5 Things I Couldn’t Do as a Child After VCUG

Although it was impossible to know at the time, having a voiding cystourethrogram (VCUG) in early childhood changed every aspect of my life. Myself and countless other VCUG survivors were robbed of the normal, healthy childhood we deserved because of one (or more) acts of carelessness on part of the adults who were supposed to protect us.

Even though we suffered for decades through no fault of our own, that wasn’t how it felt for the vast majority of VCUG survivors. Instead, we internalized a deep-seated shame and guilt for all the ways we couldn’t fit—all the ways we didn’t belong. To this day, I can still remember the paranoid feeling of hanging out with friends, of constantly torturing myself with anxious thoughts like, Was that weird of me to say? or Am I boring him/her? or Maybe they don’t even like me.

For children, the inability to feel any sense of belonging in their lives—whether it be at home in the family unit, at school among peers, or in solitude with only themselves for company—will inevitably wreak havoc on their growth and development. Left on their own to internalize immense pain, confusion, defectiveness, and guilt, kids will not only grow up to question their safety and security, but every person they encounter and every place they frequent.

There were many things I couldn’t do as a child because I was a VCUG survivor. Keep reading to learn 5 of them.

5 Ways that Having a VCUG Changed My Entire Childhood

There is no greater injustice than robbing a child of their ability to securely attach and feel safe in the world around them. Imagine the repercussions in adulthood. Even if you can’t, VCUG survivors can—we're living them alone, just as we suffered alone without support, let alone validation, in childhood.

Here are some of the ways that having a VCUG affected me as a kid:

1. I couldn't sleep in my own bed after my VCUG.

When I was little, my dad said he used to take us on drives while my mom was working. That I'd beg him to roll down the window so I could shout, “Hi!” at every stranger we passed. I was bold, extroverted, curious—always excited to explore the world around me.

I had no way of knowing that my time in this world had an expiration date. Everything changed after the VCUG. I was suddenly terrified to sleep in my own bed. I’d crawl in next to my dad every night or make a makeshift pallet on my parent’s bedroom floor, until I was sent back to bed at some point during the night.

And still, I went back. Over and over again, I couldn’t bear the thought of sleeping in my own bed. The constant fear and paranoia was enough to dominate every waking moment of my day. I feared every adult. I fought tooth and nail to not be left alone. I was suffering from PTSD, and the doctors and other trusted adults around me didn't bother to acknowledge that something was wrong. That I wasn't right.

As a result, I haven't felt "right" for the overwhelming majority of my life.

2. I was potty-trained, but regressed after my VCUG test.

Developmental regression is a primary symptom of childhood trauma, especially child sexual abuse (CSA). Although this can take many forms in kids, I experienced developmental regression in the form of bedwetting.

This may sound normal, but this wasn’t your typical case. Like many other children, I underwent my VCUG after I’d already been toilet-trained—a lesson I learned surprisingly early, according to my caregiver. Sadly, VCUGs can be significantly more traumatic for kids who were toilet-trained beforehand—an understandable fact, given the added humiliation during voiding.

"The VCUG is an invasive procedure which requires genital exposure and contact," reads one 1997 study—published the same year I underwent the procedure. "In some cases, children may need to be physically restrained." (I haven't met a single VCUG survivor who wasn't physically restrained.)

According to my caregiver, I was an especially bad case. Not only was I physically restrained by masked strangers, but I was ultimately sedated when they were unable to position me—leaving me paralyzed but fully conscious as they manipulated my naked body like it was never mine to begin with.

Developmental regression was the first of many health effects of the so-called "procedure" I endured. The embarrassment alone was enough to derail my self-esteem. As the oldest of three, I was especially mortified by my inability to control my bladder at night. I had no idea it was happening as the result of me reliving this barbaric experience in PTSD nightmares.

My humiliation was amplified by medical PTSD as I was forced to return to my pediatrician and start wearing an alarm clipped to my underwear at night. It would jolt me from PTSD-addled slumber with piercing chirps, signaling that I'd failed again to control my body. That I'd failed to grasp the control and agency I desperately desired like oxygen.

Instead of receiving the compassion, validation, and emotional support that I desperately needed to cope with the post-traumatic stress I was experiencing, I was offered a stuffed animal in return for ceasing the behavior I couldn't control. I can still remember that giant bunny sitting tangled in my bedsheets that I always kept pulled tightly over my face, belly-down on the mattress.

A habit I've yet to break.

