... to be freaking out about a GP appointment? [warning: possibly triggering]

[NotMyRealName11]

Name change for this.

I managed to get a GP appointment today because I'm really struggling to deal with a sexual assault which happened a few weeks ago (it was in public, during the day, two strangers). I tried to put it out of my mind and just carry on, but it's really not working and I've kind of got to the point of recognising that I need help. I tried to mention it in an appointment a few weeks ago, but I chickened out.

... I'm sooo stressed that I'm either going to chicken out and cancel the appointment altogether, or that I will flake out when I get there and say "Oh, I just feel anxious, it's a combination of things" (which is what I said the last time...).

The things I'm freaking out about, in no particular order:

• That I could have an STI
• That they'll contact social services and tell them I'm not fit to look after my child
• That they'll want to do an internal examination (and natch I've had this before, I just have a weird phobia about it at this moment)
• That they'll tell me I mustn't go back to work
• That they'll tell me it's all my fault
• That they'll be angry because I didn't go to the police
• That I'll just start crying.

Please, somebody just tell me to be an adult and stop catastrophising!

I don't want to sound patronising but I'm so impressed with how you're handling this. Well done for telling your partner and getting an appointment with the good GP, it's all really important steps. Shit about the syphilis but I understand that it's treatable these days especially when caught early so I'm sure you'll be fine. I hope you can get access to some therapy - I had CBT a few years ago and it made such a huge difference to my life. The good GP should be able to refer you to your local services.
Please feel free to message me if you ever need someone to listen.

Thank you :)

@justilou1 your research made me smile! Perhaps I should ditch my career as a boring civil servant and become a tortured artist! Unfortunately, I have no talent...

@LadyFidgetAndHerHandbag thank you so much... I'm sure the other GP had the best intentions and maybe I just wasn't in a good place to be able to engage. I hope it's going to work out better now. I also have to go back to the SH clinic to discuss the syphilis test result. I knew literally nothing about it until yesterday, but fortunately I'd looked up everything they tested for before I got the results, so I knew about it being quite easily treatable in the early stages by the time to text came. Annoyingly, I'm allergic to penicillin though!

Well done for confiding in dp and I'm so glad his response was supportive.

I'm allergic to penicillin too PLUS a few other antibiotics it's a pain but they should be able to find something to treat you.

Funnily enough it reminded me of sexual health lessons at school, our teacher was really not the best person to do it she blushed and stumbled her words whenever she had to that stuff, we had to watch a video one time but it was a REALLY old video (70's tastic fashions!) but it was the only one the school had, it featured a role play and had a young guy being told he'd gonorrhoea and his reaction was so dramatic! After the teacher had to add a "note" that of course it's very treatable now and that hiv however wasn't (this was at the height of the AIDS scare)

Now even hiv and hepatitis can be very treatable, still serious conditions of course but so much has changed.

You're doing SO WELL in how you're handling all this I am in awe.

But don't feel you have to "keep being strong" if it gets too hard. Take care of yourself and don't push yourself to do things that are just too much. You're allowed to take a step back and protect yourself.

Haha, @Graphista, that reminds me of when we watched an STI video at school. The role-play acting was sooo badly overacted that we were all falling about with laughter and the teacher turned it off because she said that we were obviously too immature to be learning about STIs. Perhaps that's why I am a bit clueless!

We also had contraception taught to us (the first year to have that lesson in my RC school) by the guidance teacher, who was a nun. I don't joke.

I think I'm feeling a bit better now, having actually taken some steps to move forward with things, and having told DP and one friend. I just keep having these random crying fits and I feel like I can't breathe. Maybe it's a panic attack?? I wouldn't really know, I never experienced this before. I just want to feel like myself again!

To explain a bit, when I say "feel like myself again" (because I know that sounds really weird!), when it happened, I almost felt like I went out of myself a bit and never properly came back in. No, that sounds even weirder...

Just know @Not, that your reactions are all entirely normal and logical! You’ve had something absolutely terrifying happen to you, BUT you have survived! You have also survived telling the world’s worst GP, braving up to telling your friend and your partner and you have support online and in real life now. God, you’re tough!!! What an amazingly strong person you are!!! Of course you get the wobbles, but you have survived!!!

Glad I provided a little levity

Detachment and surreal feelings all normal. As is panic and anxiety with no trigger.

I feel certain you will get through this you are clearly a strong sensible person and have good support from your friend and partner.

