why is it going to the gynecologist so anxiety triggering?

14 comments

1. Possibility of bad news always is.

2. Well, it’s someone you don’t know all that well poking around in your nether bits. It feels weird, it’s awkward, and there’s always the off chance of finding out something is wrong down there. There’s lots to be anxious about.

3. It is invasive, at least to me. Having to undress and be in a paper cloth, having to sit still while an almost stranger literally enters your body, having to sit through discomfort or sometimes pain etc. Similar to the dentist but with the added downside of it being a “private” area essentially. Both freak me out.

4. For me it isn’t, my gyno makes me extremely comfortable.

5. The Gynecologist is simply doing their job just like a PCP, Ophthalmologist, or Dentist. It doesn’t bother me.

6. I can only imagine because of the fear of judgement/feeling exposed. I know I would feel exposed. And I would be scared that they would find my vag “gross”.

7. Last visit asked: how often do have sex?
   Me: I don’t have sex.
   Rudely she states: guess I will find cobwebs.

   In my head: WTF is that? Oh and not your patient anymore

8. Fear of the pain. I think we’ve all heard the horror stories. Especially for me personally as I’m pretty certain I have vaginismus and so I will probably never let a gyno try to insert anything

9. Someone rustles around in your hoo-ha.

10. I think some folks find it invasive. I personally never really felt it was any different than going to like, the dentist though (other than that the dentists I’ve been to have been meaner).

    There’s also *a lot* of people that specifically fear monger or spread straight up bad info about paps on social media. I’ve seen so many tiktoks lately spreading very incorrect screening guidelines and claiming that doctors will “tell you you have cervical cancer” to “make money”, or that if you had the HPV vaccine you can’t get cervical cancer so you don’t need to go (not true, though it does reduce risk) or various other things that are just like, blatantly false and make people feel like they should not go. I’ve never seen these about other types cancer screening either. But even if people know this stuff is bullshit, the negative association can *still* be built subconsciously.

11. For me it’s the pain mainly. It hurts really bad when they use a speculum.

12. Tldr: subconscious psychological pressures, probs.

    If your experience isn’t with physical discomfort, which is common too, it’s probably psychological in nature.

    Whether that’s because it’s private/intimate, from trauma of past abuse, fear of results, fear of judgment, dismorphia, self confidence–take your pick. Personally I think it boils down to two things: firstly, that society has given you a subconscious idea that things entering or exiting the vagina are IMPORTANT, BIG EVENTS that carry meaning, so the gyno experience (clinical, person you don’t know well, clinical tools you have little familiarity with) can be triggering bc your brain doesn’t know how to “file” the experience.

    Secondly, and most important, people with vulvas are emotionally removed from their genitalia on multiple levels in a way the rest of our body is not. Most people with vulvas don’t fully understand their anatomy, or used a mirror to look at their own body, or touched it, or can even name the parts, let alone understand how it works. (Yet we know our tongue, teeth, gums, etc). So there’s an intellectual and educational gap. Then there’s the psychological gap: a taboo, an idea of sex, and the female sex organ, as “dirty” or “shameful,” a thing we hide and don’t talk about and have tons of secret fears about whether we’re normal. We don’t think about our vulvas like we think about our stomachs or our elbows–there is social conditioning and personal feelings that are subconscious but POWERFUL.

    So then we have this medical procedure that is totally normal, but because of where are heads are at, it’s horrible and can be triggering.

    Best advice if your anxiety is psychological: See if you feel divorced from this part of your body, and then see how to come to accept it as a part of you no different than any other part of the machine that makes you work. Educate yourself on anatomy, in general, and in yours, specifically. Watch “principles of pleasure” on netflix, or other sex educators online. Become informed on exactly what your gyno is doing and why. Recognize social messaging around the vulva and deconstruct it. It’s not easy but it can help with the exam panic.

    Ps i also like making gyno days “treat yoself” days. Chocolate, good book in bed, takeout, fuzzy pjs, Netflix binges. Pavlov your way to success my friend.

13. Because letting someone that’s not your partner touch you in a hopefully clean room you only get bad news in is awful.

14. I think when I was younger I was more shy about my body. Like afraid it was getting judged, having someone not close to me touching me down there.

    Now that I’m older now I’ve come to embrace the fact that my butthole probably doesn’t stand out from anyone else’s. And the doctor has her hand jammed up so many lady parts all the time, she’s probably bored of them.

    I’ve been lucky enough to have known my doctor for years so we can have random chats about bands we like, or movies, anything pretty much while she’s rooting around down there