I was diagnosed with PTSD several years ago, and have tried numerous therapists and other things to no avail, I believe because my experience is not very common.
When I was a very young child, around 5 years old, I was made to have numerous unwanted physical exams while naked or in a thin paper gown that only covered so much. I recall that there were no real medical reasons for the invasive nature of these protocols, no attempt to soothe me, or take me somewhere else, except that I was told to get used to it. I cannot recall in vivid detail what happened in these exams, except they left me humiliated and violated, and I had no say in any of it. For the record, one of my parents is dead and the other has been absent for most of my life, handing me off to my grandparents as an infant, I never received any proper care from my mother or father, so my mother would only appear when a consent form needed to be signed.
As I said, I am unable to remember what happened, but I began acting out sexually at age 5 or 6, including masturbation, however, these feelings were only elicited by medical environments, and they were incredibly distressing and upsetting. I would panic, scream, cry, and beg anyone in my family to keep me away from doctors or nurses. I can recall a couple other times during childhood when I was panicking because I was terrified of the medical environment, and was restrained and forcibly injected with needles.
I did not develop properly sexually, and despite being in my 20's, cannot even insert a tampon. I was molested by a classmate around the time I turned 14, and this experience brought out the same feelings I encountered in medical environments: fear, shame, and panic. It took me a long time to come to terms with the fact that whatever happened to me as a child was not something I felt comfortable or safe with, and it did violate me in ways that have permanently altered me.
Later on in my life, a doctor touched me innapropriately at the waist, while I was visibly shaking and trying to jerk away from him. Throughout my life, I have had no say in what medical staff have done to me, and I feel like I have 0 control, they hold all the power. They have laughed in my face while I was triggered, shaking, and begging to have my blood pressure medication because I was so upset and scared. They denied me of it, and continued to laugh.
I have to avoid medical environments as much as possible, because rarely will they agree to do things on my terms, or respect my consent that I do not want certain things, or need work arounds. However, I think what is worse than the visceral fear and the fight, flight, or freeze response, is that I have to see some sort of medical content to get aroused. No therapist I have ever seen is able to comprehend how it is nearly impossible for me to get aroused in a normal way, without this fetishization, and how my entire childhood development focused around this. I have tried, for months at a time, to stay away from that sort of content, but it resulted in me being unable to have any sort of sexual feeling at all.
Despite having lots of other trauma in my life, including a violent sexual assault, an attemped assault which thankfully did not escalate too far, abusive men grooming me as a teenager, familial abuse, this has deeply impacted me the most and I cannot find much literature out there on how unwanted medical procedures or contact can lead to PTSD especially if it developed during childhood.
I am aware that doctors are not always trying to violate me, but this rationalization does nothing to control my body's response, the fear, the shame, and the arousal. No amount of thinking my way out of it has given me any relief. Not having vivid memories because I was so young makes me doubt myself too, but the effects are very devastating.
When I was a very young child, around 5 years old, I was made to have numerous unwanted physical exams while naked or in a thin paper gown that only covered so much. I recall that there were no real medical reasons for the invasive nature of these protocols, no attempt to soothe me, or take me somewhere else, except that I was told to get used to it. I cannot recall in vivid detail what happened in these exams, except they left me humiliated and violated, and I had no say in any of it. For the record, one of my parents is dead and the other has been absent for most of my life, handing me off to my grandparents as an infant, I never received any proper care from my mother or father, so my mother would only appear when a consent form needed to be signed.
As I said, I am unable to remember what happened, but I began acting out sexually at age 5 or 6, including masturbation, however, these feelings were only elicited by medical environments, and they were incredibly distressing and upsetting. I would panic, scream, cry, and beg anyone in my family to keep me away from doctors or nurses. I can recall a couple other times during childhood when I was panicking because I was terrified of the medical environment, and was restrained and forcibly injected with needles.
I did not develop properly sexually, and despite being in my 20's, cannot even insert a tampon. I was molested by a classmate around the time I turned 14, and this experience brought out the same feelings I encountered in medical environments: fear, shame, and panic. It took me a long time to come to terms with the fact that whatever happened to me as a child was not something I felt comfortable or safe with, and it did violate me in ways that have permanently altered me.
Later on in my life, a doctor touched me innapropriately at the waist, while I was visibly shaking and trying to jerk away from him. Throughout my life, I have had no say in what medical staff have done to me, and I feel like I have 0 control, they hold all the power. They have laughed in my face while I was triggered, shaking, and begging to have my blood pressure medication because I was so upset and scared. They denied me of it, and continued to laugh.
I have to avoid medical environments as much as possible, because rarely will they agree to do things on my terms, or respect my consent that I do not want certain things, or need work arounds. However, I think what is worse than the visceral fear and the fight, flight, or freeze response, is that I have to see some sort of medical content to get aroused. No therapist I have ever seen is able to comprehend how it is nearly impossible for me to get aroused in a normal way, without this fetishization, and how my entire childhood development focused around this. I have tried, for months at a time, to stay away from that sort of content, but it resulted in me being unable to have any sort of sexual feeling at all.
Despite having lots of other trauma in my life, including a violent sexual assault, an attemped assault which thankfully did not escalate too far, abusive men grooming me as a teenager, familial abuse, this has deeply impacted me the most and I cannot find much literature out there on how unwanted medical procedures or contact can lead to PTSD especially if it developed during childhood.
I am aware that doctors are not always trying to violate me, but this rationalization does nothing to control my body's response, the fear, the shame, and the arousal. No amount of thinking my way out of it has given me any relief. Not having vivid memories because I was so young makes me doubt myself too, but the effects are very devastating.