My Body, My Pelvis: Empowered Gynecological Care
What is gynecological trauma?
Gynecological trauma is an overwhelm of the nervous system when receiving a well woman exam or other gynecological exams or procedures. It is medical “care” that is in any way triggering or maladapted to our real-time needs. It is touch and procedures that go faster than the pace our bodies can handle. Gynecological trauma can feel similar to or the same as sexual trauma or betrayals in intimacy. It takes place in the most vulnerable and delicate parts of the body, in the area of the body most shrouded in shame and guilt, and so we often have a harder time speaking up about our needs when they rest here, in the pelvis.
Why does it happen?
Trauma at a gynecologist visit happens because of pelvic care that is not trauma informed & not consent based. People of color experience gynecological trauma at a disproportionate rate because of systemic racism/unequal management of treatment based on the color of one’s skin that is still steeped into OBGYN standard of care. One can experience gynecological trauma because of a lack of post-traumatic care (care that is sensitive to a sexual assault history). Trauma is experienced at a women’s health visit because of a bias towards delegitimizing women’s pain, inculcated after hundreds of years of diagnosing women with “hysteria”— “an umbrella term to explain a variety of symptoms that doctors often associated with women: menstrual cramps and bleeding, anxiety, depression, dizziness, insomnia, abdominal pain, loss of appetite, fainting, and more” (not removed from the DSM until 1980) (forbes.com). And It’s even worse for women of color.
Gynecological trauma happens because, as women, we are taught in so many ways that our bodies do not belong to us. We are taught not to trust how we feel, that to distance ourselves from our natural hormone cycles is standard. Through a robust and pervasive culture still accepting of and at times celebrating rape, domination, and conquest of land, women’s bodies and sexuality, and nature, we are socialized in many ways to hate our bodies. We are taught that our bodies are a problem to be solved, a constant battle to be won. And, at the same time, we are urged to surrender our bodies to whichever authority is most nearby. We are taught to surrender ourselves to our sexual partners, often feeling confusion as to what we want, to surrender ourselves to the state, allowing laws and legislature to be passed that strip away our freedom, to surrender ourselves to our medical providers, thinking “the doctor knows best”, often never actually considering whether the practices we are being offered (or pressured into) are evidence based or not, or even gets us closer to how we actually wish to experience our bodies.
We are socialized into a state of freeze about our bodies. We are molded to dissociate during many instances of touch. We are often cut off from our pleasure because it lives in the body, the place we must not trust.
What is the gynecological travesty?
The great gynecological travesty is the parody of women’s health that constructs the backbone from which the western medical model of gynecology and obstetrics was built.
It is a definition of health built upon domination of the body at large and domination of Woman. It is denial of cyclical living or a life governed by or influenced by nature. It is the debris that remains after the obliteration of women’s holistic health governed long ago by witches, midwives, and healers, and the reactive restructuring of “health”, governed nowadays by doctors, experts, and scientists.
This great travesty leaves us with a definition of women’s health that often leaves us no option but to numb out or remove our natural hormone cycles, the building blocks of our emotional body, as a cure-all for many women’s health challenges; Hormonal birth control being prescribed as the first line of defense for nearly every women’s health challenge.
How to start getting the care you need:
Getting the gynecological care you really need is about educating yourself to your intimate body, knowing what you want, know the roots of the dominant medical system, and creating opportunities for your nervous system to learn how to move from freeze at the doctor’s office to empowered action.
This is what my birth and postpartum services are all about. I’ll give you basic skills needed to feel empowered to ask for the care that you need. It is about teaching you how to create the opportunities for you to receive the care that you want, and to start working towards the definition of health that feels right for YOU, that gets you closer to vitality-filled life. This course will start you on your journey to make empowered decisions about your pelvis, whether it be in birth, menstruation, hormone health, postpartum, menopause, or any other domain of women’s health. It’s time we finally start getting the care we really need in women’s health.
