Page 90 - EMCAPP-Journal No. 13

effects of FGM and publish works like Ulla Dal- things! And like all victims of violence, I also
len. When violence looses the mask of „care“ need the opportunity not to make a „painful se-
( for health, well-being, etc.) and is recognized cret“ of my traumatic experience.
to be a crime against a person, the victim attains
the legal right to express anger, which otherwi- Surely, starting to call a spade a spade, we may
se should be suppressed (it’s a shame to be an- face a problem - when denouncing evil, not to
gry for care!). It grieves me to think how much fall into the condemnation of people who have
„legal „(permitted and even approved) violence committed it. Ulla writes about this problem
still exists in the world, which could have been and how difficult it was to cope with her own
easily avoided if not for the power of habit, tra- feelings of horror and anger, while maintaining
dition, rules. a position of compassion and mercy towards
women who survived FGM. Christian spiri-
When reading the article, I suddenly felt hard tually-oriented approach can help to keep from
to breathe, everything shrinking inside – the fa- hardening our hearts and condemning people –
miliar symptoms for me - this way the medical as we are not judges for them. I absolutely agree
trauma of my own childhood resonated. with Ulla that trauma therapy requires extreme
caution, care, tact and high professionalism, as
When I was 6 years old, I underwent adeno- well as true Christian humility and at the same
idectomy. As it turned out, there was no special time great courage to resist anti-human cu-
need to do it – just for the sake of prevention. stoms and rules. Keeping it in mind, with our
The operation was performed in a children‘s diligence and God‘s help, there will be a little
hospital in Moscow. According to the rules of less violence and a little more love in our world.
the time (1970-ies) the operation was made wi-
thout anesthesia (even local), a child was tied
with belts to the chair, his teeth unclenched
and adenoids were cut out. The small patient
usually spent in the hospital three days, parents
were not allowed. If the child was screaming
and crying, he was ashamed and punished by
the medical staff, so I was trying with all my
infant strength to endure and not to show my
pain and feelings. In my opinion, this procedure
is similar to cruel torture, but it was approved
by the Ministry of health and was considered
an ordinary simple operation („It‘s alright, not
a big deal!“- as was explained to my parents).
I still can’t understand why it was necessary to
expose children (and me) to such a violence.
But I‘m not sure that even nowadays some old
experienced doctor in some children‘s hospital
does not operate adenoids that way, like in the
„good old days“. Being an adult, I’ve spent a
lot of time, effort and money for body-oriented
psychotherapy of this trauma, but I could not
fully cope with the psycho-physiological conse-
quences. And I have never met any information
about the irreparable harm to children caused
by such „medical care“ and no discussing-con-
demning of such methods of treatment. But I
agree with Ulla Dallen, we must talk about such

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