Detachment after a traumatic event is normal. I still get it occasionally 15 years on. Panic attacks are also very normal, have a look at calm breathing and grounding techniques online for some tips on how to deal with them.
I remember doing sex-ed with the chemistry teacher for some reason. We also had to watch a cringy video and had a poster of a woman that looked like it had been bought in about 1972 and only came out once a year for the sex ed class. A lot of us came from farms (rural Australia) so knew all the ins and outs (so to speak) already.

Thank you for the lovely, supportive replies.

DP is back from work later today. I'm worried he's going to look at me "differently" but he has been nothing other than lovely and supportive so far, although we've only spoken on the phone.

My nice GP called me this morning unexpectedly. She said that she read the notes and wanted to check that I was ok, and that I'd been for an STI check. I thought that was so nice of her! She offered to bring my appointment forward, but I said I'm ok to wait for Monday.

It's all going ok, I think. I just need to get my emotions under control! And I do feel that getting back to work will help. Much as I love DD, I definitely don't have the qualities and attributes of a stay-at-home mum!

Urgh, as soon as I feel like I'm doing better I seem to get a wobble for no reason and everything feels awful again. I feel like it's all my fault - why on earth did I just freeze up instead of getting away? And I'm afraid I'll get to the GP appointment and just clam up and not manage to say anything AGAIN. And what can the GP do anyway? I'm scared about this psychiatry referral - I feel like if I go down that route everything will be weird and I'll never get back to "normal". I'm afraid that I will never be the same again after this :( And that must mean I'm a weak person, because a strong person would have dealt with it more maturely and would probably be already well along the right road.

Sorry for whinging... I just feel pathetic :(

@NotMyRealName11

What would you say to someone else in this position? We are always unkindest to ourselves, holding ourselves to the harshest of accounts when nobody else would.

Be kind to yourself. Your reactions meant that you survived and are there now for your baby. You don't know what might have happened had you tried to fight. You did what you needed to do to get through it. The getting through it continues with every step you are taking now.

Be kind to yourself

@NotMyRealName11

You are not pathetic if you have a wobble. You are not pathetic if you need help. You are not pathetic no matter what kind of help it is. Treating the wobbles by talking to a trained professional, which is what seeing a therapist or psychiatrist is, is how to be strong.

The strongest people I know are the ones who get help. The ones who talk to their DPs and GPs and friends and therapists if needed, just like you’re doing. The people who break apart are those who don’t ask for help.

You’re on the right track now, OP, and I think it’s going to keep getting better. Better doesn’t always mean wobble-free immediately, but it means stronger at the end.

DP always says to me, "speak to yourself as you would to a friend"! (I can be a weeny bit self-critical...)

Thank you for the support and the motivation to go forward. I am not used to being in this position and I feel weird. I feel like I am never going to be able to be a positive role model for my daughter. And at the same time, I know that's all a bit illogical!

I'm going back to the SH clinic tomorrow (and the GP on Monday, whatever the outcome of that might be...) and hopefully just try to keep focusing on taking steps forward.

@NotMyRealName11

Your DP sounds very wise... best not let him know that

One step at a time is the best plan.

Foul thing to happen, you are being very human and very, very normal feeling all this stuff after. So glad your usual GP called you

Nobody is used to being in this position, and nobody should be!!! You will have moments of flashing clarity that you feel “NORMAL!” and then feel resentful that you should have to notice that feeling at all. Something horrible happened TO you, not because of you. You did not choose this. You did nothing to deserve this.
I connect with your description of feeling inside and outside your body so well right now. (I have PTSD which would not be so acute had I received therapy and medical help at the time, but my family situation and age made this impossible.) I also recognize the burden of shame you describe and I must encourage you to firmly reject that voice every time you hear it! Recognise your “logical brain” and use that voice as well. It will overpower the insidious shameful one if you use it! I wish I had had your emotional intelligence and support at the time. I can see you will blossom!!!

Sorry for what you have been through op. Just wanted to say a couple of things. The first is that this could have happened to any of us. You mustn't blame yourself in any way. It happens to 75 year old women op too! Secondly, I was reflecting on you saying you had paranoid thoughts but are they paranoid? Isn't that a sort of irrational fear whereas your fear is completely rational. You've been assaulted and are worried about it happening again. Absolutely rational. Post traumatic stress more than paranoia. I'm not a psychiatrist but that's what strikes me.

