#vcug

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Going through another bout of working through my trauma. I underwent a procedure called a VCUG as a small child and TL;DR it's a bladder examination that involves forced urethral penetration and bladder filling and then pissing onto a table in front of multiple strangers and usually, a parent. It's humiliating, violating and painful and literally causes the same psychological damage as a violent rape. So basically, i am a rape survivor. All it took was once and my brain has long been messed up ever since.

But it's difficult to not feel alone. It's difficult to feel like i have the right to feel upset or triggered with all the shit that's been coming out lately, such as with the Epstein files. Like, "well Fae, what the fuck do you have to be triggered for? Your assault was medical and assumed to be for your health, that's so not the same as being exploited for sex."

Mates...

Ash had to literally look me in the face and remind me that being penetrated with medical tools against my will in what is effectively still experimental, while nurses laughed and smiled at me and being robbed of my privacy and safety and being horribly violated...is in fact something to be triggered about. I just feel so detached from it sometimes, i learned to invalidate my experiences at such a young age that it's hard for me to connect with my trauma in a way that reminds me... "hey, yeah, it's okay to be triggered." Not even just in the wake of the files, but ever. I feel like i don't have a community.

I oftentimes feel broken or completely alone with this niche trauma. Even a VCUG survivors group i found doesn't feel like i belong there bc they share your stories to raise awareness (i shared mine), but i haven't managed to connect with anyone. It's cold and lonely, i feel like i'm outside looking in.

Idk entirely why i'm sharing all this. It's just been something I'm struggling with. I think it's why my Snupin fic has been so important to me lately, as it has encapsulated so, so many elements of my PTSD about so many things and the release has been euphoric. But it's also been really hard.

I think the VCUG i had is the reason i am so willing and able to hold myself together and walk headstrong into difficult shit that needs to be done, like medical procedures, actual life-altering decisions and deaths. And why i can walk other people through those things. Things that are just totally unavoidable or beneficial to healing from injury or an emergency, i can soldier myself through, no matter how painful.

Just something i'm chewing on atm.

MRI, CT, VCUG, BIOPSY, and JOINT INJECTIONS. These are a few terms that will be rocking my internal sound track over the next few months while I transition into a new nursing position, in pediatric radiology! I loved my pediatric heart transplant and step-down unit, but I just kept feeling like i wanted a new challenge and new schedule to shake things up a bit. This new job is for sure different, swapping three days a week with holidays and weekends for five days a week with neither. I'm missing my group of floor nurses and staff like crazy already, but meeting new people can be fun... right? 

The work flow is a huge change too, the floor is 100% busy 100% of the time, there is ALWAYS something that you can, or should be doing. However MRI seems a bit more relaxed, you have downtime, and yes, there are things to fill those voids but definitely not every minute, nor is the demand of the nurse nearly as intensive as on the floor.