Trigger warning: Feels like sexual abuse but “a doctor told her to”. Am I wrong to feel this way?

[Anonymous]

What’s the purpose of your question?
How do you suggest she should have treated it?

[Anonymous]

RN here. I'm sorry OP. I can understand why it would have felt violating and traumatic. Unfortunately I've had to give enemas on confused elderly patients and can understand how horrible it is. But constipation can lead to serious complications, including death.

I would strongly suggest working with a therapist who deals with trauma and PTSD.

[Anonymous]

This was the standard approach for encopresus for a long time. Nothing in your post suggests it was even remotely sexual for your mother.

That doesn't mean it wasn't legitimately traumatic for you. But sometimes medical treatments are traumatic. I had scarlet fever when I was 11 and had a high fever for days with delusions that if I pooped, all of my insides would poop out of me into the toilet. I remember writhing in pain, I had to go so badly, but I held it in for fear of my life. My father, on doctor recommendation, finally held me long enough to insert a suppository into my anus. It was SO humiliating and awful. For both of us. It was traumatic.

But was it abusive? No. Was it necessary? I imagine so. When it kicked in, I pooped a "welcome back to life" bowel movement of the century and felt 4 million times better immediately after.

It was worse for him than for me.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Suppositories or enemas to treat a health condition that if left untreated can have fatal results (blockage) is not sexual abuse. Unfortunately how the medical treatment was provided seems like it was traumatic for you. That can be the case for many invasive medical procedures. But it isn’t sexual abuse.

+1
The treatment has not fully changed either. A close friend had to do this to her daughter from 5-7 a few years ago. There was an even worse treatment involving electric stimulation. This was not at a quack place either. The child went to Georgetown and got opinions at Hopkins and children’s.

[Anonymous]

I think invasive is a better word than sexual abuse. To me, your mother was not getting any enjoyment or sexual enjoyment for following medical orders. Yes, it is an area which is an orifice which can be used for sexual purposes. But so could, say, someone's mouth. And if someone pulled a rotten tooth from your mouth against your protests, that wouldn't be considered sexual abuse, would it?

I'm sorry you had to go through with that. It very likely was traumatizing and violating. My own child had some constipation but luckily I never had to do enemas. I can't imagine having to do that to her, especially if it were causing her pain and suffering. Most likely your poor mom was somewhat traumatized by the experience too!

I recommend some somatic therapy to help heal and move forward. Practice good boundaries.

[Anonymous]

Chiming in to say not abuse, and not even inappropriate. IT was the common medical treatment at the time...and still now.

Parents often half to do things for health that children do not like or understand. The fact that it dealt with your anus doesn't make it any different.

-thermometers in baby butts
- holding down a child for ear or eye drops
- cleaning painful wounds
- any try of forced dental care
- moving limbs for physical therapy

It goes on.

You are basically asking if any physical intervention that a young child does not willing consent to is abuse. It isn't.

[Anonymous]

I think there are two separate issues here.

One is the medical need to have given you the enemas. No, I don’t think it was abuse, even if there was a better way the implementation could have been handled.

The second is your experience of it and your nmoms dynamic with you. This is the part that I think is more significant and why it is still an issue and a triggering memory. With nmoms they just cannot validate or empathize with an experience of their child’s, especially if that experience might invoke any sense of guilt, shame or reflection of actions on their part. They will actually double down and dump that shame on the child in the form of judgment and condemnation. This makes it really difficult to ever feel understood or seen or supported by the child, even into adulthood. This is where reparenting oneself comes into play. Your mother cannot, because she is incapable of empathy for this situation, hear you and be emotionally available to your experience of this event. I would suggest some inner healing work to soothe the inner child in you that felt traumatized by this experience.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think there are two separate issues here.

One is the medical need to have given you the enemas. No, I don’t think it was abuse, even if there was a better way the implementation could have been handled.

The second is your experience of it and your nmoms dynamic with you. This is the part that I think is more significant and why it is still an issue and a triggering memory. With nmoms they just cannot validate or empathize with an experience of their child’s, especially if that experience might invoke any sense of guilt, shame or reflection of actions on their part. They will actually double down and dump that shame on the child in the form of judgment and condemnation. This makes it really difficult to ever feel understood or seen or supported by the child, even into adulthood. This is where reparenting oneself comes into play. Your mother cannot, because she is incapable of empathy for this situation, hear you and be emotionally available to your experience of this event. I would suggest some inner healing work to soothe the inner child in you that felt traumatized by this experience.

And to add - this type of invalidation, and even emotional punishment for trying to express feelings that the mother doesn’t want to hear, was probably experience thousands of times by you as a child and adult. So when this memory comes up for you or you try talking about it with your mom all those experiences compound upon the invalidation you feel in the present conversation. A part of you may still be trying to find wholeness in these conversations with your mom, but she is not able to provide it. Once you realize this and begin to seek the wholeness and healing for yourself (it is possible. The mother in you can reparent the child within you) then you will stop seeking it from you mother.

[Anonymous]

I think you’re confused about what constitutes sexual abuse. The aggressor would be doing it for sexual pleasure. Is that what you think your mom did?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It was traumatic. Not sounding like sexual abuse. It could absolutely feel like a violation. Guessing you were both pretty elevated emotionally at the time and that could be traumatic and stored as well.

Agree with this. The labels aren’t as important as figuring out how to process what’s going on for you.

There’s two vats of trauma, the original trauma that led to the constipation, that you are too young to remember and is likely benign (you had a big scary poop once that hurt, and your two year old self decided never again) and which resulted in the resulting violating enemas when you were older.

You’re also angry at your mother, for those same two reasons. How could this person let you suffer? Why did she make you endure this pain as a child?

A good therapist can help you unpack this stuff and help you sort this stuff out so that you can truly heal. It will require forgiving your mom for both making the decisions she did then and also accepting that she may not ever understand how traumatic it was.

Personally, that’s last one is the toughest for me and my one healing journey. Accepting that the parent who causes me harm is never going to truly recognize their actions were harmful. Because, from her perspective, they weren’t. They were the advice that was given to her. So, it’s on me to take responsibility for my feelings and get the help I need independently of her. And holding on to the anger only inhibits my healing.

Good luck.

[Anonymous]

There was nothing sexual about what you’re describing, OP. And I can see why it felt abusive. But treating your child’s medical condition is not abuse.

The mere fact that the treatment involved a private area of your body did not make it abuse.

[Anonymous]

Most children who have the condition you describe develop it after having a painful bowel movement once (because of severe constipation) and then they refuse to poop again after that. It’s INCREDIBLY common. Maybe it can also result from emotional trauma, as you say? I don’t know. But lots and lots of kids get it from constipation.

[Anonymous]

OP try forcing yourself not to poop for a month, and then see whether that feels better than getting an enema

And look up "general" in a dictionary.

[Anonymous]

A good therapist can help you unpack this stuff and help you sort this stuff out so that you can truly heal.

Just like that OP'd Mom did 30 year as a ago.

Now I understand what the Joker meant when he said "this town needs an enema".

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think this is a troll post. I’m reporting you.

You think OP is full of *it again, but metaphorically this time?