3. My self-esteem plummeted after my VCUG.

I was a notorious people-pleaser throughout my childhood and well into my adulthood. I was penalized with one traumatic season after another. Domestic violence, stalking, workplace abuse, sexual assault—you name it.

My earliest memory of feeling spineless was in kindergarten, when a boy in my class punched me in my crotch and ran away howling with laughter. Looking back, it was probably some dumb (albeit painful) thing he saw in a movie recently. But I can still remember my reaction, in vivid sensory detail: my face burning red, barely being able to hold back tears as we lined up to go to lunch. I decided then not to tell my teacher. I wasn't sure why.

I was paralyzed. I didn't know what to do.

More than anything, I felt the tremendous weight of shame and humiliation on my shoulders, making me want to slouch into the tile beneath my feet until it swallowed me up forever. Just being hurt in that area was enough to bring wave after wave of sensory details manifesting in a PTSD flashback. I knew then that there was no way I’d ever tell anyone what happened that day in my kindergarten classroom.

Until now.

4. I couldn't go to the pediatrician without "angry-crying" after every visit.

I still remember holding back tears every single time I had to go see my pediatrician—which was very often, given the many sudden, unexplainable health issues I went on to experience after my VCUG (my pediatric records alone were chock-full of puzzled notes from male doctors in various practices and clinics, all just trying to figure out what was wrong with me).

Worst of all, though, was sitting on that exam table with both my sisters and mother in the corner. Just recalling the memory is enough to make my hands shake almost too much to write. I was anticipating the comment before I even walked into the clinic: that moment my doctor would look at me and say, “Lie back on the table,” and proceed to grope my stomach and stick her hands down my pants, all while my family watched from the corner. Like the men had watched me back in 1997.

After voiding at age 2 in a room full of strangers, you can imagine why it was impossible to fight back angry tears every single time I was forced to “lie back” on that paper-lined table. Even with the colorful fish painted on the ceilings, I still get the knot in my stomach every time I remember it.

At the time, I assumed I was just a "private" or "sensitive" kid, the way adults described shy children like me. It didn't make sense until I remembered my VCUG as an adult, especially after reading in one study that the psychological trauma resulting after VCUG was considered "the same as from a violent rape, especially in girls." Imagine reading those words after 26 years of unnecessary suffering.

5. I couldn't watch kids' movies without being triggered.

To this day, I can still recall the paralyzing fear that gripped me while watching certain movies. One example took place at the old movie theater in my hometown. Although it closed down long ago, I think my caregivers would be surprised that I could still drive to its old site, still point to that old outdated building in the abandoned shopping center where we went to see How The Grinch Stole Christmas starring Jim Carrey in 2000—3 years after my VCUG.

Even as a 28-year-old woman, I still get knots in my stomach when I remember the scene in the mailroom, where Cindy Lou Who topples into a vat of presents and inches closer and closer to the giant machine stamping each package with tremendous force. I couldn’t pay attention to the rest of the movie because I was so perturbed by that scene—the powerlessness depicted onscreen, a woman inching closer and closer to excruciating pain that she had no way of preventing. Her back flattened against a table she could never escape.

A second example and worse example is Monster’s Inc., when Randall straps Boo in that chair and powers up the machine to suck out her screams. The slowly building music, the despair, the dark, dingy room. The sinister tube slowly protruding from the machine, inching closer and closer to the little girl as she shrinks away, recoils, shrieks, sobs for help.

Any VCUG survivors reading this will require no explanation as to why this particular scene made me feel like throwing up, why every detail impacted me so severely.

Join the Unsilenced Movement to End VCUG

It wasn’t until I connected with other VCUG survivors in a subreddit called r/VCUG_Trauma that I realized I wasn’t alone. Until then, I assumed I was a freak—the victim of some freak occurrence that my brain, and my brain alone, couldn’t handle.

This wasn’t true. Even after founding the Unsilenced Movement, I still find myself frozen in moments of awe and grief when I see my own story—details I once thought didn’t fit; that never would fit, no matter how often I tried to force them—mirrored in other courageous survivors’ stories. Details no kid should have to know. Details no adult should have to be haunted by.

Our VCUG survivors at Unsilenced were severely and irreversibly wronged by the medical community. Thanks to an appalling lack of true information about the risks and effects of VCUG—one that has frustratingly persisted until today, in 2023—myself and countless other VCUG survivors were forced to grow up as misplaced shells of the children we should have been. Children who once laughed and played and trusted that the world around them could be fun, instead of dangerous all the time.

Join the Unsilenced Movement to advocate for overdue reform in pediatric urology. Because kids deserve better. #MoreThanATest