Forward by Kevin Gourley, President, AdvocateWeb

The following is a moving personal story from a member of our AdvocateWeb Community about the harmful impact medical professionals can have on their patients. Whether this was deliberate abuse or incredibly insensitive improper treatment of a patient, there is no doubt that this experience would be traumatizing to anyone. Male victims of abuse are an especially oppressed group, often feeling very isolated, with few resources acknowledging that males as well as females are victims of abuse. We applaud this survivor for speaking out and sharing his story with the world.

I grew up in a family with two elder sisters and no siblings around my age.  In my early years I lived almost entirely away from any neighborhoods.  Because my parents rarely had friends over with kids, my youngest years were spent essentially either playing by myself or tagging along behind my sisters.   I got few opportunities to socialize with other children until we moved into a neighborhood after second grade. Sure, I saw kids in the first two grades, but never got to play with them after school.  Since I also spent these two grades in different schools, I largely regarded others my age not as actual friends, but as entities that existed at school only, and whom I would soon never see again.  The concept of getting to share after-school playtime with a child my age was foreign to me, as was the concept of an extended friendship.

When I moved into a neighborhood the summer before third grade, I was first introduced to many the “male” activities that the others had been playing for years: baseball, American football, war games, fort building, and such.  With acquiring my first friends, the notions of caring what others thought of me and of gaining their respect suddenly became important. Since respect was largely measured at that age by how well you could perform in these boy games that I was just beginning to learn, I started out in a clear deficit.    

It did not help that I was really small.  I was usually one of the 3 or 4 smallest students of either gender in class.  When I played on a little-league baseball team, the opposing players therefore would move in closer when I was up to bat.  When we split into teams for a game at school during recess, I was often one of the last ones chosen.  I felt like a liability, which is never good for one’s ego.  Also at that age, the bullies were basically cowards, selecting always the smallest boys to pick on.  While I was working hard to catch up with the abilities of my friends, I had to also learn how to keep the bullies at bay, and to defend my honor.

In Junior High, where more obvious social tiers began to appear, I realized that I would have to do well in some extra-curricular activity to have a chance of being noticed and respected at school.  Back in Oklahoma, the only activities that appeared to gather much respect for boys were sports.  Being too small for the football team and too short for the basketball team, I settled upon track, after a brief trial at wrestling. While I could not control how big I was, I planned to show these larger guys that I was as tough as they were, could take as much pain as they could, and could compete with the best of them in activities where I had close to equal footing. I accomplished this, too, outside on the track, and on the gym floor doing man-makers.

I became a pretty good runner.  I lettered in cross-country my first year in high school and was the second-best runner on the team – beating out dozens of boys older than I was.  I would eventually go on to make all-conference by my senior year.  I found that earning an athletic letter before any of the other boys your age had does wonders for ones status and self-esteem.  It also helped that our coach was adept at publicity: getting cheerleaders and pep club out for our competitions, having good performances recognized in the school announcements, and ensuring a large share of photos in the year-book. 

Make no mistake, I was not one of the really popular guys – cross-country alone can’t do that for you.  Yet, compared to where I started from, I felt I had finally arrived.  By now I had also undergone a significant growth spurt.  I was no longer one of the very smallest boys, although I was still quite small: only 104 pounds by the middle of 10th grade. 

Although many of the bullies of my grade school had dropped out of school by high school, there was still plenty of oppression going around.  The cross-country team invariably hit the sports showers at the same time as the football players. Being the huge-guy sport, they did not consider those in any other sports to be as macho as they were.  While the whole cross-country team was usually getting slandered, the football players also had no qualms at picking out individuals to cast insults at their manhood.

This is not to say that only the football players engaged in this. They merely did the most because they were the largest. Even among the cross-country runners, taunting occurred all the time. It was often aimed at those who could not perform well, who habitually messed up, or who appeared to not be trying hard. It was commonly viewed that such harassment would motivate the boys to do better next time. However, it was also often cast at those boys that simply had not yet learned how to completely fit in.

