her she should be proud as she is now a worthy bride, but she feels just the pain, and does not want to even think of men, so she is not all that worthy bride after all. The herbs she was given do nothing, for the pain or anything else, but she so would not ask about that, on top of other things, she just wants to go back to being a worthy bride.

Vs other one, uncomfortable because a doctor touched her as a part of a *regular* check... while her mom had her back, it was a legitimate doctor with a license, who up held all the procedures & was gentle with the child, while treating their medical condition, where nothing untoward happened during the examination... Who then went on to describe the findings (and only the findings, not how hot is that girlie and cute in her knickers) to a licensing body, full of shock, other doctors... who also were not having thoughts of molesting their patients.

Now.
Which girl is the one who can have the disorder?
Surely not the uncomfortable one... because just not the kind of thing going on, right?

Now, the thing is totally different if the uncomfortable girl is actually uncomfortable with the doctor because Uncle Tom screws her every weekend without her mommy knowing.
Or because the doctor fingered her while whispering she is so sweet to her ear.

Do you see the differences?

 

[Muttly]

Ok, the response @Friday gave here is a very common response at this forum. It's not a wrong response. There are very specific criteria that determine whether you have PTSD. When that response is given, it's not to deny trauma but to clarify what is being discussed. It's part of the community culture here. I'm hoping you've read all the threads recommended for newbies. I can't pull it together to link them but they are helpful.

I don't always like when people here jump in quickly to say something, like your experience, can't cause PTSD. I live with it, because it's part of how this forum functions and this place is amazingly useful if you take what's helpful, try to read with an open mind and leave the rest. The reason I don't like it, is I suspect there are plenty of people who may say or think that a certain experience caused their PTSD and it's not the actual cause of the PTSD. I feel like sometimes, when we jump in and say the experience doesn't meet the PTSD criterion, while we are being factually accurate, we may miss the opportunity to have a conversation that would reveal more fully help us understand together what is the cause of the PTSD and how to heal from the trauma (whether it's PTSD or not.) I think sometimes people aren't ready or able to talk about the original trauma and not the activating event and sometimes people have dissociated or in some other way don't realize there is an actual original PTSD causing event. And if someone's experience truly doesn't meet the criteria of PTSD, that doesn't mean that there isn't trauma and pain and worthwhile conversations that can be had from that.

But all that is beside the point. You came here asking questions. Taking the information that @Friday provided and what you provided, leads to a lot more questions. So, genital examinations for children aren't necessarily unusual. But we know very little about your experience. How old were you? Why was it being done? What made you feel violated? What led a doctor to diagnose you with PTSD? If you share more.

 

[joeylittle]

Being helpless and violated can certainly cause ptsd.

Not according to what the scientific community knows right now. Right now, you need to have been exposed to - lets all say it together -

• Death, threatened death, or
• Actual or threatened serious injury, or
• Actual or threatened sexual violence

Okay, well an actual doctor diagnosed me with PTSD

That's fine. Your actual doctor is considering it to have been sexual violence, or perhaps threat of serious injury. Without hearing you relay the entire experience in detail the way you remember it, and then getting a clear context for all the other events in your life....plus being an MD and having a solid, real-world background in trauma and stressor disorders...we can't say that your doctor is wrong.

We can say that medical science has agreed on a well-defined set of criteria. Anything outside those criteria is speculative, right now.

Could that change? Sure. Absolutely. They - the scientific research community - are learning more and more about PTSD. Research informs how the diagnosis evolves.

Being helpless and violated can certainly cause ptsd.

But, it sounds like you know more about PTSD than the entire field of researchers...so your purpose here is...?

Showing up and immediately being an asshole isn't a good look.

You can choose to pick fights, or you can choose to engage. In this community we both challenge and validate. Members are encouraged to take what's useful, ignore the rest.

I'm truly sorry for what you experienced - and yes, there are individuals who develop PTSD from childhood genital exams. @Ronin gave a great example. I'm sure there are others. @Muttly's post, right above mine, deserves a calm, considered reading. They're asking great questions. I know there are members here who have very clear stories of how they experienced medical trauma, relating to their genitalia, in childhood. I hope you can take a deep breath and get to know the community here.

And if you think this isn't the place for you, that's cool too, and all best wishes, sincerely.

 

[Friday]

Oh don’t worry @Muttly... I stop answering these questions whenever I quit giving a damn about people. Oh, you’ve been pregnant for 15 months? I may know super basic & potentially life saving information, pregnancies don’t last 15 months, but I’ll just keep that to myself. It’s not my fault if you die of a totally treatable condition. Or waste years of parenting time, and other amazing things in life, waiting for this “baby” to be born. Yep. Babies take their time. Pregnancy sucks, doesn’t it? You must be so excited! Cheers!

Someone wastes years of their life treating the wrong psychiatric disorder? Or kills themselves because of not being treated for what they reeeeally need help with? Pfft. What do I care? That I could have tossed them the info they were directly asking for -that doesn’t cause PTSD, if you have PTSD is will be from something else in your life, or you’re looking at a different disorder- doesn’t make it my fault that they haven’t studied what I’ve studied, and don’t know what I know. It’s not my responsibility to point people towards resources that could help. f*ck ‘em.

Of course, most of the time, I do care. But I go whole months of looking at posts by desperate people in pain looking for answers and don’t even spend 2 seconds of my own time trying to help.

 

[Sideways]

Okay, well an actual doctor diagnosed me with PTSD

This doesn’t surprise me.

When a patient presents with severe mental health distress, and there is a history of trauma, ptsd is an easy diagnosis to grab at. If your doctor is not a psychiatrist, then it’s very likely that they don’t necessarily understand the (reasonably recently amended) finer details of criteria A.

Even more common? Is a lack of experience/qualification in understanding (let alone accurately diagnosing) the complex interplay between traumatic experience and other mental health conditions. Trauma is at the root of a variety of mental illnesses for many people, and it’s a big ask for those who don’t specialise in the area to know all the ins and outs.

It may be worth a conversation with your doctor, and perhaps requesting referral to a specialist. Your doctor has clearly decided that your current state of mental health is causing you a level of distress that warrants treatment - that life doesn’t need to be this hard.

Fwiw? There’s a huuuuge number of members here who have had the experience of being diagnosed with a whole range of mental illnesses before finding the right fit (me included). Even with a specialist, it can take some time to tease out the detail sufficiently to get a really accurate diagnosis, and it’s not uncommon for doctors to give a diagnosis that isn’t, ultimately, correct, while that process takes place.