Sexual Assault Am I Nuts To Consider The Nurses Rapists

[The Albatross]

I choose these days to evaluate all my impressions, childhood or otherwise under an objective lens. I don't give a crap what it felt like, I stick with what it was in as much as I'm able by utilizing independent validation (or not) of my perceptions.

I get why you'd be mad but I also get that at your age you didn't have the cognizance to understand the necessity of the procedure. I didn't either and I was bleeding out and in shock and almost dead. I had a botched tonsillectomy. I had to have two transfusions at 6 to live. I started having difficulty with medical professionals post procedure... and started passing out with triggers at 9. I normalized it with exposures by the time I was 24.

What it was/felt like was not who I am today... if you endeavor to run gantlet and do exposures, you can over come it. If you don't, be prepared to accept the consequences of your behavior/habit. Me? I don't like consequences... so I consciously choose to initiate change. My own experience, my own summation, my own ability to beat triggers. I don't give two figs about what you think. My life, and I'm living and beating it.

 

[shimmerz]

Well, I think that the OP can determine what is helpful and what is not to her. Feelings (which may or may not be real), lead to descriptors. Descriptors can be helpful in getting to clarity and perhaps even resolution. It is a process.

Different people come at their trauma experiences in different ways. My way is to acknowledge the feeling that I feel, and find words from there. Yours is different @albatross and I respect that. What disturbs me about some of these postings is that there seems to be a trend towards negating what the OP says she felt. What she felt might be wrong or it might not, but starting with feelings and acknowledging those is, in my opinion a great way of working towards positive resolution.

It may have been systemic failure, as noted above in another posting, archaic practices, a shitty hospital, or a sadistic nurse. But someone smiling at you while you are 6 years old and terrified while someone is jamming something up your private parts, well, perhaps it is forgivable that the OP perhaps (and I don't know this), misread a smile. We don't know.

But you and I arguing about it is definitely not helping the OP. I think she will be able to sort out what 'feels right' to her in these postings. And honestly, I am not trying to 'win' here. I just don't want someone who felt something so strongly, being told that it was impossible for her interpretation of the situation to have happened.

On that note, I will stand back from this thread and hopefully we can play nicely in the sandbox in other threads. I would appreciate it if you didn't tag me again in this one Alba. I say we agree to disagree and leave it at that.

Best of luck to you @Tigergirl1217. May you come to a healthy resolution on this issue.

 

[The Albatross]

Really? You (corrected in edit) quoted me last evening more than once, and I replied. You want to call that "arguing". Get a grip girlfriend.

 

[Chava]

There is truth in the trauma, even if it isn't really "RAPE." As an adult, it's helpful for me to know that there is the cognitive truth, but also the physical one. On a cognitive level, none of the doctors or nurses abused or assaulted me. On a body level, I realize I have certain triggers around breathing (and having things stuck in me anywhere). So the adult in me recognizes this is just nervous system residue and I can slowly "rewire" some of it, to the point I maintain some present awareness. I have also gotten somewhat dissociative within clinic or hospital settings as an adult. I have no real fear of these people. They are helping me. At a body level, I probably feel powerless. But the adult mind that can stay present reminds me that I'm not powerless, I'm there for help, and I'm not dying. Even if it's an emergency, it's under control to the extent that I'm awake and aware that I'm in the ER. If I feel fuzzy and unreal about it, I'm not able to notice that I feel unreal. And that's fine. But I'm also okay.

So maybe you have body stuff, or nervous system stuff, trauma residue. The idea of calling them rapists is a cognitive thing. I've read that invasive medical procedures can feel somewhat like the same trauma as sexual abuse to a child, because the level of trauma and confusion and violation is still there. But as an adult, if you can honor that you DID have this trauma and that you did feel violated and angry and powerless, that's good. But calling it rape doesn't necessarily help tease out the nature of the trauma from an adult perspective, if that makes sense (my 2 cents). So I agree with some of @The Albatross 's cognitive perspective. But I think there is also a way to understand the body-level trauma....and yet slowly reframe that too, as well as trigger responses, through the present-adult awareness of the situation.

I remember SCREAMING because I felt like two techs were suffocating me. I could NOT breathe (well, I could if I was screaming, but every time they tried to do their test, I felt like I was going to die). They knew I was not dying. I did not know this. They were not probably good with kids or well trained to handle my case. But was it like being raped in the mouth/throat? No. They weren't trashing my entire humanity. They just sort of sucked at helping me. I still do remember that as really terrifying. I don't have to call it rape to know it was part of my trauma history. But anyway, I do have rapists in my past as well as the doctors. The main issue for me is finding ways to understand my trauma and not being trapped by it so much in my present life. And where I have shame or self blame, redirecting that where appropriate.

