Sexual Assault Am I Nuts To Consider The Nurses Rapists

[Tigergirl1217]

When I was six I had 2 tests that involves catheter inserted. They were forced. I tried to resist but those f*cking unsympathetic bitches forced it in while I was bawling in fear and pain. It is like they forced me to be f*cked with the catheters. I consider it child molestation if you force yourself to touch a child without their permission. One of the rapist smiled while looking at my genitals. Oop oh how dare I call them rapist if it was a medical procedure!
Sorry for language but I also needed to vent.

 

[Deleted member 28942]

Hi @Tigergirl1217, although their intentions might not have been bad it still had a very traumatic effect on you. You felt powerless and invaded. I would say it is a rape or child molestation because that is how you experienced it. It is something to work on in therapy.

 

[Kodah]

I loath the medical community in general. The bad seem to make the worst impression. I won't ever go back to see any thing of the sort.

 

[Sighs]

I would say it is a rape or child molestation because that is how you experienced it.

Back up the truck a minute. Can we not find language that recognises how incredibly traumatic this was for the OP without lumping medical staff into the same category as rapists and child molesters?

 

[RussH]

While it was very traumatic for you; it is not rape. There are many times medical staff have to perform procedures on children that frightens or traumatizes the child, but it is necessary for the child to get better.
As traumatic as it was, cut the nurses some slack. They were doing a task, ordered by a doctor, to resolve whatever medical problem you were suffering from.

 

[Friday]

Nope. Rape is rape, war is war, tornados are tornados, etc.

We use metaphors in English an awful lot, but when dealing with specific trauma? They aren't helpful.

There are serious aspects to medical trauma which simply don't exist with rape (your rapist really doesn't have your best interests at heart, for example... So someone who is raped? Won't be dealing with huge conflict when people are trying to help them, while someone who has medical trauma? May very well have huge issues with other people trying to help them). And there are serious aspects to rape which simply don't exist in medical trauma. Not the least of which being that rape & child molestation are both sexual assaults. Sexual assault is as different from assault, as someone breaking your leg because it makes them horny to watch you scream in pain, is from someone who is breaking your leg to save your life. In both cases? You've still got a broken leg. But the side effects? Are going to be extremely different from each other. Viewing people trying to help as attackers? Only one of many differences.

Trying to lump category A in with category B? (Usually as a metaphor &/or it sounds "worse", when it isn't. It's just different). All that does is make dealing with the real & actual problems more difficult.

 

[Friday]

Story time : (I may regret this later, but c'est la vie)

A very long time ago I was tortured... And part of that involved drilling on my teeth.

An entirely different part of that, was after I was released; Navy docs trying to save my life (massively infected, bits of broken teeth abscessing / having to come out, etc.), by doing oral surgery in the field (no anesthetic, no drugs).

Those 2 things? Both involved excruciating pain. They both involved my mouth. 1 was torture. 1 was medical trauma.

The medical trauma? Has had far more wide reaching effect. The looks on the faces of the people trying to help me, the oozing concern from the people pinning me down, my own struggles to "be good" because someone was trying to help me warring with my desperate need to get away/ stop the pain. From being proud of kicking an asshole in the face, to my shame of kicking one of the corpsmen in the face. And 100 other things.

But just one piece of ^^^^ ?

- I very rarely come across the looks of the people who tortured me.
- I very often come across the looks of concern, outrage, etc. of the people who were trying to help me.

Was being tortured worse than the medical trauma? In many ways.
Was the medical trauma worse than being tortured? In many ways.

The two things are very different from each other.

The reason why we don't compare trauma (pissing contests or otherwise) here on this forum, is that it's pointless. Worse? Doesn't matter. Period. Once you hit "you must be at least this tall to ride this ride" it's all a wash. It's ALL worse. And worse don't matter. What matters is dealing with what's real. What's real for my torture stuff? Is very different from what's real for my medical stuff. & vice versa. Nature of the beast.

 

[digger]

It's not 'nuts', no, but I would think it's going to be detrimental to your healing to keep viewing it that way. Intent matters a lot when we define things. That's not to minimise your experience or to say that all the people involved handled the situation well.

You, understandably, as a small child with not enough comprehension of what was going on and why the procedure was happening, felt violated. As an adult you have the opportunity to look at the intentions of the people involved as well. By describing all involved as rapists, you are continuing to reinforce the child's perception of events. It's not easy to unravel such deep felt feelings, but I think it would be helpful to you to start asking yourself as an adult whether all your beliefs stand up, or if there might be some gaps and distortions there.

As a child your interpretation was 'They are trying to hurt me. They are hurting me.' As an adult you get the option of starting to switch that to 'It very much felt like they were trying to hurt me and I was hurt.' You can still acknowledge that your feelings were understandable and justified as a child, it's important to do so, letting go of some of them as an adult doesn't negate them or dismiss them, it's just about putting them in their proper place.

 

[shimmerz]

The exact same thing happened to me as an adult. Nurses, catheters. It was horrifying. Because I was catatonic and wouldn't 'help them' in inserting the tube they used that as a reason to verbally terrorize me and physically abuse me and then slap a 'psychotic' label on me. By the time I was transferred to a hospital they had to put me into lockdown because I was talking about walking in front of a bus.... and I don't do that.

So I am going to say that nobody knows what the intention of these nurses was at the time the OP had her 'procedure' done. It isn't right to say that all priests are saints and it isn't right to say that all nurses are nurturing and caring Florence Nightingales. Some are just evil bitches while others have anger issues, are too pressured to 'pump patients through', etc. And these people are not child experts.

It may have felt like rape to you and nobody can tell you what it should or shouldn't have felt like. It sounds torturous, for certain. I think the idea is to work through the 'feeling of having been raped', to what lies under that, which may consist of many layers. Powerlessness for certain, authority may play in and so on. Whatever it is, you did not feel the intention of 'helpfulness' (and nor did I). The ideas above are good though in so much as you don't want to stay stuck and dwell on the 'rape' (and there are many ways of raping, including one's soul). Never stay stuck..... always keep moving.... looking for what is underneath.

I am so very sorry this happened to you at such a young age. At 48 I was terrified and could do nothing about it in my own case. I can't imagine how it would feel to a 6 year old.

 

[digger]

it isn't right to say that all nurses are nurturing and caring Florence Nightingales

Yes, sorry, I did mean to add something about that and say that not all medical professionals have the empathy they need for the job, and I'm sure that there are some that are downright sadistic, but on the whole, it is unlikely that the intention of the whole team involved in the procedure was for it to become something as traumatic is ended up being for @Tigergirl1217 even though that is how it, very understandably, felt to her as a child. It's that perspective I was hoping to bring to her adult awareness.

 

[Tigergirl1217]

I'm sorry if this has offended anyone I just wanted others prospective on this. I am working on getting out of the little girl mind, I am just saying that we should be extra careful with children when it comes to medical procedures and also know that our actions on children can haunt them even though to us it is no big deal @shizmerez yes we don't always know the intentions of there actions. Anyways I just wanted to vent out my feelings

 

[digger]

I don't think anyone who has replied has taken offence. Just an offering of different perspectives that could be helpful to you moving forwards. :)