If you wished to avoid having your masculinity challenged, the worst thing to do was to act in any way out of the norm of male behavior.   You should never act weak or vulnerable, or give any indication that an insult thrown your way actually stung. If you ever showed that such needling got to you, it would forever be relentless. One runner who violated these guidelines rarely spent a day in practice without receiving several comments questioning his gender and sexuality.  He was habitually welcomed onto the practice field with a rousing chorus of Helen Reddy’s song: “I Am Woman”. 

I was at first surprised that very few insults were ever aimed at me.  I think this was largely because I had worked hard and was successful.  Nothing that they could throw my way could stick, and I knew how to give it back.  I also did not get any harassment from the football players because I was still too small to have any realistic chance of making the football team.  Ironically, now my size was a benefit.  It was medium sized boys who were having most of the problems, because many of them had neither encountered much abuse before, nor learned how to deflect it.

Although some boys were visibly hurt by cruel harassment, I was not offended by it because I was largely immune to it.  I viewed it as part of the growing up experience.  I had lived through it, let these boys have their turn. The guys that dished it out did it mostly in fun, and they were overall not too bad of guys.  While I did not hang around with that type, I had no problem with any of them, and they had no problem with me.  The abuse was simply part of the jock culture in which I was well meshing. This was my time. I was the most confident I had ever been, and my self-esteem was growing every day.  I felt on top of the world.

Then the world was dashed from under me.

In my junior year, I found that I encountered a slight incontinence for a few days in a row after workout.  Although I presumed that it might be due to my body simply relaxing too much after the heavy exercise, it was unusual enough that I mentioned it to my parents. One day, my parents told me that they had made an appointment for me with a doctor for that problem.  The next morning, my dad drove me to the doctor’s office.  After I was brought in, my dad went and waited outside in the car.

Although I knew I was going because of the incontinence, I had neither questioned my parents about what would happen, nor given any thought about what I assumed would be a routine doctor’s visit.  I figured that it would be nothing more than perhaps a urine sample and blood-work.  If I had had any hint of what would really happen, it is possible that things may have turned out very differently.  As it was, I was totally unprepared physically, mentally, and emotionally for what was to about to occur.

I first was simply directed to remove all my clothes, and put on a patient’s gown, such that it tied in front.  Into the room came the doctor, assisted by two nurses.  One nurse I guess was late twenties, the other was probably about forty.   I was told to get onto the table.  My gown was opened completely, with the tail of the gown slid up above my seat.  The doctor ordered me place my arms on the table well away from my body, for what reason, I do not know.  The arms of the table upon which my legs were resting were then rotated out such that my legs were spread wide, with my groin area hanging over the edge of the table.  The doctor and one nurse worked in the area between my legs, while the other nurse worked at the outside of my thigh.

While I was used to being naked in front of other guys in the sports showers, I was a little unprepared and uncomfortable to without forewarning find myself in such an open position with two females present.  I remember wishing that I could have had warning, so I could have gotten mentally comfortable with the idea before it occurred.  At this age, of course, my greatest fear was that I would get an erection in front of all these people. I naively thought at the time that this would have been the worst thing that could ever happen to me.  As a defense, I steeled up my body and emotions so that, whatever happened, nothing would seem sexual.

The doctor then put a clear container under my penis and ordered me to urinate into it.  I was very surprised and irritated that he wanted me to do this with himself and the nurses present. I had always before had the option to do this in privacy.  Although only the doctor was obviously watching, I could not relax my bladder under these conditions with everyone so close and everything so out on the open.  While my bladder was fairly full, I was in pee lock.  When I did not immediately produce anything, the doctor stuck his gloved finger fully up my anus and pressed on something in a way that caused a single squirt of urine to flow out of me. I was perturbed that he neither consulted me nor gave me any warning before he did that.

After a while, a short catheter was inserted up my urethra. I shuttered as I felt it scraping the sides of my urethra all the way to my bladder.  After the tube was fully in, they released a clamp, and I involuntarily emptied.

