IMPACT STATEMENTS
WHAT IS AN IMPACT STATEMENT?
“It provides an opportunity to express in your own words what you, your family, and others close to you have experienced as a result of the crime. Many victims also find it helps provide some measure of closure to the ordeal the crime has caused.”
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IMPACT STATEMENT BY RILEY A.
Trigger Warning: VCUG, Sexual Trauma, Medical Trauma
Dr. Hicks:
As a child, I had this haunting memory of a nightmare that would pop into my head sometimes. In the nightmare I was in a dimly lit room, being held down by multiple adults as I screamed and tried to fight them off. A strange man is telling me that he’s going to put a little balloon up inside of me. I’m trying to fight them but more adults come to hold me down and pry my legs open as the man pushes something inside of me. It hurts and I am screaming. The man then says he’s going to fill up the balloon that is inside of me. I can feel the “balloon” growing and growing inside of me. It quickly becomes so painful that I’m convinced the balloon is going to burst from inside of me and I’m going to die. I try to scream and beg for help, but everyone ignores my pleas and tells me to calm down and be still. That’s the last thing I remember from this nightmare.
It was last year when I realized that this “nightmare” was my reality — and it had happened multiple times. That was the only fuzzy memory I had of my 5 VCUGs, and I always thought it was a nightmare because it seemed way too terrible to be real. But that memory stuck with me - haunted me - throughout my life.
As a teen and young adult, I struggled with major depression, anxiety, self-harm, suicidal ideations and an eating disorder. I even spent a few weeks in a psychiatric hospital. I was recently - finally - diagnosed with PTSD. I have always hated myself immensely and felt like I needed to punish myself for simply existing. I felt like there was something inherently wrong with me at my core. Shame and embarrassment control my life, because any time I am embarrassed I feel like I am back on your table. I have recurring nightmares of being raped by people close to me. These are the real risks of VCUGs.
I knew I showed several symptoms of child sexual abuse (CSA) growing up, and related a lot to CSA survivors, but I didn’t know why since I had so deeply repressed the memories of my VCUGs. I spent many years actively searching for answers as to why I felt this way.
It turns out it was all because of your “safe” and “noninvasive” tests.
I grew up believing that I had no right to privacy and no say over what other people did to my body - because of your tests.
It’s all because of these tests.
You probably remember me as a very quiet child who said maybe 20 words to you in half as many years. The truth is, I developed selective mutism towards all doctors and most adults after the trauma of my VCUGs. I had tried to use my voice to make them stop and to beg for help, but it was no use. So why would I bother using my voice again if I knew it wouldn’t do any good? 20 years later and I still have trouble speaking up for myself, and often go nonverbal when I am triggered.
Do you remember my last 3 VCUGs - the ones after the successful VUR surgery? The ones you ordered because for some reason I kept wetting the bed at night. You never found the reason, but I did. When this happened I noticed I would always wake up feeling extremely depressed - sometimes even suicidal - before I even had a chance to realize that I was awake. I woke up with a pit in my stomach. I was always laying on my back. I knew that I had had a terrible dream, but I could never remember it when I woke up. I now realize that I was having flashback nightmares about the VCUGs… and you ordered more because of this.
Those tests ruined my life. Hell, they almost took my life. I’m still haunted by them every single day, and my screams still echo in my head. It was a humiliating, degrading, violent and barbaric experience, yet they are advertised as “safe” and “noninvasive” and are still performed in droves. VCUGs are medically sanctioned rapes.
We can’t turn back time and prevent my trauma from VCUGs, but you CAN avoid traumatizing more little girls. Stop performing VCUGs. Find a safer alternative. You might not have known the trauma they cause before, but now you do. Now you have no excuse. If you continue to order VCUGs, you should have to sit and watch every single one from now on and see with your own eyes the horrors that you are putting these children through. Keep your oath to “Do no harm” and don’t be the boogeyman from any more children’s nightmares.