Hmm, I'm not sure - I don't know much about it either! It just feels that I am worrying about things which I know are not logical. Last night I dreamed about...similar things...and it took me about 20 minutes to calm down when I woke up, even though I knew that it had been a dream.

I'm just a bit fed up with myself for being so jumpy. It feels like living life in a hyper vigilant state and it is quite exhausting! Today, this young guy came running up to me (he honestly looked like a young finance worker or lawyer or something) and honestly, I was totally ready to run for it. And then he said "I just saw you and I thought you're really pretty and elegant" or something like that (the rational part of my brain had expected him to say, "You've dropped your wallet" or similar). I was so relieved that he wasn't attacking me that I smiled and said thank you. And then I was annoyed that I reacted like that! I always find it weird how men kind of find it normal to objectify women like that, although it's obviously meant in a nice way! But as a woman, you'd never be expected to go up to a man and say "aren't you handsome?"

Unfortunately that is something you need to talk to the GP about, @NotMyRealName11. Yes, the guy did run up and say something “nice”, but sometimes with some men, it’s an opening into a more entitled conversation and that will make you very frightened. (Unfortunately there are some guys who feel that a compliment entitles them to much more than a “thank you”).

Something happened this afternoon and I am really shook up.

DP is home and I took the opportunity to go to the shops to get his birthday present. I wanted to buy him a nice leather personal organiser, which he's been saying he wants for ages. So I was dithering in the store and looking at all the different ones (for about 10 mins).

A security guard came up to me and asked what I was looking for, and I said I was just looking for a present and he went away.

The next thing I knew, three policemen came up to me and one of them shouted, "that's her, she fits the description!" and they kind of cornered me. And I tried to back away, saying that they had the wrong person. The next thing that happened was two of the policemen took my arms and they put me against the wall. And I totally freaked out, because it was physically exactly what happened with the two men and I don't know, I kind of had a flashback and freaked out. I started crying and one of the policemen was saying, "get her bag, she's got the things in there!"

So it turned out they were looking for a woman who had been shoplifting in another store and I answered the description (which was something like "a slim young woman with wavy dark hair") and of course, they found nothing in my bag or on me... but I freaked out so much, and of course they thought I was hiding something because I reacted so bizarrely.

Oh my God, I just need to get it together...! I mean, normally, I'd have just said "I've not even been in that store" (which I hadn't) "and look through anything you like!" Probably... I mean, I have to admit that this has actually never happened before. I would not have been howling "don't touch me" and sobbing my eyes out like an idiot in the middle of a shop. People were looking at me like I was insane. And maybe I am!

I'm such a mess!

That’s appalling. Truly appalling. I think anyone would have been very upset to be treated like that, but in your case it’s just awful. I’m so sorry. Did they apologise?

Yeah, they did afterwards. The lead one (or however it is called!) said he felt badly about it. But I am so shook up and I know I shouldn't be. I mean, stop and search is a thing, what if that happened to me? I'd have to deal with it and I couldn't react so melodramatically :S

I think you maybe suffering from PTSD my lovely, which would be completely.understandable. I have never, ever told anyone this in my life but I was sexually assaulted (not to the extent you were) as a child and I still have issues to this day. The only other person who knows is my sister as he assaulted us both at the same time - a family friend whilst we were watching television. I remember my step Dad asking me a few years later if this guy had touched me/us as some others had come forward. I said no! I don't know why I said no! Shame? Emarassement? I'm not sure. The one thing I do know, is that this wasn't your fault. The fault only lies with the animals that did this to you. Can you self refer for counselling i your area? Xx

Oh, that's awful, I'm sorry! I'm sorry you've felt that you had to keep it to yourself too, it's such a horrible thing to happen to a child. I'm a grown woman and I feel like I should be able to deal with it. I'm just feeling so flaky and I don't think it's really helping that I'm not sleeping well (a combination of stupid worries, nocturnal DD and freaky dreams). I should ask my GP about counselling on Monday (my area's one doesn't seem to be taking self referrals atm) but I'm worried that I'm going to wimp out...

Oh sweetie, I’m so sorry this happened, and so soon afterwards! Even without what happened to you, that would be frightening!!! I was only 14 when I was assaulted and my PTSD has only really kicked in in the last two years. (Because I was in a lot of denial and had twisted the story around in my mind to suppress the reality...) I now find crowds unbearable and I am 47.