This is not a case of a catheter going into a discrete bag down at the side of the table.  This was an open tube, guided by a nurse, such that I could hear the urine falling into some sort of metal pan below me.  If I had thought that suddenly being spread-legged and naked in front of strangers was uncomfortable, now to find myself also fully urinating in such a manner was far more so.  I could feel the sensations of the urine flowing out.  Since I really didn’t want to be doing this, my muscles clamped down on my bladder to try to stop the flow.  Of course, this action did nothing, but the tighter pressure on the catheter caused the feelings to be more acute.

If you are ticklish, consider the difference between you trying to tickle yourself and someone else doing it to you.  As hard as you try, you cannot tickle yourself.  Even if you use some object instead of your own hand, it simply does not feel ticklish when you are controlling the action.   With very little effort, however, someone else can cause a strong tickle response when they do the very same things you tried.  The fact that you are not in control causes the response.  When my daughter was very young, she would come up to me and beg to be tickled.  At that age, she was willing, in fact, eager, to surrender total control of her body and feelings in that area, in order to experience the intense ecstasy of laughter!  Just a little older, though, and she was less eager to surrender such control.  At that point, the same intense feelings caused by tickling become unpleasant and cruel.

The sensations of involuntarily urinating through this tight tube were strong and unnatural.  At that sexually-charged age, I grant that perhaps one could have found those sensations to not be so disagreeable under different circumstances. In the right context, a boy of that age would be willing and eager to surrender control and feelings in that area, in order to experience sexual pleasure.  However, because any sexual feelings were the last thing I wanted and what I was suppressing at all costs, the sensation of urinating under someone else’s control was degrading and unnerving.  The feelings were not so unsettling, though, as to make me lose my composure.  I was resolved to fight that.  At seventeen, image was extremely important.  I was determined to make it through this like a man. I re-doubled my effort to making sure I remained poker-faced and outwardly emotionless. At that age I could see no other choice.

When the urination was finished, I started to relax somewhat.  That did not last long.  Flat on my back, I could feel them raise the short catheter and do something to the other end of the tube. After a while they then started pumping liquid INTO my bladder.  While I detested the helpless feeling of urinating not under my control, this was far worse.  Each pump sent a pressurized surge of fluid up through me and into my bladder.  Even though the involuntary urination was unpleasant, I could still calm myself by deciding that the feelings were somewhat similar to just peeing.  This was quite different. It was not supposed to go in that direction, and it was not supposed to flow in surges.  It really felt revolting.  My lower body gagged at each thrust, but was powerless to prevent it.

I had already been naked on that table for quite a while suppressing substantial emotions, embarrassment, and responses to the gross sensations caused by the pumping and involuntary urination. Though I had locked up my emotions tightly behind a barrier, I could feel my willpower fading. None of the emotional energy had yet been released from the entire ordeal – it was just being internalized.  I so wished that the strong, unnatural sensations were of pain.  I knew how to deal with pain. Pain had helped me gain the respect of my peers. But this absolutely helpless feeling of somebody else in control of my body and my private functions was more than I could readily handle over an extended period of time, especially laying there in such a weak position.

What I really desired to do was put my legs back together, or at least squeeze my thigh muscles against something to expend energy in this area of my body.  Because the table scissored-out and did not have stirrups per-se, I had nothing stable to squeeze against. Moreover, there were people and equipment in the way.  So in addition to having to calmly deal with very unnatural sensations in my genital area, I had to consciously resist the urge to put my legs together, which would have interfered with their work.  I desperately needed, though, some way to release this pent-up emotional energy and get back to a position of strength.  Unfortunately, one is in a posture of absolute weakness when one is flat on his back, naked, spread armed, and spread legged.  Extreme feelings of helplessness crept over me.

I searched for something else brace against.  I started bringing my arms in to my chest so I could squeeze my arms together tightly.  “Put your arms down!” I immediately obeyed.  The doctor said that in a tone not of one person talking to an equal, but of a parent chastising a naughty child.  I was exasperated.  Why in the world would it matter if I did this?  They were not in his way!   Bewildered, I started just to bring my hands in to my sides so I could at least brace them against my hips. I was rebuked in such a way again by the doctor.

