Author: Derek
Content Warning: VCUG; Sexual Trauma; Medical Trauma
I lay here in my bed trying to sleep but sleep can’t find me. I keep replaying the words in my head. High creatinine. Kidney ultrasound ordered. Mildly hyper echoic. Indications of nonspecific chronic kidney disfunction. Is the reflux back? Has it returned? Maybe it never really resolved itself and it’s gotten worse.
I close my eyes and it all repeats itself. I can’t sleep. I roll over and I’m sweating. The anxiety is seeping from my pores. You stole sleep from me. You stole a lot of things from me.
I laid on your cold table and shook with sobs while you cleaned between my legs. I positioned myself as told. I screamed as you violated my eight-year-old body in the name of medicine. I cried hysterically. I screamed at you to stop, to take the tube out and you wouldn’t. You ignored me. You acted as though I was a dummy instead of a living, breathing child.
The first time it happened, my mother told me I had to be still and do what I was told, or I’d be held down and even though I was only six, I knew that meant it would be worse. And at eight years old, I was begging you not to do it before you even started. But your mind was made up. I was there for you to do whatever you wanted. Maybe four feet tall and no more than sixty to seventy pounds, I was easy to manipulate if necessary.
I didn’t want to be there. I wanted to be anywhere but there. My body bare from the waist down, I was cursed to lay on your cold table. I was restrained by my need to be a good child. Nobody glued me to that cold table except for myself. Be good. Be good. Be good. It was drilled into me from birth. Be a good child. Listen. Do what adults tell you to do. Don’t let anyone touch you there. They’re doctors though, so it’s okay.
What was okay about it? What’s so okay about letting someone shoving a tube that felt more like a sword into my genitals just because they have a degree? What’s so okay about being violated by someone whose entire job is about helping children? What’s so okay about her smiling sadistically at the end and thinking that showing me the balloon at the tip was going to make me feel better?
I’ve spent the last twenty-eight years in fear that it will happen again. In the past three years I’ve come to realize and feel empowered that I can say no and walk away. Now all of this talk of renal issues brings it all to a head again and because you chose to torture me while I begged you for mercy, I can’t sleep. I can’t get you and your table and your weapon and your smile out of my head. “Do no harm.” Did you miss that part of your oath? Did you not take it seriously? Do no harm, unless it’s a pathetic eight-year-old whose urine is flowing backwards towards the kidneys. Do no harm, unless that stupid kid is a complete basket case because then it’s just funny to proceed.
I’ve forgiven you many times over the past few years and I still am forgiving you. I’ll never forget though. You stole so much from me that day. When I walked out the door, I left most of my innocence on that table. My ability to trust doctors, my sense of autonomy, my self-esteem, my self-worth.
I’ve regained some of the trust and autonomy recently. I’ve taken back my body. But the innocence could never be replaced. I’ll never have all of the trust back. You stole things from me that I will never get back. You stole it in the name of medicine. All because I had to be a good kid. All because I couldn’t rock the boat or fight back. All because it was important that I obey and make adults happy. All because it was important to hear how well-behaved I was, how pleasant I was. You took advantage of that.
I’ve forgiven you many times over the past few years and I still am forgiving you. I’ll never forget though. You stole so much from me that day. When I walked out the door, I left most of my innocence on that table. My ability to trust doctors, my sense of autonomy, my self-esteem, my self-worth.
There is a life that I will never know because of what you did to me. I’ll never know who I would have been if you didn’t torture me. The trauma you caused changed me drastically. Would I have been able to avoid being abused by my ex? Would I have maintained a life without crippling depression and anxiety attacks? I’ll never know. I’ll never know who I could have been if you hadn’t touched my body.
They say our cells regenerate every seven years. If that’s the case, nothing you touched is on me anymore. Except it is. No amount of regeneration will get rid of your hands and your soap and your sword and the way you smiled at me when you finished your torment. No number of years, of decades, will erase the way you contorted my body and my mind. No concussion will shake it loose. No amount of time will give me back in full what you stole from me.
You stole so much, and you sold it so cheap. Or perhaps you never sold it. Maybe it sits in a jar on your mantle for everyone to see. Yes, I see it now. You have your house parties and it’s the big talking piece. The day you completely destroyed a child in under one hour. See the pieces in this jar, you’d say. I stole these, pretty cool right? Laughing with your friends and colleagues as you remember it all.
Perhaps you brought home little strips of film from the imaging and put in a photo album, wrote the date next to them, my name. Maybe you revisit them, marvel over how overfilled my bladder is in these images. Maybe you wrote how I had blonde hair, and brown eyes that turned black by the time you finished with me. The way you opened the door to watch me leave in utter shame. Sending me on to live a life of suicidal ideation, of anger that would take me years to get under control.
Maybe you wrote about how my stomach sank the moment you stepped out into the waiting room to call my name. Or about how I spent my whole life hyper fixated on being good, so much so that I let you violate me because that’s what a good child would do. How you held so much power in those moments that I obeyed your every command and didn’t even try to fight you.
One day maybe you’ll have an epiphany and burn those strips of film and those notes. Set them ablaze and watch the ashes float in the air. Maybe you’ll feel some sort of remorse for what you did to me. Maybe you’ll wonder what became of me and maybe you’ll realize that just because medicine says it’s okay to do what you did, morally it wasn’t.
Do you see my face in your nightmares, too? Do you find yourself reliving those moments and trying to dream up how it could have gone differently if you’d listened to me? Do you mourn the me that could have been if you had left me alone? Did it change you? Do you think about who you’d be today if you hadn’t touched me?
The reality of it all is that I’m not even a blip in your memory. I blend in with the faces of everyone you treated. I was nothing to you then, and I am nothing to you now. But I am somebody. You never thought so and you never will, but it’s true. I’m somebody. Despite what you thought, I was a living, breathing child then and I am a living, breathing man today. You ripped me apart like a puzzle shoved off a table, but I’ve put a lot of pieces back together again. There are pieces that I’ll never find, but I’m finding every last one I can.
Even with all that you did, and the way you scarred the deepest fibers of my being, I still wish you well. I wish you peace and I wish you safety. I hope you never have to experience what I did, that your sense of safety and peace and being is not stolen so viciously by another person. As angry and bitter as I can be at times towards you, I forgive you. I forgive you every day. And I pray you ask God to forgive you, too. He will if you just ask Him.
I was nothing to you then, and I am nothing to you now. But I am somebody. You never thought so and you never will, but it’s true. I’m somebody. Despite what you thought, I was a living, breathing child then and I am a living, breathing man today.
I’m going to end this letter and close my laptop. I’ll lay my head on my pillow, I’ll pray, pull one of my favorite blankets around me, and turn on my favorite comfort music. I’ll take a breath, and I’ll close my eyes. Now that I’ve said all to you that I want to say for now, maybe I can find sleep.
And while I sleep, I won’t see your face or hear your voice. I’ll float into a space you’ll never find. A space where you won’t be able to hurt me again. A space where I can be free from everything that happened, and the memories don’t exist. A space of serenity and security. A space I’ve been needing and a space that is mine alone. Tonight, in that space, I will be safe, and I will be at peace.
Join the Unsilenced Movement
Thousands of former patients have been irreparably traumatized by the "gold-standard" voiding cystourethrogram procedure. Join the Unsilenced Movement to raise awareness about the life-altering risks of VCUG trauma and prevent future generations of kids from suffering the same adverse health outcomes.
Comentários