What is Medical Trauma?

Medical trauma refers to a ‘patient’s psychological and physiological response to a negative or traumatic experience in a medical setting. The experience may involve illness, injury, pain, invasive procedures, and distressing or dismissive medical treatment. Being treated poorly by healthcare providers can cause medical trauma, such as when medical staff are not attentive or sensitive to a patient’s needs. Poor communication can also increase a patient’s stress levels and lead to medical trauma.’[1]

Medical Trauma is often referred to as Medical PTSD, which is ‘simply saying that a post-traumatic stress response has occurred after a traumatic medical experience. Not being believed by doctors is one of the experiences that can lead to a post-traumatic response. When you experience pain, you need others to believe you and help you. If a medical professional is withholding belief, help, or not paying attention to your symptoms, it can lead you to feel helpless.’[2]

This post discusses my experiences of medical trauma over the last 11 years. It discusses the impact that medical trauma has had on my mental health and my ability to function. It also recounts how medical trauma has affected my ability to trust healthcare professionals.

My Medical Trauma

Over forty medical consultants have not taken my concerns about my facial pain symptoms seriously. Doctors not believing me is the direct cause of my medical trauma. Their dismissal of me has forced me to endure undiagnosed facial, periocular, ear, and head pain for 11 years. This has been exhausting and torturous. Consultants speaking to me in disrespectful ways, gaslighting me, and ignoring abnormal scans and blood test results when they know how much pain I am in have also contributed to my experiences of medical trauma.

I have had many deeply traumatic experiences. An ophthalmologist randomly terminated my medical treatment. Clinicians have committed to action plans. I then receive a letter from them, telling me that they have discharged me from their care. One head and neck surgeon ghosted for 18 weeks. I saw him once. He promised to do a scan and get me back to find a way forward but he didn’t contact me again. I have faced obscene mental health discrimination, which involved medical departments refusing to see me because of stigmatization. Some clinicians have not been honest about clinical findings, and most recently, my GP practice has falsified my medical records. These experiences have all contributed to my decade-long medical trauma.

Symptoms of Medical Trauma

The symptoms of medical trauma look similar to those of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, (PTSD) and include:

• Avoidance of stimuli- including doctors in this case.
• Emotional numbing.
• Exaggerated startle response.
• Persistent Fear.
• Flashbacks
• Hypervigilance; (being in a heightened state of alertness.)
• Anxiety
• Depression
• Insomnia
• Intense Emotions
• Intrusive Thoughts
• Social Withdrawal
• Feelings of rage or shame
• Skin Rashes [3]

My Trauma Symptoms

My trauma symptoms are synonymous with all of the above. Since February 2023, I have not felt able to attend any further consultations with clinicians. This is because the interactions with these professionals are too distressing. It even feels unnerving when I collect my repeat prescriptions from my local pharmacy. I am suffering from acute insomnia. I get on average 1-3 hours of sleep a night. At 2.00am most nights, I wake up because of facial pain and blind panic. I have regular flashbacks to consultations with surgeons, who have gaslighted and spoken aggressively to me.

My mood has been severely low for five years. The strain of events took their toll on me and I fell into a mental health crisis in October 2019. I feel furious towards the system that has chosen to leave me in pain and have also withdrawn socially as a result of my medical trauma. I feel shame about the way the medical establishment has treated me and I feel extremely vulnerable out in the world. Skin rashes have also been recurring on my arms.

My most pronounced symptoms of medical trauma are intense fear and hypervigilance. I feel afraid all of the time and am on hyperalert, wondering what these NHS bodies are going to do next.

One of medical traumas key distinguishing symptoms is hypervigilance, meaning you’re constantly watching for things. Hypervigilance also includes intrusive thoughts and nightmares. [4]

Bessel Van der Kolk on Trauma

In an interview with Story Box, Bessel Van der Kolk, author of; The Body Keeps the Score, defines trauma as an “Oh My God” experience. He says; ‘trauma is when you are confronted with something, and nothing prepares you for it, and you just get overwhelmed. You feel helpless, and you shut down. You become immobilised. Your whole system breaks down, and you don’t know where to turn anymore.’[5]

An ‘oh my god experience’ translates to me as a big shock moment. My medical trauma has consisted of repeated large-scale shock moments with medical professionals. These shocks occur frequently. Just as I come up for air from one shock, the next one happens. I get no respite from them. I am in a constant state of trepidation. Even now, as I write this post, I feel fearful about what nasty blow is coming next. I am still recovering from my recent discovery that my GP practice has deleted an entry from my medical record, which recorded me attending A&E for suicidal feelings on May 17^th, 2024. Stupefied is the only way I can describe what I felt when I saw this.

These trauma experiences are like mini earthquakes. I feel shaken by scandalous incidents. These are instances where NHS agencies in power are failing in their responsibility to care for me. The ground beneath my feet never feels safe.

Help and Support

Bessel Van der Kolk explains that what happens after trauma is critical. He says that ‘it is key to have people around us who are there to help and support us. A safe, stable, nurturing relationship is the only way trauma can heal.’ I have had and currently have no help or support from statutory services to deal with these medical traumas. Organisations and services that should be helping me have instead compounded my trauma.

