I had planned to post a picture of the KMKS kit I mailed out this week, but I have other things on my mind that need some working out. Not much working out, but as I teach my students, writing helps me to understand my thoughts and feelings.
I left a good TA-ship at UNM to come back east and live with Neal. I had one of two gauranteed spots, and although the reality is that pretty much all of the MFA students are offered TA-ships, that knowledge made me feel confident that not only could I do the work as a writer, but that I could do the work as a teacher. Somebody thought so. Along with a small stipend and tuition, one of my benefits was medical care. UNM has a teaching hospital, so the care was really good, and despite my doctor once calling me an aging primate, I felt confident and happy with my health care.
I haven’t had health insurance since May. It’s a risk I took. I am, after all, an aging primate, but I wanted to be back home. I wanted to be with the man I love. And this May, after our wedding, I will have great health care insurance. In the meantime, though, I’ve banked on my peasant genetics and robust good health holding out. I’ve had a few moments of fear when I thought "if I fall down the stairs and need to go to the hospital, I’m effed."
My birth control prescription ran out. My doctor in NM refilled it once for me, but I’ve not gone to a doctor here. I don’t want to incur the expense; my budget is too tight for extra expenses. After thinking hard about my options, I decided to go to Planned Parenthood, and I spent a good part of the afternoon today there.
I was upset when I got home. Not because I have to go back next week for bloodwork in order to get a prescription of longer than one month (it’s that aging primate issue again), but because of what being there made me feel. I’m no stranger to clinic health care. For years in my twenties I worked numerous part time jobs as did my then-husband. We lacked health care for a long time, but had a great community clinic to help us out when we were sick or needed prescriptions.
Neal happened to call as I walked in the door, and I growled before it spilled out.
"Here I am, obviously old enough to be the mother of most of the women in the waiting room. And a girl is crying. And I want to hug her and assure her that everything is going to be ok, but I don’t know that. I don’t know why she’s there. Was she raped? Is she single and pregnant? Did she get a disease?" Neal was sympathetic to me, to the idea of these women.
It made me think, though. How much trauma is there in the world because of sexuality? I know far too many women who have had abortions, who have been molested and raped, who have experienced fear because of their sexuality. I know women who have been in relationships that lacked loving sex, and in a burst of freedom, acquired a disease. And, sadly, I know too many men affected by sexual trauma as well. It boggles my mind. Why is this aspect of the human experience that is meant to give us pleasure, to help our genetics continue, to be unifying often just the opposite?
It’s a rhetorical question. But as I sat next to that young woman shaking and fighting her tears, as I longed to reach out and hold her hand but resisted the urge because her body language told me I wasn’t welcome, there was nothing I wanted to do more than to hold her and soothe her fears. If you have experienced sexual trauma, I’m so sorry. You aren’t alone. You are far from alone.
Oh, wow, yeah. I was recently witness to a friend completely breaking down over the sexual abuse they had suffered for years as a child and it was the most gut-wrenching pain I have ever seen, the most confused and frightening and flat-out awful pain.
It’s a sad comment on humanity.
All you want to do is take away their pain and make things better, but there’s nothing you can do. /sigh
♥
You know Bev maybe you couldn’t help that girl but she was definitely in the right place to get help. I’m sure during her appointment someone comforted her and let her know she was NOT alone and then gave her some very good facts about her medical condition. I’m sure if she needed counseling or any other help they provided her with numbers to call. I’m guessing that when she left there, she felt a little less alone
sexual trauma…that’s one way of looking at it.
an abortion is definitely traumatic.
the thing about planned parenthood is that they don’t put you to sleep. they give local anesthesia and maybe even general anesthesia if you can afford it.
but being young and pregnant and aborting, all you can really think about is how much it hurts. and that alone feeling is hard to share with other people because no matter how many other people have that same pain, they don’t know YOUR pain. it’s hard to accept support when you don’t know how to or what can make that pain go away. so you try to eat it, hide it, shut everyone and everything out because you want to make yourself as alone as you feel.
you should’ve just hugged her. on a day of such despair, the small kindness of a stranger would temper the pain of that day’s memory.
Gosh B. I don’t know what I would have done.
xo
There’s a new medical/investigative book called Medical Apartheid. It documents how medical experiments were/is done on the powerless.
Sexual exploitation seems to go hand in hand with abusive behavior between our human selves.
It is true that something that can provide such love, beauty and comfort and be so horribly experienced by so many…
Your emphathy for the woman can have a profound impact on our society’s continued apathyl.
I am thankful that Planned Parenthood exists for those who don’t have health insurance or who are low-income, don’t want the family gyn to “know”, whatever. I know they try to be a humane as possible, but every time I’ve gone, I am keenly aware of how sad the experience is.
Watching people suffer is always awful, especially when you can’t help. And maybe it’s because sexuality can be so great that it can also be so horrible–kind of like how nobody can make you as angry as the people you love.
It’s nice to know we are not alone. Although going through something as horrible as sexual abuse can be make you feel so very alone. I would have loved your hug!!
First time visiting your site, your story is very sad. It is sad that you have no health insurance, that in a country as large and rich as American it isn’t easily accessible for all. In spite of the problems with our “socialist” system here, we can access most services relatively easily…good luck and I understand why you couldn’t really do anything for that young girl…been there, done that..ciao