I have, for about the last 2 decades, been affected by an unnamed condition. There are many others out there who are similarly afflicted - I've talked with them. It's taken me a long time to come up with an adequate description, and then an adequate name, for this condition. It's as maybe that there already is a clinical term and description out there. If so, or if you have a better name, please let me know.
Viscerophobia is a condition where individuals have abnormally negative reactions to scenarios (descriptive or experiential) that involve surgical or traumatic "violations" of the body - deep cuts, incisions, operations, broken bones, and so on. Affected individuals experience severe revulsion, nausea, and trauma from being subject to descriptive or experiential events on this topic.
About 20 years back, while in high school, I had my primary "trigger" event, getting blood taken, for what was diagnosed as mono. I'd had plenty of prior experiences with blood-taking and syringes before, that had no negative impact. However, this experience triggered a very negative experience, and I was for the next few days preoccupied with the fear that strangers would try to extract blood from me while I was sleeping, and attempted to sleep in such a way that all my veins were protected (a physical impossibility). A later experience that required a spinal tap exacerbated the trauma.
In my current condition, if someone persists in describing a serious injury or surgical procedure in my presence, I will either leave the room or plug my ears (while "thrumming" them to block comprehension) to avoid the experience. These experiences create serious/significant stress for me, which persists for hours/days. When I have personal experiences that subject me to injections, incisions, surgery, or other corporeal "violations" that involve penetration, serious damage, or breaking bones, I do my absolute best to ignore/avoid awareness/understanding of what is happening to me.
I call this Viscerophobia, from the Latin "viscera"http://en.wikipedia.org/...:
In anatomy, a viscus ( ˈvɪskəs) is an internal organ, and viscera is the plural form.[1][2] The viscera, when removed from a butchered animal, are known collectively as offal. Internal organs are also known as "innards", or less formally, "guts" (which may also refer to the gastrointestinal tract).
The adjective visceral, also splanchnic,[3] is used for anything pertaining to the internal organs.
It's not a perfect description, because I'm also affected by blood-related traumas (hemophobia), as well as broken bones, and basically any form of significant physical damage to the human body (I'm fine with scrapes, cuts, bruises and other trivial damage). I'm also better dealing with real-world scenarios (eg significant physical damage to myself or others) than being forced to listen to descriptions of similar trauma. I have provided active first aid and remained composed in mild-medium physical trauma scenarios.
Why am I posting this to DK? Well first because I want to lock down this neologism. But also because this is my community, and this is where I like to share. Some recent diaries have unintentionally triggered my viscerophobia and I just wanted to put this perspective in play. And no, I'm not speaking metaphorically. I can put up with way more terribly offensive and outrageous stuff, from a political/ideological perspective, than I ever could from a physical/corporeal disruptive perspective.
Often, when I explain my condition to others (usually when they're describing a scenario that is negative/traumatic for me), in an attempt to redirect the conversation, they respond with a series of escalatingly unpleasant descriptions of similarly negative/traumatic experiences. I have learned to counter forcefully, along the lines of "You F'ers, you SOB's, if I told you that I was claustrophobic, would you try to lock me in a closet? Then why the F are you telling me stories about things that are traumatic to me?". The next step, or my first step, in polite company, is to hum or walk away.
For those wondering about what the negative experience is,
-I imagine/experience the description of a physical/surgical violation to be occurring to me at that moment, and imagine/experience the physical damage described to be actually occurring to me at that moment.
-Within a viscerophobic experience, there is no visualisation of an eventual recovery or long-term benefit. The only perspective is of the specific trauma described/experienced.
-This trauma is imagined as permanent, can be triggered at any future time by a word, description, or association , and usually results in an ongoingly negative/traumatized mode for several minutes or hours, on each occurrence. Occurrences can be memory/association triggered, by such trivial events as typing, breathing, and moving.
-Viscerophobia usually triggers visualizations of worst-case scenarios - severe and disabilitating long-term damage. While I can generally tolerate descriptions of functional bodily operations, any description of violations/invasions triggers severe negative associations.
-All these experiences make me want to curl up in a fetal ball and block out everything until I have somehow forgotten all about what they were discussing.
I could go on but l'd like to hear from the swarm. Any other viscerophobes out there? Also PLEASE DON'T DESCRIBE YOUR NEGATIVE PHYSICAL TRAUMA EXPERIENCES, I/WE DON'T WANT TO HEAR ABOUT THEM.