Abuse and Medical Stuff

Part of what helped me conclude that being RAPED at age twelve caused me to have some kind of PHYSICAL ailment of some sort that MADE ME suicidal is a story about a Dutch teen who was sexually assaulted at age 11, raped at age 14 and eventually took her own life because she was just miserable all the time and it was not getting better.

I was molested from age eleven to about age thirteen and a half. 

My older sister left home for college and my older brother and I were suddenly home alone a lot. So likely this began or at least became a regular thing starting in roughly September and based on my brother's birthday, likely ended late February about two and a half years later.

He stopped because he turned eighteen. I guess he could control himself if he thought the consequences were likely to be serious.

My mother was raped at age sixteen by a business partner of her father in the foyer of her home because she answered the door. Her dad sided with the business partner and I believe she left home at age seventeen and never spoke to him again.

Because of my mother's strong opinions that the shame is on the abuser and women shouldn't fear talking about this, I began telling people and seeking help at age sixteen. At age seventeen, I began buttonholing ANYONE who made the mistake of being willing to listen.

I did a year of therapy in my teens with an extraordinary gentleman who was the guy in charge of the insane asylum where I spent a week or ten days. He kindly took over my case when a bright teen who was hell on wheels was too much for his staff to deal with.

I did another two and a half years of therapy in my twenties with a military chaplain who was going to be paid the same whether I got better or not. There was no profit in dragging treatment out endlessly and the military has an uncommonly good track record for dealing with certain kinds of things and a robust medical system, which is part of why I am still ALIVE at all.

I was diagnosed with Atypical CF while stationed at Travis AFB. My husband was Army, not Air Force, but while married to me he kicked ass and took names and qualified for several special duty assignments to the surprise of other military members who said stuff to me like "I thought you had to know someone and pull strings to get that. And he tried to get out of it????"

Travis AFB is the location of a regional military hospital treating all branches of military service in eight states and it's a teaching hospital with connections to esteemed medical organizations in both Sacramento and San Francisco. I got testing in both cities and drove to Sacramento 45 minutes away for treatment from a specialist and my husband extended his tour of duty at Travis AFB through a military program allowing him to make that decision to save my life as his very ill wife. 

Anyway, I'm a RECOVERED survivor of incest twice over, something the literature says doesn't exist and can't happen, and the military and its programs are part of why. And thanks in part to my very kick ass mother, I've long worn it on my sleeve that bad things happened to me.

Some time in my twenties, I suddenly realized I was traumatizing people by buttonholing random strangers and dumping on them and I became more careful about how and where and when I talk about such things. But my long-standing policy of being unusually open about this detail of my life means I've had a number of people talk to me about their experiences with sexual assault or abuse.

One friend who was molested as a child had a serious heart condition at a young age.

One woman I knew kept being given prescription medication for vaginal yeast infection back when you couldn't get that over the counter without a prescription. They did this for months before she got mad and demanded they take a culture and figure out what was wrong.

She had been raped and had vaginal strep.

I was hospitalized for dehydration and vomiting with my first pregnancy and one of my roommates talked with me about why she was in the hospital. She was a career woman and didn't actually want kids but finally told a doctor she did so they would stop blowing off her female problems as not worth caring about or investigating.

I had a boyfriend who was tortured under questioning and imprisoned for three years in his twenties. I met him when he was in his fifties and he already had snow white hair and open heart surgery prior to meeting me.

I've grown substantially healthier since getting a diagnosis and getting divorced. I have reason to believe I have a wealth of information about this niche topic that few people have without being some kind of professional and people tend to dump on me like I'm their new best friend forever and I suspect I hear stuff a lot of people don't tell their doctor or therapist.

Regardless of the diagnosis, if it's serious and treatment resistant, I believe you should actively look for forms of chronic exposure to new germs. Be aware this may include abuse or infidelity by their partner.

I'm aware this is a sensitive issue and you shouldn't start out by accusing people of anything without good reason.

Three linear feet of papers talks about a prosaic environmental exposure at my place of employment.

Getting to the bottom of things talks about me realizing in my forties that my blackouts in my teens weren't entirely due to low blood sugar. It was partly due to second hand drug exposure that I didn't know about.

To this day, my blackouts only return when exposed to second hand marijuana or when I have reason to believe old marijuana residue is coming out of my system. I don't use marijuana. It gives me hives. My blood sugar is more stable than it has ever been.

I have a serious genetic disorder. I get sick far more easily than average.

But you still need germs to infect you to get sick. If they aren't there, you don't magically get sick because you are frail and malnourished.

If someone has a serious condition and one of their caregivers or a parent or spouse who is financially responsible for them is abusing them, they probably won't tell you because they feel keeping that person in their life and appeased is critical to their survival.

I left my marriage because I was clear my husband's cavalier attitude towards germ control and insensitive assholery was going to kill me and at the funeral everyone would blame my genetic disorder.

I'm still alive when I'm supposed to be long DEAD. I hope that's sufficient evidence for you to take my unsubstantiated opinions about this matter seriously.

I will add that when I was looking for help in my teens, I was told I couldn't get therapy without parental consent unless they put me in foster care. I declined that option because I had no diagnosis, but I knew I had frail health and my mother was big on feeding me in a way a lot of parents aren't.

I also sent a lot of packages for years to my two welfare mom sisters-in-law to try to help them succeed as parents under difficult circumstances because I felt foster care and the like isn't automatically guaranteed to be better.

So I'm not suggesting your first impetus should always be removal.