I was fuming!  Why was he treating me like a small naughty child when I am naked in front of these women?  Did he think I was going to play with myself?  Why does he care what I do with my arms and hands when they are not effecting what he is doing?  Trying to maintain my poker-face, I was internally furious at him!  Perhaps I should have disobeyed.  I should have challenged him.  I should have kicked everything out of the way, got off the table, got on my clothes and left. 

But was I to do?  I was still a minor, sent here by his parents.  Although I was used to handling myself among my peers, all my life up to then I was in a position of obeying adults.  And in this case, the adult was the doctor, and I was his patient.  Directly defying the doctor was completely unheard of, and doctors were held in much higher respect 27 years ago. So instead, I obeyed and endured, but was now also angry and exasperated.

When my bladder was full, I endured another emptying.  Then they again began to pump liquid into my bladder. I internally writhed as I again tried to reject it. I felt my fortitude weakening rapidly.  I was about to explode!  Again, my hands started coming in toward my body.  Again the doctor immediately reprimanded me for it.  Keeping my hands out, I tried then to at least raise my head and rest on my elbows.  He told me to get back down!  THAT BASTARD!  THAT DAMMED BASTARD!  I was desperate to find something to support my collapsing composure, but he seemed to be taking delight in kicking those supports out from under me!  I bent my head up to catch his eye and plead my case.  How could he be doing this to me?  How could he possibly not know how desperate I was becoming?

He knew. I was sure he knew.  While the pumping was still going on, he was not watching the work.  All his attention was fixed on me.  Like a cat playing with a wounded bird, he was watching my every move, to catch me at violating his rules.  He had a dominating smirk on his face – an expression I had seen many times before.  I had seen it on boys at school, when they could tell that their taunting and bullying was really starting to get to someone.  This was not supposed to happen. Not here! Not under these conditions! This was not a battle of wills; this was a betrayal of trust!  Yet, stunned and spent, all I could do was cower under his glare. While I felt like I was boiling inside, a vacuum started forming at the pit of my stomach. I broke eye contact and to my horror, slid into a deep, deep, state of defeat.

Something then happened that I do not understand, and can only try to relate how I experienced it.  All my internal defenses were gone.  I felt suddenly empty. I did not explode outward - I collapsed inward. The feeling was awful!  It was like my body was still in an intense state of war, desperately wanting to reject what was happening to it.  Only now, all of its defenders were dead, and the invaders were breaching the walls to plunder the helpless, naked thoughts and feelings quivering inside.

At all other times, something in my consciousness always seemed to follow what was going on to my body.  Whether in unbearable pain or intense ecstasy, it always seemed to track my peaks and nulls like a needle on a phonograph, just to keep on top of them, reminding me that I was still human.  Somehow, I had stopped tracking.  I was aware that the pumping was still going on.  I still desperately wanted to stop the horrible liquid from surging into me, but my lower body no longer even had the will to futilely oppose it.  This was worse than awful!  Nothing was sexual.  Nothing could ever be sexual. Even my bladder felt like it provided no breaking wall for the gushing fluid.  As it surged into the bladder, I sickly imagined it rushing through, polluting my empty body. It felt like the heave you get before throwing up.

Acute feelings of sickness swept through me.  I was powerless and defiled. I desperately wanted them to stop. I hated them! I hated them all!  I profoundly hated the doctor, but I also hated the two silent ones for their mechanical efficiency in desecrating my very sanctity. I felt hollow and transparent. I deeply wanted to get away from them all, but I had been frozen in inaction, first by society norms and then by a complete lack of will.

Oh, what a stupid, stupid male I was.  I had so many chances to choose mere shame and humiliation, but I held out for this?  If I had only known! I should have struggled, or screamed, or just broken down and cried! Any choice would have helped relieve the stress of the moment, and maybe could have gotten me away from them sooner.  But to protect my self-esteem, I would not make an embarrassing scene.  I passively endured, which only brought me this hell, and the lingering fits of primeval horror, which have lain stealthily in wait for me over this last quarter century.

In tormented silence and weakness, I endured another emptying, and then a final filling.  The pumping had stopped.  After filling up my bladder, the doctor and one nurse then left, leaving me alone with the older nurse. Once the others were completely gone, she turned to me and began to talk.  I do not know what she said.  I am not even sure that she spoke about anything in particular. She was just talking.  But her voice held compassion, and it was so soothing on my nerves. 

