Published on 12, July, 2020
I’ve had a rather traumatising morning and was wondering if this was a problem other people on the spectrum have encountered?
4 years ago I had shingles. The past couple of days I’ve been getting horrendous burning pain that feels like shingles did last time. It’s a bank holiday so we phoned 111 and ended up going to an outpatient clinic at the hospital. The doctor (male) said he needed to examine me. My mum was with me, as was a chaperone (female nurse) and we explained to him that I was autistic and that I was very stressed at the thought of being examined as the pain was around the groin area and I've never had anyone have to examine me there before. I had hoped that would be enough to make him mindful of being delicate. He was not. It was horrible. I was lying on the bed, holding onto my Mum’s hand, crying my eyes out and having to shut my eyes. He said he couldn’t see any blisters so couldn’t give any antivirals in case it wasn’t shingles, which I completely understand (I study biomedical science at university and was worried that this scenario would happen), but his whole manner was wrong. He was very unsympathetic to my extreme distress and kept saying how he was “only helping”.
Several years ago I had a similar experience where a female doctor needed to listen to my heart through a stethoscope and started pulling my vest up without my permission because she was frustrated that I was trying to cover myself up given my mum was in the room. So I got very distressed at the feeling of exposure and her lack of sympathy or delicacy. (This was before I had my autism diagnosis)
I would be very interested to hear of anyone who has similar stories, as maybe this is a problem that really needs to be advocated for in hospitals
Hi, sorry, I know this is an old(ish) thread, but I can definitely relate.
Two separate incidents stand out for me, both pre-diagnosis. The first, I was 18 and had been experiencing breathing difficulties, and ended up in A&E. A male nurse was assigned to hook me up to an ECG and told me to remove my top and bra. I was mortified to the point of mutism so couldn’t even ask for a chaperone, and dumbly, numbly obeyed. It was horrific.
The second time, I was 25 and had been admitted with severe abdominal pain, which eventually turned out to be a ruptured 14cm endometrioma. A male doctor said he needed to do an internal (gynae) exam and I immediately asked for a chaperone having learnt from last time. The chaperone he got was a MALE nurse. Again, horrified to the point of mutism. This was also taking place less than 12 months after I’d been raped—not that that was any of their business—but in what kind of world does a male doctor imagine a male chaperone is appropriate for a young woman’s gynae exam?
Fortunately, last year when I was undergoing investigations for unexplained dizziness (eventually diagnosed as chronic vestibular migraine), I was given an ECG in an outpatient clinic. The nurse was female, she left the cubicle while I undressed, and after hooking my up to everything she picked up my top and placed it over me while the test was conducted. I don’t know if they’re now being trained differently or whether a female nurse just instinctively knows a woman won’t want to lie there bare-chested in front of a stranger for 5-10 minutes.
I think some male medical professionals are just really lacking in common sense. They see a body as a body and forget there is a person with thoughts and feelings in there too.
I’m really sorry you’ve had to go through what you have. It is traumatising, and you do feel trapped and exposed and utterly humiliated. And it’s almost always avoidable, which makes it even worse.
I hope you’re okay now.
My goodness, I am SO sorry you had to experience those things! I can’t say it makes me feel better that I’m not alone with these experiences, but it does prove to me that there is a problem here. I sincerely hope you are doing well and that with the combination of your diagnosis and hopefully getting more compassionate professionals in the future, that you never have to undergo such trauma again <3
(and I can totally empathise with the mutism, and I think it is perhaps this trait in particular that makes autistic people so much more vulnerable in these situations. I was extremely lucky in having my mum with me on both occasions so she was able to talk on my behalf to some extent, but I know I won’t always have her with me in such situations)