August 03, 2004

• I think it is possible to do just that. Imagine a huge, huge, huge silent march, with, say, women who've been victims of sexual violence all wearing blue dresses. The idea of a blue dress appeals to me because of the whole "devil in a blue dress" thing; the idea of the temptress (ie; the many, many ways of blaming the victim). I'm not sure what would be appropriate/symbolic for the guys to wear. Any ideas?
• That's a good idea, make it an international day. Trite, obvious solution, but a t-shirt with the motto would be good.
• I think the blue dress is too Monica... But I think it's an heroic idea. We did a "breaking the silence" thing at my tiny college, and we had so many people wanting to share their stories of assault we had to turn some away. Some told their own, some had friends do it for them so they could stay anonymous. All were heartbreaking.
• Hmmm...hadn't thought of the Monica angle...although Monica herself was torn apart by the media for being a woman 'not attractive enough' (read fat) to really have had sex with a powerful man - and Bill still won't come clean (Monica disputes his account in his book) and say "Yeah, we were hot for each other and did it like minks...so what?" Instead, Bill sticks to his version, and Monica, therefore, is a lying cow. A sexual situation goes south, so attack the woman. Sounds familiar.
• 12 days ago i had an endoscopy. simple procedure: a long tube with a camera on the end is fed down the throat and through the upper gastrointestinal tract. patient is given 'a cross between valium and demerol' and an amnesiac so the body won't fight and anyway the mind won't remember. But it was different for me. They wheeled me in, IV in one arm, blood pressure cuff on the other, rolled me on my side and before I could see, put a thing in my mouth that held it open no matter how hard i bit down. they took my glasses. they told me to relax. one nurse held me so i stayed on my back, the other held my head in the right position for the doctor. the doctor pushed more and more and more of the tube into me. i could feel every millimeter of progress. i made noise so they would know i wasn't out but they didn't get it. i fragmented. most of me was in the place where the same thing always happens for eternity but some of me was aware of the here and now, and the importance of not fighting it. they figured it out pretty quick, that i wasn't far enough under, that i was fighting it. one nurse said 'she's coming out of it' and i would have laughed because as far as i was concerned i'd never really been in it. 'you'd better give her more' 'she's had all she can take' said the doc, and somewhere i heard 'she can take it' and it all went downhill from there. so here I am. i did it again. i was a party to my own trauma. could have been avoided had i been less reticent about telling my doc about previous traumas. he'd probably have used a different combination of drugs. or something. and never, never, never would have told me i was a 'good girl'
• moneyjane: Why only women?
• rodgerd, moneyjane included men in her comment. See this one? I'm not sure what would be appropriate/symbolic for the guys to wear. Unless you mean the men should wear blue dresses too?
• "I'm not sure what would be appropriate/symbolic for the guys to wear. Any ideas?"
• PatB, that sounds awful. Hearing about that sort of thing, I always wonder, under general anaesthetic, can I feel it but just can't remember it? Thanks for posting it.
• could have been avoided had i been less reticent about telling my doc about previous traumas. he'd probably have used a different combination of drugs. PatB; I highly recommend telling your health care providers about your trauma history. I always tell mine, and no-one has ever been anything but supportive and helpful. But if its any consolation, they probably wouldn't have done anything differently during your endoscopy even if they had known your history. Therefore your reticence is very unlikely to have affected your experience in any way. So go easy on yourself. The original assault was not your fault, and the experience of violation you had during your endoscopy was not your fault either. The choices for anesthesia in endoscopy are IV conscious sedation (what you had), or general anesthesia. In the future you could probably force your doctor into giving you general for similar procedures by refusing IV consious sedation, but I don't recommend it. General is far from risk free, and somethimes results in coma or death. I would take IV sedation over general, and I have had really horrible flashbacks under IV conscious sedation in the past. What might be helpful for future procedures though is to get your medical record and find out what drugs the docs used for your sedation. IV conscious sedation can be done with a variety of drugs, so from now on you can avoid the ones you got this time. However, just knowing your trauma history would not have kept your doctor from giving you whatever drugs you got this time, since the different drugs affect individuals differently. A different trauma survivor might have done fine with the ones you got, but had flashbacks or poor sedation from others that will be just right for you. Also, for me, when I have had invasive medical experiences that freaked me out, it has been helpful to me to put the blame where it belongs-- on the perpetrator of the original assault. I conceptualize my experience during the medical procedure not as a new trauma but as a flashback of sorts, a reliving of the feelings from the original rape. That way I only have to deal with having been assaulted long ago, in a situation I will never be in again.
• and about 1 in 7 boys are victims of early childhood sexual assault. As a 47 year old male survivor of a particularly severe series of such early childhood assaults, which have left me unable to eIn the studies I have read of, about 1 in 4 girls njoy sexual relationships, I greatly resent the suggestion that men do not significantly figure as victims of this behaviour. It is ironic that although I could never treat anyone as I was treated, and am well able to comprehend the feelings of those women who have been sexual violence victims, I am lumped in with the spurious category of "male abusers" by ill-informed persons who appear to lack not only intelligence but both compassioin and good will toward men.
• amark-zhirole; you are absolutely right. It's abuser/victim; not male/female, straight/gay, or any other arbitrary designation.