Given the signal that danger was over, my trauma began to slowly fade.  Flotsam of feelings began to drift back into awareness.  Wisps of random emotions flittered through my emptiness, setting off quivers on whatever they found to touch.  I was gradually becoming human again, but was still in deep shock.  The nurse continued to talk as she labored.  This took a while.  While still naked on the table, I was in no hurry.  I didn’t mind laying there forever, as I basked in the comfort of her words and the passing of my horror.

After a while, my calm was again shattered when I began to hear shrieking and sobbing from a young girl in another room.   These were not sounds of anger, I could sense that she was scared and distressed. My heart went out to her, and I felt a kinship with her.  Her cries seemed to go on forever, though.  I wished I could comfort her.  Since I could not, then I wished the cries would stop: my body trembled in empathy at every sound, interfering with my own recovery.  The nurse noticed that this was unnerving me.  She talked about this girl.  I remembered little of it, except that the girl had to come in every week.  I appreciated hearing about her, but I was ashamed at how I felt, if she had to go through something like this regularly.  Through the years, after I have been forced to relive the events of that morning, I have always wondered about her – wondered who she was, and if she was OK.

The nurse was finished with her preparations. She then removed the clamped catheter from me and asked me to freely urinate while she x-rayed my lower area.  She made a point to say that she would not be watching, but at my state that no longer mattered.  I appreciated what she had done for me so much that I would have done anything for her.  I loved her.

The problem was, though, I couldn’t empty my bladder.  The part of my body that bore the brunt of this violation was still reluctant to come out of hiding.  I struggled for a while and finally produced a short feeble trickle.  While still morning and my bladder was still quite full, that was the last urination I would manage until the next morning.  She told me that she really needed more, but that would probably have to do.  I could get dressed and go.

When I left the doctor’s office, my dad was waiting outside in the car.  When he asked me how things went, I tried to reply but found that I was unable to speak without breaking down.  I did not want to do that, but with his kind concern, I could not help but to lose composure enough for him to notice that I was upset.  My parents questioned me that day about what was wrong. I tried to answer, but with little success. The memories and feelings inside me were far too intense to sample for speech. Yet their responses to what little they gleaned from me implied that they had also expected this to be a somewhat routine doctor’s visit. 

They told me they made the appointment thinking that I might have been getting a bladder infection.  Ironically, the doctor apparently gave me the very thing that my parents sent me in to avert.  I had left the doctor’s office with a bladder full of the solution that they had pumped in me for the x-rays.  When I got home, I found that I was completely unable to urinate.  Even an unsuccessful attempt burned intensely, resulting in my rolling on the floor in pain.  Yet, my bladder was so full, I had no choice but to keep trying.

Over the phone, the doctor diagnosed it as a bladder infection, and simply prescribed some antibiotics.  I was relieved that I didn’t have to go back there.  Still, I was unable to urinate at all that day and the following night.  While I needed to try to come to grips with what had just happened to me, I was in too much pain and frustration by my very full bladder, and the burning through my urethra.  I dared not drink anything, and add to the pain.  Fortunately, the burning subsided the next morning, and I managed then to empty my bladder.

I was running a fever, which enabled me to miss school for several days.  I was relieved.  My whole life had just come to an abrupt halt, and I was not ready to go back.  I felt like there was a part of me – some deep kernel of my humanity and my soul that was more truly me than any other part – that was gravely wounded and withering.  I had not been aware that this kernel even existed.  If I had only known, I would have done anything to protect it from harm.

I felt so alone.  This was by far the most distressed I had ever been, but I was completely unable to talk about it. Everything was just too close.  When I tried that first day to answer my parents questions about what had happened, I found that to be futile. Anything that came out was overly simple and far off the mark.  I could not even speak coherently.  The memories were too emotionally overwhelming for me to approach them. I suspect that all that my parents could discern was that I was upset about something that happened at the doctor’s office.  Even that, I could tell, made them defensive about having sent me there. I did not want to hurt them. I did not blame them for what happened.  I just needed to talk – to unload.  But I couldn’t. 

