An effect of trauma
Medical avoidance
Putting off appointments, leaving symptoms unexamined, cancelling at the door, or sitting in the car park and driving home. Not being able to be examined, undressed, restrained, sedated, or lain flat. Not being able to be in a waiting room. This usually follows being hurt, dismissed, disbelieved, or held down by someone in a medical setting, and it carries a real cost, because the body still needs care it is no longer able to accept.
Avoidance here is not carelessness, it is a body protecting itself from a place that hurt it. The difficulty is that the cost lands on your health rather than on whoever caused it. There are ways back into care that do not require you to override yourself, and people here have found them.
It can sound like
If any of those sentences live in your head too, you are in good company here.
Nothing on this page is a diagnosis, and nothing here decides what is wrong with you, because nothing is wrong with you. Something happened to you. This page exists so that when you are ready, you can find people who understand it from the inside.
You do not have to carry this alone.
Bridge of Hope Recovery is a free, anonymous, peer-led fellowship for trauma survivors. Meetings run throughout the week by phone, by video, and in person. No cost, no waitlist, no one asking for your real name.