*** Trigger Warning – mentions sexual assault and precocious puberty as it pertains to the menstrual cycle which some readers may find graphic in detail
The Examination Turns Awry
As my gynecological examination progressed, it was the nurse who explained to me the process step by step. I do not know what she saw within my eyes – whether it was fear or disappointment that I was essentially silenced – but she showed her concern and compassion for me by attempting to talk me through it. The doctor shushed her a few times and progressed with me rather roughly. I was ill-prepared for what was about to take place until it happened … when something in my brain clicked to “fight”.
As soon as what I perceived to be the worst of the exam with the tools the doctor used, I screamed out with intense and harrowing fear. One of my minds literally went somewhere else all while another mind stayed present and recorded the event. There was even a presence of a different mind expressing that this exam needed to stop, but I could not stop it. My body surely tried though because I found myself fighting back. I also found myself dissociating. I was floating everywhere, but at the same time, I was in panic.
There were fragments of me everywhere, and I could not grasp all that was occurring, but what I do recall is that my body was having a traumatic scene replayed upon it, and my anger was unleashed. For some reason, though, I was conscious and present to see what was happening to me while absent at the same time. It was odd. I watched myself in a somber silence as I was on the table screaming and crying in terror. I both saw myself and felt myself being violated even though it was just a medical exam. My anger was so triggered because no one prepared me for this.
I heard the doctor shout at the nurse, my mother and grandmother for them to hold me down. Then the small room became filled with two additional nurses who assisted in holding down my legs so that the doctor could complete the exam. I heard lots of “shushing” for me to calm down and that it would be okay, but I was past that now. I was not okay. Somewhere within me, I felt my heart breaking in a manner that I vaguely remembered happening before, and I screamed. I screamed louder and louder and louder. And I fought like hell. My mind said with a tenacity, “Do not let this happen again!”
A scream came from within me some place really deep to the point that I did not feel that it was really me. I heard my own voice, but the voice felt detached from me. I was fighting so hard that I kicked the doctor in the face. He cursed at me, and he yelled at the nurses holding my legs to hold them even tighter. My grandmother, who had never ever comforted me for any reason (let alone talked with me), yelled at me to “Calm down, I say, calm down … hush your mouth, little girl … just hush your mouth! There’s no reason to make all this noise!” She grabbed my hand, and I took note of the fact that her hands felt odd in mine because since my birth, she had never actually touched me.
I took note through my shrill screams that there was no comfort in my grandmother’s hand … that she simply wanted the exam to be over. She did not wipe my tears. She did not whisper a prayer. She did not comfort me. She was only concerned about herself, and she wanted to do anything to stop “the noise” and the reminder of a secret that she and my mother wanted to remain hidden. My mind did not determine this then, but I know it for what it is now. I remember wondering in that moment of my grandmother’s taking of my hand that she and my mother were basically the same people – cold, hard, and unfeeling.
Sedated But Still Angry
At some point, I literally had to be sedated because I was out of control and attempting to break free and run from the office. I was literally hysterical and in shock. In a frantic rush to make sure I did not escape the room, the nurses in the room blocked the door. Everyone was frantic and the looks in my mother and grandmother’s eyes revealed something scary to me. I just remember thinking that this examination was not something I had signed up for because my mind had not understood, and I wanted to leave. I had not consented.
As a child or preteen, I was not prepared, and my body was not prepared either. I remember my brain wanting to click somewhere else, and some of those minds within my brain did shut off. I distinctly remember flashes of light inside my head as if glass was breaking inside of me. There were fragments of me everywhere. I had not correlated the exam with the sexual assault that had happened against me nearly two years ago, but my body had surely remembered because my body was keeping score. Somewhere inside of me, there was indeed remembrance, and then there was an explosive and forceful feeling of anger. My body seemed to demand that I fight back and flee the scene.
I felt extreme powerlessness in being sedated even though I now understand the reason for the nurses doing so, but back then, I felt the utmost betrayal, and I could not stop crying. Prior to my sedation, my grandmother had pleaded with my mother to shut me up or do something, but my mother stood as a deer caught up in headlights as if she, herself, were terrified to move. She did not move. She simply looked at me as if her eyes were transfixed on a distant past. I believe now that it was the gynecological examination that revealed to even her the trauma that had transpired with me on some level, but she still did nothing.
For a moment, I recall looking to my mother’s eyes for help and a sense of security, but I found nothing there. Her eyes were soulless and lacking any compassion or empathy for me. The doctor had left the room after finishing up my exam, and perhaps he went to medicate the swift kick I gave his face. As for me, I was unable to move. The nurses that held my arms and legs all sighed and looked at each other. One nurse even told my grandmother, “You’ve got yourself a tough one there. She is a fighter.” My grandmother, however, was less than amused by the nurse’s response and simply said, “She’s a pain in the ass – nothing but trouble since she was born.”
I remember the nurses laughing nervously and then leaving the room with all but one remaining. She was the original nurse who had been with me the entire time, and she had a strange look in her eyes that seemed to attempt to make sense of what went on during the exam. She seemed to be taking notes on a chart, but I thought that maybe she was fake writing because I could still feel the emotion of heightened fear within the room. No one was calm but me, and I was only calm now because I was sedated, but even though sedated, I was still sniffling tears in a low audible cry.
Examination Results
Several times throughout my examination, one of the receptionists kept calling into the room with an intercom requesting to know if other services needed to be called for me. The receptionist was concerned that my shrill screams were nerve-wracking to the other patients in the waiting room. I can only wonder if everyone thought I needed a psych evaluation. Yet, no one seemed to question anything about the events except that I was a child who was unprepared for a gynecological examination.
When the doctor returned to the room, he said a lot of things to my mother and grandmother. Fewer words have ever stuck as much as what he said that only seemed to confirm within my heart what I knew to be true. At 11, I knew that the doctor’s words were somehow prophetic because I had heard them intuitively before. Unless my mind could not make the connection regarding a sexual assault against me, many of the doctor’s words seemed disconnected to me. I was outside of myself listening while my body was comfortably sedated on the table.
The doctor actually talked to my mother and grandmother as if I were not even present. It angered me that he would not talk to me. The report he gave was my report, and if I were not so heavily sedated, I would have shouted as much with bold consternation. All I could do was listen, though. All I could do was take in his words. What I heard was a lot but mainly amounted to the following:
- “Her bleeding is not normal … very unusual for a child her age.”
- “I could not see enough with the exam … too much blood.”
- “We’ll try her on some hormones to get the bleeding to stop.”
- “This is not the normal reaction I expect from an exam, but she is young.”
- “Has there been sexual activity?”
- “If we can’t get this bleeding under control, I fear it will only get worse.”
- “She will probably never be able to have children of her own if this bleeding continues.”
- “After a trial of birth control pills to regulate her bleeding, we’ll try for an exam again.”
But I was 11
But I was 11.
Stay tuned for more posts.
My Voice Unchained 