• krebs cycle, I have done a lot of soul-searching about this over the years and I believe I do have some responsibility for what happened. And while in most cases I can intellectually orient myself in time and space when the past overwhelms, this time the decades of perspective were erased. Part of it was the drugs, I think made it harder to get a grip. And part of it was the enormity of the body-memory. Now I'm in the midst of a bout of PTSD--haven't had it this bad in years. Stupid hippocampus. If this follows the old pattern, the most acute symptoms will die down in a week or two and I'll no longer have to fear doing something embarassing in public. PF, I've done a bit of googling since this happened and discovered a whole buncha stuff about awareness and anaesthesia. I'd give you links, but cut-n-paste is a bit beyond me right now. amark-zhirole I think that one in seven thing is a bit low. you and I are about the same age: I'm thinking you got doubly victimized by the Women's Movement of the late 70's-early 80's, when all men were perps and all women were made powerful by their victimhood. Somewhere along the line we lost the distinction between rape and discrimination and what that has to do with you is beyond me. Oh, I'm not saying this right. i think this may be a nacent rant. I'm not even sure what nacent means. what I mean by it is not-quite-there. apologies to all, I must find somewhere else for this diahrrea of the fingers. this is stuff that can't come out of my mouth, but apparently will easily run out of my fingers.
• PatB - your story is valuable, so don't worry about saying too much with your fingers, especially if it helps you get past your demons. I'n not sure we can be of any real help to you, except maybe to listen, but I know we're here for you if you need us. I hope you find peace.
• your story is valuable aaaahhhh (deep sigh) that's it, path. that's exactly what my clients needed to hear, what i need to hear. if i ever wrote a book it would be called 'anecdotal evidence' thank you all. and fret not; these demons are old acquaintances. We have learned to make accomodations for each other. They give me hypervigilance when I feel threatened; in return they get to stomp the shit out of me when the immediate threat has passed. For me, they are Elementals (stupid hippocampus) and have become part of my personal mythology. Now I'm gonna go play KoL and for those of you who have read this far, thank you, too. Peace.
• PatB - PTSD is a stone cold bitch. I've got the Complex (Chronic) version and am on a permanent insomniac simmering hair-trigger wall-punching rage fest without prozac/wellbutrin/seroquel soothing the beastie. The good news? I put the fun in high functioning, and unless I tell people this stuff, they have no idea - that, and medication does work for me, and in small doses as well. The other good stuff is that being a callgirl, chronic hyper-awareness is a good thing.
• Plus I am a bell-ringing fucking whiz at drywall repair.
• Holy shit moneyjane-- a call girl and a sheetrocker? you are the Uber Xena! If you ever need a vacation from being a sex worker, feel free to visit me here in the woods. I totally need to have this shack sheetrocked. But please leave your stiletto and brass knucks home, mmmkay? I'd hate to have us get into a bitchfest and accidentally kill each other. We could sit around the campfire of an evening and sing the best songs from the musical 'Chicago' do you know anything about wiring?
• Tracy the error I keep getting is: Parameter entity must be defined before it is used. Error processing resource 'http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml11/DTD/xhtml11.dtd'. Line 85, Position 2 %xhtml-prefw-redecl.mod; _^
• Shit. Apparently my posts are being rerouted through Ashcroft's Department of Redundancy Department.
• Wiring I don't do - but brass knuckles - does anyone actually possess some? Unlike all that weird 70's ninja shit, I've never actually seen any...not that I need any, mind you, but still...
• Brass knuckles didn't do this guy a lot of good.
• Sorry, PatB, but that's not a problem with MoFi - it's complaining about some HTML but there's nothing wrong in the source for your comments. It could be your proxy - I honestly don't know. Let me know if it's still doing it next time you're commenting.
• And while in most cases I can intellectually orient myself in time and space when the past overwhelms, this time the decades of perspective were erased. PatB; Yeah, I didn't mean while the medical experience is going on-- for me too that has been impossible. Like you said, its the drugs. The amnesiolytics (drugs used in IV sedation to both sedate you and make you forget the procedure), especially Versed, which is one of the two front line IV sedation drugs, exacerbate flashbacks. I meant afterwards, as a way to frame the memory of the medical experience as a flashback-type experience rather than a new trauma. That has been helpful for me. Still hard though. I am even afraid to get a mamogram. Need xanax to get dental care. Pretty pathetic. (I have PTSD too, chronically, for years). As far as accepting responsibility for your own contribution to the violence; I think sometimes that can be appropriate and healing, other times not. It depends on the situation. For me, I absolve myself of any contibution, based on age (I was 10 when I was raped, and the perpetrator was in his 30s). YMMV. amark-zhirole; As tough a row to hoe as female survivors of sexual violence have, I think men often have it even worse. There is the prejudice you mentioned that confuses the category "men" with the category "perpetrators", and also, I think the social stigma of being a rape victim is generally even more severe for men than it is for women. But I'm sure you know that all too well already. Pat and amark (moneyjane, you too), you are in my thoughts, and I hope for peace and healing to come to you.
• Thank you, kc. Healing; probably not, but acceptance, for better or worse? Yes. The stuff I like about me wouldn't be there without the endocrine-system-fucked-for-life bit. Acceptance of those responsible? Not a change. Forgiveness is a big favour you do for small people.