🏥 What it means to have grown up with medical trauma
Growing up with medical trauma meant that medical procedures and hospital stays defined your childhood, making your body feel like territory others could invade without permission and teaching you that pain and vulnerability were normalized experiences.
You may have learned early that your body could betray you and that helplessness was a frequent companion. While other children played, you navigated adult medical realities, creating a premature awareness of mortality and physical fragility that most kids never had to carry.
You may find that your relationship with your body remains complicated—you either feel disconnected from it or hypervigilant to every sensation. Medical settings trigger a visceral response where even routine check-ups flood you with memories of vulnerability and loss of control, and you struggle to feel fully safe in your body, carrying a deep sense that health is fragile.