Mental Health Services

The mental health services know that I am going through a prolonged trauma regarding my facial pain. Three teams have seen me in acute distress and despair. They know that I am not making up my facial pain. But they have either remained silent, blamed me, or colluded with the cover-up and protected the NHS bodies who have caused me harm.

A mental health team in Fife made matters much worse for me. A locum psychiatrist, who had never met nor spoken to me, wrote a letter that said that I have ‘Factitious Disorder.’ His letter said that I am making up my facial pain in order to ‘feed the need to have a sick role.’ He sent this letter to multiple agencies. As a result of this letter, I faced a wave of obscene discrimination: one surgeon ghosted me for 18 weeks, an infectious diseases clinician discharged me when my infection markers were high, and a pain management service refused to see me.

Blaming Me

My current mental health team, who have now discharged me, put the responsibility onto me. They told me that I need to ‘reframe’ the awful way that the medical system has treated me. They said that I don’t ‘like what I am hearing,’ and that I ‘need to hear some truths.’ This team was then complicit in the tampering of my medical records. I told them that my GP had written in my records: Scan abnormal to be expected; no action needed. Within two hours of telling that MH clinician, my GP practice locked me out of my System One portal and amended that record.

How do I ‘reframe’ that?

I attended Accident & Emergency on 10 June 2024 to get help for my suicidal thoughts. The psychiatric liaison officer who I saw said to me in a blunt way, You can’t come here for support. He then told me to ‘self-refer’ back to the statutory services who have discharged me and closed down my file. That was my ‘care plan.’ It beggars belief.

Social Services

The actions by social services have compounded my trauma. My local authority terminated my social care package in April 2023. They didn’t explain why. My previous authority, when I lived in Scotland behaved with even more brutality. NHS 111 raised 5 causes of concern to public protection. The local authority ignored them all. No one from public protection even called me for a welfare check. It’s not possible to turn to my GP for support, as their conduct has instilled deep mistrust and fear within me. I feel immobilised and helpless. The system has shut down on me. I find it difficult to tell people because it is so unbelievable. I have become quiet and withdrawn.

Trauma is very much about the whole system breaking down and you don’t know who to turn to anymore. It resets your orientation in the world.

Bessel Van Der Kolk

Fear & Hypervigilance

Bessel Van der Kolk advises that we have to pay attention to our feelings. ‘Our emotions,’ he says, ‘are warning signs. If you are anxious, our brain is warning us that something dangerous is happening.’ [6] My fear and hypervigilance are unrelenting. I feel fearful all of the time, even when I am doing day-to-day things, like buying a loaf of bread. However, when I read Bessel Van der Kolk’s words that say that fear is a warning sign, I am comforted to know that it is natural to feel afraid in the circumstances that I am in.

It is dangerous to be registered with a GP practice, who is tampering with my medical records. It feel terrifying to have so many government organisations colluding with one another and closing ranks in this vicious way. The imbalance of power feels so overwhelming.

Conclusion

My system has shut down, and I have become frozen with fear. I do not know where to turn anymore. I have no reference point within the healthcare system. No place of refuge. My medical trauma has made a significant imprint on me and has ‘reset my orientation in the world’ in a negative way. This incessant state of shock and hypervigilance that I am living with prevents me from being able to engage with people in the present moment and function normally.

These shocks that arise from harrowing interactions with medical professionals are still occurring, so I am on tenterhooks, wondering what they are going to do next. It’s not possible to start a recovery while the trauma is still alive. I cannot, therefore, begin to heal from these traumas until they stop happening. Once they cease, I hope that with the right help, these distressing experiences will thaw in my consciousness and gradually have less hold over me.

Fortunately, the vast majority of medical experiences are positive ones, sometimes with truly heroic efforts by doctors and nurses to save a patient’s life. But when things go wrong, it can be emotionally devastating.[7]

Foot Notes

[1] Blanchfield T, (AMFT) What is Medical Trauma? 31^st January, 2022, www.verywellmind.com

[2] Dr Quincee Gideon; Common Symptoms of Medical PTSD,  www.woventraumatherapy.com

[3] Information quoted from same source as footnote 1.

[4] Goldman, L: What You Need to Know About Medical Trauma, April 19^th, 2021, www.healthcentral.com

[5] Bessel Van Der Kolk; The Body Keeps the Score| Understanding & Healing from Trauma, The Story Box.

[6] Quotation taken from same source as footnote 5.

[7] Goldman L; What you Need to Know About Medical Trauma, April 19^th, 2021, www.healthcentral.com

Recommended Articles

Medical Trauma: Signs, Causes and Care

What Does Emotional Trauma Look Like?

Videos on Trauma

Photo Credits; Bansah Photography & Savannah on Unsplash. Andrea Piacquadio, Engin Akyhurt & Alexander Krivitskiy on Pexels. Gerd Altmann, Tiro Prasetyo, Public Domain Pictures, Anemone123 & Alexas Fotos on Pixabay.