Trauma often comes with emotional betrayal, either when someone who should have protected us hurts us instead, or when we do not receive the care we need afterwards. After traumatic betrayal, we naturally become suspicious and reactive to apparent caring.
Small steps toward care
As we heal, we become more able to separate past from present. A small child has to trust that a caregiver will meet all their needs for safety and care. Standing in our capable adult selves, we can experiment with extending trust in small ways. Will this person show up at the agreed time? How do they respond when I ask for help or set a boundary? We can observe how our body responds when someone is trustworthy, and when someone is not trustworthy.
Trauma survivors have medical needs arising from trauma. While the emotional healing process can resolve some physical issues, others will require medical intervention. We all deserve medical care no matter what the source of our issues, and it can take many small steps to find and trust the care we need.
When we have the courage to reach out, too often we are met with blame instead of care, even if we can get past the financial, political, and racist barriers to accessing medical care at all. It can take years of trying different practitioners and asking for referrals to find skilled, kind help.
Skilled, kind doctors
When we are met with care, potentially traumatic events become a source of healing instead. I recently had my first experience with general anesthesia for eye surgery to correct my crossed eyes. I trusted the ophthalmologist who referred me to the surgeon for a consultation. I trusted the surgeon when she made it clear she understood what was happening with my eyes, and took the time to thoroughly explain the odds of success (high) and the risks (low).
Even though I was worried about the effects of general anesthesia and the possibility that the surgery would not be effective for me, my body felt calmly certain that I wanted to move forward. Years of vision therapy and prism glasses were no longer enough to resolve my struggles with lack of depth perception and double vision.
Calm support
Another barrier to care is the need for physical support around surgery. I felt buoyed by the friends who agreed to drop me off and pick me up from the hospital, and the many supportive messages I received before and afterwards.
The day of surgery, I was able to surrender to the process and extend trust to the people around me. The nurses, anesthesiologist, and surgeon were all calm, kind, and matter-of-factly skilled at their jobs. They acknowledged that surgery was big and scary for me, and showed that for them it was an everyday process with built-in safeguards to make it go as smoothly as possible.
Positive outcome
I felt safe going into and coming out of surgery, and I have been delighted with the alignment of my eyes. As the surgeon predicted, there has been relatively little pain, and I slept off the effects of anesthesia in the first couple of days. I feel lucky and relieved to have access to good medical care, and enough healing and support to be able to open to care.
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