The situation was absolutely irreconcilable. There was nothing I could say that could give anyone even a glimmer of understanding of what I really went through, or how I felt. The memories and feelings were far too charged to dissect, and there was no way to describe them with an economy of words. There was simply no common ground on which to start.  I was not raped. It was something else.  It was not really sexual abuse either.  There was no pre-legitimized category into which it could readily fall.  So, without a lengthy and detailed explanation – something I was incapable of giving, I felt it was almost certain that anyone I confided in would simply dismiss my account as a case of my getting overly embarrassed at a simple doctor’s visit.  Such a conclusion, though, is as belittling and as remote from the truth as telling a victim of rape that she is apparently just not cut out for having sex.  In my state I could not risk being further victimized by such an ignorant and arrogant attitude.

After some consideration, I decided not to even try to tell my parents more. I feared that they would feel compelled to take charge and attempt to do something about it.  At the very best, they would have done nothing – the same result as if I kept quiet.  At worst, and what I thought most likely, they would want to send me to some other doctor to try to “fix” me, which only would have compounded my harm. No, I could not afford to lose control again over my own destiny.  I had to remain silent.

I had, though, not even a clear outlet for my own personal anger. Sure, I knew the doctor’s behavior, but I did not really know his mind. Away from the immediate stress and humiliation of that table, it seemed unlikely that the doctor purposely would have wanted to cause me this harm.  Obviously, he was merely the dominating egotistical type who felt offended and challenged by anyone in his kingdom attempting to initiate any action not authorized by himself, and was making sure that he thoroughly nipped such an insurrection in the bud.  While perhaps reprehensible, it certainly was not illegal.  If he was not purposely trying to cause harm, then I had little society support to blame my condition on him. People tended to give doctors wide latitude in what they did, but no clear responsibility for the outcome of their actions.

This conclusion, though, gave me no reprieve.  My mind starved for a simple resolution that would never come.  Without an indisputable focal point for my anger, it was easy to start blaming myself - which I did mercilessly:  “Why did you let him get to you? You should be ashamed.  You are weak.  Nobody feels this way after going to a doctor.  There is something wrong with you.  You’re a male.  You are not supposed to have these feelings. You’ve got to hide it.  Just toughen up and get over it.”

Still, it was all so perplexing.  I thought I had done everything right, by the rules of manhood to which I had learned to conform and embrace. Even though I had had this gross, stressful, and humiliating procedure thrust upon me without warning or consultation, I had stayed and faced it like a man.  I had also successfully avoided all emotional outbursts and responses during the ordeal.  I had done my duty. Yet, I was doomed from the start.  All of my options had been lose-lose.  By doing the “right thing”, I had left myself totally vulnerable.  I had permitted myself to be open to total control by someone willing to violate patient trust in order to stroke his own ego.  I would never have yielded such control to someone at school.  I thought I could trust a doctor, though.  I thought I was supposed to trust the doctor.  It just wasn’t supposed to have gone this way.

Even so, it was still a losing situation for me.  Although I came off the table feeling that I had been raped, society would never see it so.  Such feelings seemed to be reserved for women only.  Doctors were known to be arrogant and dominating, and every allowance would be given to them. As a male, I knew I would be scorned for allowing myself to become this way, even though I had no realistic or honorable way to have avoided it.  It simply was not fair.  All I could do, though, was move on.

I was going back to school, reentering my world.  While at the time this seemed insurmountable, it had to be done. I had to go on, and reclaim my place in life. I had too much at stake not to do so.  My greatest concern, though, was returning to sports practice.  I felt like an injured animal that the other guys would gang up upon and attack.  I particularly dreaded the thought of undressing and showering with the others.  I had the acute feeling that the ordeal had somehow branded me and that it was apparent all over my body. I had to go back there too, though.  I knew that the way to do that was to exude confidence, even though it was only a facade.

I found my fears to be unjustified.  No one could tell that I was less of a person than the last time they saw me.  I was not externally branded.  I could blend back into society and hide there.  No one would ever know. While I found I approached social situations more tentatively, I could still run just as fast and still do class-work just as well.  I therefore immersed myself into these areas, and pretended that nothing ever happened.

