(no subject)

[kradeelav]

little weird to realize that while talking to somebody about the most intense horror movie they've seen, [one big chunk of it] is technically a massive upgrade for something you went through as a 6yo several times

lul. lmao even.

(we were talking about uhhh, martyrs, i think, the one with the mask stapled into somebody's skull. honestly i'd take staples over the screws i had. but i'd definitely take staples over the several inch long screws i had removed from the legs w/o anaesthesia. those days when loads of shit were done to kids w/o anaesthesia because they thought kids would naturally forget about it were ... not fun.)
 

Comments

[amado1]

They just thought you'd forget about it??? T_T

[kradeelav]

"Forget about it" is a little unscientific lol, but there's actually some morbidly fascinating(?) papers/research about how.... i think it changed in the early 90's (right in the middle of most of my big experiences), how surgeries/proceedures were often done on infants/toddlers w/o anaesthesia partly because there was a belief that like most people with childhood memories that those memories would fade*, and also partly because anaesthesia was legitmately dicey/dangerous to use especially with smaller margins of error. i actually do have sympathy for the anaesthesiologists there -- try giving a 3yo the right amount of fent+a cocktail of other stuff without stopping their heart, you know?

i'd dig up the exact paper links for ya b/c it's great for fic research but uh. personally kinda hard to get through those, even post therapy lmao. they exist on sci hub tho.

*obviously i can't speak for everyone but like- sure the actual beat-by-beat memor(ies) itself has faded, but much like how C/PTSD knowledge has gotten far more nuanced, the body remembers things the mind has forgotten. Interestingly sometimes anaesthesia's a hit or miss with that part too, since it's like a retroactive mind wipe when it works.

[amado1]

Oh don't worry about the paper, I'm hardly writing any fic at all these days XD The memory aspect blows my mind a little but the actual anesthesia and how finicky it is, that makes lots of sense. Okay, I should say it doesn't blow my mind that they assumed/hoped toddlers would forget -- that's a fairly reasonable assumption even for traumatic things. It seems to be kind of 50/50. It just blows my mind that the only two options were "life threatening anesthesia" and "unbelievably horrific levels of pain" kjdshfkdshfgdg

[ellerean]

Being a kid is traumatizing, what the heck?

(I still hate visiting the dentist...)

[kradeelav]

dentists trips are no joke ayeeep :handshake emoji:

[queenlua]

this is so fascinating / new to me, wow. my partner went through a bunch of pretty intense surgeries when he was really little, and says he remembers none of it—i wonder if that was before/after the era of no-anaesthesia-for-kids. (he was young enough that he might've forgotten it either way, based on my very limited understanding of memory formation in kiddos—but it's kind of mind blowing they'd be saying that for, like, a six year old, geez. i have very vivid non-traumatic memories of being six! would definitely not assume six is a non-memory-forming age lol)

[kradeelav]

:handshake emoji: to your bird boy there. it's an experience for sure, and I'm super glad for him he has minimal effects from there~

you had me curious about when things started changing in the exact years; i couldn't find the "mid 90's" citation but this felt like a pretty solid article/macro look on the topic if you wanted to dig deeper - apparently a pivitol turning point was 1987 for the research which is still pretty close considering it take a few years for standard practices to evolve/roll out for the edge cases: https://hms.harvard.edu/news/long-life-early-pain

(now, screw removal procedure (from the legs) was technically an clinic thing at that time vs in the OR which might have also influenced why they didn't do the 'full under' bit; vs the screw removal from the halo/skull which *was* in the OR). hospitals man. not even once. :D;;

[airlock384]

so, how sensible is it to assume that it's a feeling not unlike when you're queer and you find like, a YA book where the premise is "In A World, Where Love Is Illegal,"

[kradeelav]

haaaaa. yeah. that's uh. pretty close.