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Warning A Doctor About Possible Flashbacks

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You and Bear did great Angel! :tup: I am sorry your doc is/was a lizard. A great many doctors (not all, but too many for my taste) have all the emotional intelligence of snails. And then they go to med school. Glad the nurse was sane. I think you did super. There is no shame in crying in public.

I don't suppose you bit the doc, did you? (hopeful:cautious::D ) I think if human patients bit their doctors more often the doctors might learn to be more careful and caring - like veterinarians usually are. I probably couldn't get away with biting...:D
 
Well done Angel. It's hard to get through something like that because of the anxiety before let alone how your are triggered during a procedure. And it's not at all logical or controllable; I'm a doctor myself so you'd think I'd be pretty cool about stuff but it is incredibly triggering for me, the whole idea of being ill/vulnerable/trusting. One of my abusers was our family doctor...

I'm glad it was ok. I won't pretend all doctors understand or are sympathetic, some of them are just as shut down or ignorant as anyone, but there are a lot of very kind people in the profession, that, even if they don't understand something, can recognise a frightened and upset person and try hard to make them feel better. For myself I can say that whoever is in front of me, whatever their problem, for that moment they become the focus of everything, it is all about them, and even someone very upset and distressed, you can clearly see and sense their strength and value, see who they are, they are a lot more than their distress. They are just showing and feeling emotions, and that is human.

People so often feel judged and "less than" when they are upset, because that's how they've learnt to judge their own emotions, how they judge themsleves, and trying to show your "shame" to someone in authority makes it even worse. I know, I've been there. From the other side of the the fence , it can be very hard to persuade someone in that situation that you do care, do understand, aren't judging them. Sadly I think that gets in the way, sometimes, of people getting help because they just can't see the possibility that you do care, do want to do your best to help... that they aren't shamed and that you aren't judging them.
 
Not at all Eleanor, I wasn't reacting to your post at all.... I just sometimes feel it's a shame that often people's encounters with doctors are so bruising (sometimes with good reason because some doctors are idiots) at the time they need the most help. And I see it as so sad when people come in filled with pain and feel that they are so stupid, bad or wrong for how they are feeling. Honestly recently I saw a lady who's mother had died 2 weeks ago and she asked me "what's wrong with me, I'm not usually like this".......... grief, honey. You're not "usually" having to deal with your mum dying.

So many people unable to feel they have a right to their pain, or so frightened of showing it.
 
I didn't know you were a doctor, Hellie! I knew you did something medical, but I wasn't quite sure what. I'm impressed!!

The doctor who treated me is really a nice guy. I actually think that's kind of WHY he got flustered. Sometimes really nice people (who have never had anything particularly bad happen to them) don't know how to respond to someone who is deeply emotionally wounded.

I think he was trying to be helpful and distract me by joking around. Instead, it made me kind of nervous. And then he was so flustered he forgot to do the pap smear and exam!! The poor guy was intensely embarrassed afterwards and very apologetic... which for some reason made me even worse and apologetic... then he was more apologetic... and we were looping. Which I do to my husband sometimes, too. And the only thing you can do is what he did, which was walk out of the room and try to let me calm down. The whole thing was like an emotional circus. I really felt bad for the guy!

I've gotten my perspective back, and I can kind of laugh about it now. :rolleyes: I was such an idiot to not take my anti-anxiety meds before I went in. I took them after I got home, though.
 
I can imagine that scenario! That made me laugh...been there. Sometimes when I'm awkward i just keep talking where my mouth moves but my brain freezes and the patient kind of looks at me, like, eh???
Glad you're ok x
 
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