I was back in my world and putting on a brave face.  All of the painful memories, the shame, and self-loathing were still within me and unresolved, though. I had only imprisoned them in the dark recesses of my mind, and did not allow them to surface.  I did not know how long I could keep them all hidden, but I was determined to try.  I had to keep on guard and be careful of what I said, and how I allowed myself to feel.  Very soon, though – I believe within days - my mind gave me a long-term resolution to enable me to continue with normal life: it forgot about the event. I did not remember at all what happened to me on that table for over ten years.  Not once – not under any circumstance. 

There were plenty of circumstances that should have drawn my mind back there.  Many times I had a sudden, strong, terrifying sense that something was crawling though my urethra into my body.  Less alarming, but even more common in occurrence was an acute feeling that my privates were out of my pants and my urethra was grotesquely wide open.   These sensations would come randomly and without warning – during meetings, with friends, anywhere.   I would have to concentrate hard to keep calm and not make a scene.  I started to have recurring-dreams, different, but related to my encounter on that table.  Additionally, I was now somewhat dysfunctional, and had other personal problems that I do not wish to detail.

None of this, though, made me remember the event for almost eleven years.  I would not say I had a “mental block”.  There did not seem to be a “block” at all. There did not appear to be a part of my mind to where my thoughts could not freely travel, but those memories simply were not there.    It was more like a mental blind spot around which my thoughts were seamlessly channeled.  When I finally did recall the event, though, the memories and feelings came down on me like a tidal wave and completely engulfed me.  Their return did not bring terror, though, but shock and dismay.

Then began about a 15-year period in my life in which a window to the past would open unexpectedly, but never remain open for very long.  I could go years without thinking of the event at all, but when I did recall it, it controlled my thoughts and emotions.   If it occurred at work, I would be unable to concentrate, and have to go to a quiet place where I could be alone and undisturbed.  There I would sit, writhing, as I relived all of the feelings – physical and emotional - of what I encountered on that table.  When it was over, I would slowly start to go on with life, feeling like my entire body was filled with somebody’s vomit.

And I would forget it completely again - not immediately, but it would gray-out over the next few days.  Because it often coincided with the beginning of a physical sickness, I usually had some time to get back to normal.  Those would be periods when I would castigate myself for letting it get to me like that.  I was still no closer understanding or accepting what had happened, and particularly, how I responded.  During the first period of remembrance, I did manage to tell my wife a little about the event that happened almost eleven years before, but I never let her see me writhing over it.

Over a year ago, such a window opened particularly strong and clear.   Afterwards, though, the window never completely closed.  Although now faded somewhat, I could for the first time gingerly approach the memories and examine them under my own power, without being overcome by the emotions that accompanied the memories.  While still painful, they were not as upsetting as when they came unexpectedly.  The memories are now filed away and accessible. Although they still come to dominate my thoughts at times, I feel that I am finally accepting them – accepting both that the event happened, and how I reacted to it.

Looking back, the question that arises is: “why did it take so long to get to this point of recovery?”  Should I have gone for help?  Given the nature of what happened to me, I am certain that having gone to a doctor or shrink, or anyone else with a swollen ego, but who had not experienced something like this first-hand, would have done me substantially more harm than good.  However, one of the most difficult aspects of living with this experience has been the strong sense of total isolation: a sense that I have landed on a road with no one else on it, and that I have no idea where it is going or how to get back.  I have wondered if it might have helped either to have been able to talk to or even to have read the account of someone who was recovering from a similar episode. In a climate where I did not feel that I was being patronized, it could have been helpful to have gotten some assurance that the abnormality was not me, but was what happened to me.

Although I had strong doubts that such support would have been available in Oklahoma 27 years ago, I was very optimistic that with the global reach of the Internet, I would be able to readily locate many such support groups today. Searching the Internet, though, I was surprised to find that that was not the case.  True, I could find a very large number of web sites dealing with rape, sexual abuse, and related issues, but little of what I was looking for.  Most of the sites were purely informational, and did not lead toward support or recovery groups or forums.  Most of the ones that did have access to support groups dealt with rape, and were unmistakably focused towards women. 

