“I’ve seen you naked before”

“you have the most beautiful eyes,” the doctor tells me as he tries to reassure my nerves while also redirecting his exam nurse; they had an uncomfortable understanding. It was my very first time crunching the paper sheets beneath my legs and wishing I could rewind to the age of 7; a time when life was basically gumdrops and lollipops.

At this point, I am post college; left for Europe to work since the time of signing bonuses and move packages were a thing of the past. This was my first gynecological experience and I was terrified. The feet in the stirrups and scrunching forward and unfolding like a butterfly made my palms sweat.

If being unprepared for this type of exam was a super hero; I wore the backless cape well. I was not prepared; I was still considered a patient of my pediatrician. As it turns out; being 24, the plastic chairs in the waiting room are much smaller than I remember. I digress; this is about the appointment at hand <self described cold hands, as I found out>, not about me retrieving my records at my pediatrician’s office.

My mind had already imprinted the name of the physician; I knew his name, for more than one reason. We belonged to a swim club as kids; he and his wife sunned by the ladder of the swim slide. His brother was also my pediatrician.

The exam continued and my perfectly curled lashes started to unfurl with the memories that we were indeed more than brief acquaintances. His comments undressed me more than the gown, the stirrups, and the hand to my vagina.

I asked that any mail from his office be sent to my home without an indication of his office as my roommates were my parents; my request was denied. My dad always seemed to intercept the mail; he walked in rubbing his bald head as if to say — “why do you have mail from doctor cold hands?” But, as a man who never talked to me about sex; he left this one alone, so my mom might have an opportunity to torture me. She never talked to me about sex either, so this began an awkward unspoken journey.

A couple of things happened during this holiday season; a dance with this doctor and a sisterhood. I started to describe, in jest, my first exam with some girlfriends as we had an impromptu Christmas dinner; it stunned the shit out of me when another gal from the same college preemptively asked: “did he comment on your eyes?”

Ew. Ew. Ew. Icky times one thousand. My discomfort was overwhelmed by their stories of hilarity and sexcapades. The seriously sinking feeling that I was going to see him in the not too distant future at a holiday party and a wedding. I was paralyzed by my increasingly awkward perception of this man and the fact that, this is in no way a topic to discuss with most, let alone my future family.

My fiancé was in the wedding; a Christmas clouded snowy debacle. Unbeknownst to anyone, and the gyno being separated from his wife; they suggested I dance with him. The traumatic phrase: “I’ve seen you naked before” heightened the awkward vibes. He didn’t want to dance with me as much as I didn’t want to dance with him. He uttered those words, and then to try to make things better; recalled how he delivered my naked body as a baby.

Holiday trauma comes in all forms; for me, I will never shake the terrifying days of early adulthood. That some doctors are creeps and sometimes you learn that it all runs in the family.