Dear Hospitals of my past,

I want to apologise.  And explain.

I’m an abuse survivor, a fact I have often chosen, out of shame and an inability to work out how/whom to tell, to conceal.  It always becomes evident very quickly though doesn’t it, that something is wrong. 

So, there I was after surgery.  I wasn’t aware (or had forgotten) that I’d wake restrained to the bed by things which squeezed my legs like hands I couldn’t remove.  Which somewhat explains the degree of horrific-ness in my reaction.   

I couldn’t explain my distress when it was a male nurse who stripped me naked in the middle of the room for my shower.  The bathroom door was closed by me but suddenly opened by a nurse – no warning.  I slipped because I was trying to run away.  I dissociated when I realised that I couldn’t.  Meaning that I was not able to answer those questions about my pain, because I could no longer feel my body.

Then, when my brain reconnected to my body the physical pain from the surgery reminded me of childhood pain.  The pain was uncontrollable, as were my flashbacks.  Each washed into the other.  I did not swim well and didn’t know how to ask for help. 

I know one shouldn’t ever assume anything, but I arrived with that stereotypical belief that 99% of nurses are female.  Which was cool.  Males scare me.  Gosh you had a lot of male nurses.  A lot. They were nice chaps, but they were the reason I didn’t want to shower.  Or lie in the bed.  Sitting all night on lino does not bother me.  Not compared to being ‘tied’ to a bed with metal cage-like sides surrounded by men. 

I knew it was my responsibility to control my fear.  I tried.  Truly I did.  But it was well past my control and it was that lack-of-control-over-myself feeling which escalated my hysteria a notch.  By then I had become a terrified child in a woman’s body. 

Cognitively I grasped the need to check how I was going physically, and knew that was why I had an arm/wrist/finger periodically touched to measure this that and the other.  However, that emotional part of my brain conjured large hands from my past and as I saw them rapidly approaching, I admit I was not cooperative.  And those red marks on my wrist that staff kept asking about?  They were the result of my vain attempts to remove the plastic bracelet thing which felt like a hand restraining my wrist.

I’m very sorry for shoving that nurse.  I look like I need a hug, she said, suddenly grabbing me in a bear hug.  So quickly I couldn’t dart away.  That salvo of patient buzzers? 

That was when I tried to break away from her and she held me tighter in response. 

It would have been difficult to spot but I was genuinely regretful for causing trouble.  That’s what made me cry again.  Loudly. 

Someone rang my friend, held the phone to my ear. 

It was a good idea.  However, she became very unhappy as I screamed at her to bail me out.  A situation escalated by my batting away of the proffered glass of milk that I was convinced was sedative-laced. 

Trapped in my cage, visiting friends/co-workers became terrifying monsters perplexed by my misinterpreted ungratefulness.  Caused, they assumed, by the painkillers.  Not of cause, childhood trauma.  Because admittedly who would pull that reason out of the air?  It’s not something one typically thinks of when confronted by an anti-social patient/friend/co-worker.  In my pj’s in bed I felt threatened.  Really threatened.  I didn’t want visitors – random people popping unexpectedly through the door anywhere, anyhow, any time.  All of them ignoring my hysterical demands for phone calls only.  And then there were the volunteers – newspapers for sale, hand massages, magazines.  My doorway kept filling with kind but misguided people – reminding me of lying in bed at night as a child, waiting for that open door.

Then.  The Endone caused constipation.  It took six hands and one knee to pin me to the bed as the nurses weighed up over my naked bottom the pros vs cons of proceeding.  Three people I could not see.  And a penetration which I knew was coming. 

My dissociated sluggishness to follow instructions was assumed to be defiance, further straining relationships.

Not wanting another enema, I refused to eat anything other than clear soup.  One type.  My only way of controlling chaos.  My liquid crumb of power.  Staff seemed relieved. 

Countless patients over the years had demonstrated their trustworthiness with the metal cutlery.  But, speedy at hiding things and very much into self-harm, I demonstrated that soup is the best meal choice for me (minus the bread roll with its accompanying butter knife).

I am perhaps your most memorable patient. 

This is what childhood trauma looks like for me.  In my mind I was a child trapped in a bed about to be abused by people who should protect me. 

Feeling trapped is my guaranteed trigger.  So, a hospital is one of my worst places…

NOTE: This information describes an amalgamation of events which occurred across a number of different hospitals. Some details have been changed for anonymity.

This version written Dec, 2019