As a male, searching for such support took me through a virtual minefield of guilt, hostile ground, double standards, and carefully crafted “statistics” apparently designed solely to infer that all of us males are rapists in all our interactions with women.  While it appears that much of this comes not from victims but from those trying to hijack the rape issue for their own agenda, some real support sites blindly reproduce this propaganda.  Although most sites were indeed quite good and beneficial, I stumbled across many pockets seething with anger and resentment toward my gender.  One site which had a “For Men” link that I hoped might lead me toward some useful support, instead led to a page that I found to be chastising and belittling.  I have certainly done nothing to deserve such censure.  Although I believe such a tone is both misplaced and counterproductive, I can very much understand the anger of the actual victims.  I must confess that for a short while, even I hated males, only I had to reconcile with the fact that I was one.   Still, I felt discouraged and a little betrayed to run across this when I had come seeking comfort and understanding.

Indeed, I found a few links that lead to male support sites – particularly prison rape - and gender-neutral sites dealing with other recovery issues.  All of these sites, though, either were so general and inclusive that they diluted any possible usefulness, or were specialized in support for an event very different than what happened to me.  Whether it was for rape or child abuse, all of the specialized support was for occurrences that inferred obvious and identifiable attacks, where clearly illegal actions took place.  To an outsider, this difference may seem like a minor gap.  From where I stand, though, the difference is a huge gulf.  Even 27 years ago, I could have found dozens of people willing to give me a sympathy translating to: “I’m sorry that you feel that something happened to you”.  It would not have helped.

Throughout my life, I have many other times been to doctors for personal exams and physicals, and have been present at the births of both of my children.  All of these have been very different and positive experiences.  There was no domination. There was no hostility.  There was maintained a level of dignity. The patient understood why he/she was there, understood what was to happen, and had bought into the idea.  The intrusions were minimized to only what was necessary. The patient was never stripped of all support, nor made to be helpless or not in ultimate control of the situation.  Having gone through both, I can assure you that there is a gigantic difference between what normally happens in a doctor’s visit and what happened to me on that table.  Yet, the significance of the differences seems to diminish upon retelling.

At times, how I have envied those whose violation came with an obvious and incontestable attacker!  How wonderful it would have been to have a clear target for my anger – a great Satan, upon whom I could indisputably pin all the blame!  A certificate, which I could redeem to society to validate my feelings and sanctify my pain, so I could scream to the world in blissful indignation: “HE did this to me!  I AM A VICTIM!”

But I am not really sure that would have been any better.  It has taken me a long time to get comfortable with my own set of problems.  I am not at all certain that I would now trade them for someone else’s set.  Over the years, this unwanted past has become part of me – part of what makes me, ME.  If there had been a clear enemy, I would have instead been faced with difficult decisions as to what to do about it.  If what happened to me had been less impossible and more acceptable in my mind, it is doubtful that I would have reached that gentle state of forgetfulness.  As it was, I had long periods in which I could get on with life without the heavy baggage of painful memories at every turn. It may have taken a while, but I do believe I am on my way to recovery.  While I do not know if one ever recovers completely, I am sure I will mend further.  For my situation, writing this has been an optimal therapy, though I could not have written it any sooner.

I have had a good life, and I am thankful for that.  I have had my health.  I enjoy a strong marriage with a loving and very supportive wife, and children worthy of praise.  I live comfortably, and have been reasonably content. Although I believe the event changed my life in many ways, it clearly has not ruined it. If I perhaps have been more cautious and reserved than I would have been otherwise, it is because I let it happen. I think, though, that there may also have been ways in which the event has made me a better person.  For one, I think it may have made me more cognizant and considerate of others feelings. Perhaps that is a fair trade. If this event is the worst thing ever to happen to me, I should consider my life blessed.

Still, when it is quiet, I am alone and feeling down, my thoughts wander back to a young girl of long ago, whose cries and shrieks still haunt my memories. And I yearn to find her, to make sure she is OK.  And comfort her.  And cry with her.