 

[The Albatross]

I reframed it from 9 to 24 thanks Chava. It was not a little "t" trauma either... I had many triggers and would pass out in hospital or physician environments. I chose education and to enter the vocation rather than anger or victimhood. My choice and I'm glad I did. Not all may be inclined but it was exposures and assistive to me.

 

[Tigergirl1217]

@shimmerez is so far the most helpful person here. She might not agree with my statement but she gets how I feel and

Oh for Cripe's sake, even dentists and their associates SMILE when tending to children. Why? Because so many of them are frightened. It doesn't mean they're sadistic pedophiles though statistically there are likely to be some. When I had to save a few kids from drowning when I was a life guard or gave a kid first aid... I smiled too... NOT because I enjoyed their suffering, but to normalize the situation so they wouldn't be more scared than they already were.

uh huh ok. But when someone is literally staring at your private parts and smiling wouldn't you also question them? And for your information the smiling one was the assistant

 

[Tigergirl1217]

So far @shimmerz is the most helpful one here she is not implying no these kinds of people don't do this so you feeling this way is not right @albertos before pointing your "facts" first understand what people are feeling validate that first so people don't take what you are saying the wrong way @shimmerz thank you for helping me get out these feelings and help me move forward

 

[RussH]

Please stay on topic, and refrain from nit picking at one another.

 

[Stickler]

People who like to hurt people do seek out situations in which they can hurt people.
Sometimes, though... they just happen upon the hurting-people opportunities in the jobs and in the lives they have...
Even if it's a simple matter of taking their stress out on someone else ( like my mom did on me...and she has been a registered nurse since 1970).
It's fairly normal for people to lash out sometimes...not nice, but normal.
Nurses are stressed a lot, pressed for time...
Could be that they were just " Shut up kid, we have five more of these to do." :(

You're hurt bad. That is how it is. You are at the " I need to hurt!" stage. You have a right to your feelings and to NOT have some responsibility to get over it until you are damn well ready to move on from this part.

You might check out some of what Mit's wrote, he had a lot of medically traumatic nastiness happen to him as a child.

 

[bluebird]

@Tigergirl1217 , I just wanted to say that after I tried to overdose myself and then came to the hospital, I was told they will have to insert a catheter to make some tests. I started crying, because I was still kind of lost in flashbacks, and begged them not to do this to me, and the nurses took pity and didn´t force me, they got the urine in the usual way. Fortunately, there was no problem with that. I am certain that given my state of mind, I would have perceived it as if it were rape, although I was an adult and knew what a catheter was... And you were a child. This is not something to be ashamed of, this is not something you did wrong.

I am sorry to hear your mother was not supportive when you had to undergo these tests. It must have felt like a huge betrayel to you.

May I ask, what does it feel like when you have to see a doctor nowadays? Did you have any positive experiences since then? Sometimes this can help a lot. This was not such a big problem to me, but when I was a kid, my doctor was always very impatient and I felt she was angry at me because I was gagging when she tried to examine my throat. I became very scared of this examination and ashamed of myself. Years later, I met a kind doctor who told me gagging is not something I can control and he always waited for me to calm down before he continued in the examination. The attitude is what matters the most in things that are painful or unpleasant.

 

[GWhizz]

So let's say that 'Mothers and Fathers do not "enjoy" hurting their children .'

There...

No it wasn't offensive to me as a nurse. The op asked if it were nuts to consider these nurses rapists. I just pointed out black and white factually that it was not rape. You think her mother stood back and consented to the nurses to "rape" her? You think nurses will abuse a child with their mother watching? You think catheterisation is rape?

It is offensive to me as a victim of rape. Only someone who has been raped can know that feeling. I have been catheterised myself. I've had many invasive medical procedures. None of them were pleasant or comfortable, but they were not rape. I even had incorrect rectal surgery carried out that I didn't consent to, and am currently going through legal action against the consultant. But that was not rape although it sure violated my rights.

I'm just saying black and white, that was not rape. I never said it wasn't traumatic. Learn to distinguish please.

 

[Stickler]

@GWhizz
...Guess I just don't find the OP's way of framing her trauma offensive. You have a right to feel angry, though.