Warning: This post contains possible triggers.

After being an active alcoholic for about eight years, I got sober at the age of 28 and realized that I needed to go to the gynecologist. I was terrified, the last time I had gotten a pelvic exam was age 19. During my destructive drinking period I had unprotected sex several times as well as being and was date raped by someone I barely knew. I never got pregnant, but I was convinced that I must have HIV or cancer. I was also worried that that any self-respecting gynecologist I saw would lecture me and insist that any disease I had picked up was punishment for my deviant behavior.

I made an appointment at Planned Parenthood. I had just begun working again and was working a minimum wage job, so I brought the necessary paperwork to prove my financial situation. I had no health insurance. I went to the Margaret Sanger Center on Bleecker Street, and went through security. They have a security guard and a metal detector which is pretty understandable. Other than the other patients in the waiting room, the security guard was the only man I saw. All of the employees were women, which was a huge relief, since given the history I mentioned above, I have a pretty big problem with men I don’t know touching me.

After waiting a few minutes I went up to an office to get financial assistance and the administrator went through my paperwork and said that I wouldn’t have to pay for my visit. I was particularly sensitive to being ridiculed about having no money, but I didn’t get that. She seemed pretty unfazed about the whole thing.

They have an option at Planned Parenthood to request an HIV test with your exam, so I did. I went with a social worker to her office. She said, “I’m going to give you the test now and if it comes out positive we will go over some options together.” She put a little plastic stick in my mouth and that was the whole test. I thought they were going to have to take my blood or something. She got the results immediately, too. “It’s negative,” she said.

Then I saw the doctor. I told her straight up that I was recently sober and had not had a pelvic exam in nearly a decade. She didn’t bat an eye. All she said was that she was glad I was here now. She asked me some standard questions about my sexual history and menstrual cycle and gave me an exam, explaining what she was doing the entire time. She told me everything looked normal and the PAP smear results would be in in a week or so. When it was over she strongly suggested that I always use condoms, and if I planned to be in a relationship I should go on birth control, which would also be available to me at no cost if I needed it.

All my tests came back normal and I felt like a huge weight had been lifted off of my shoulders. For years I thought of myself as a worthless piece of sh*t who couldn’t get a job or health insurance and no self-respecting doctor would help me. Because of Planned Parenthood’s nonjudgmental approach and commitment to care I was treated like a human being, and I was able to start feeling like one. It kept me on an upward trajectory of staying clean and sober and taking care of myself.

A lot of people think Planned Parenthood is only for abortions, but not me. I just needed to get screened for HIV and cancer! And all the women I encountered at Planned Parenthood wanted me to be safe and healthy. And I think every single person has the right to be safe and healthy. Even if you don’t think you deserve it at the time.