Addressing my medical trauma, part 3: It didn't help that I thought I was being taken to the doctors as a punishment for not drinking enough water. I used to hear "if you don't start drinking more water and you keep getting constipated, we'll have to take you to the doctors". It sounded like a threat. I tried to drink more water. I forgot. I said it didn't hurt because I didn't want to go to the doctors. I thought pain means it's bad and needs treating, no pain means it's fine and to just ignore it. I didn't realise until it was too late that it was me saying it didn't hurt which is why my mum took me to the doctors. No one told me that until after when I tried lying about the pain I was in again. If I'd known before, I would have been honest from the start. Obviously I didn't know about bowel cancer and IBD and other causes of rectal bleeding at that age. I just thought blood and no pain was better than blood and pain.