After attending my first mammogram, due to a litter of dead bodies in the family and being bullied by the genetics team, I was called back with an extremely vague letter asking me to go back for some sort of follow-up appointment.

They started telling me I would be examined by a male consultant (I wasn’t happy due to previous misogynistic male consultants and sexual abuse in my past), then I would be having all these ultrasounds, further mammograms, and a biopsy??!!

I am quite timid and polite but explained that I hadn’t been told anything about this appointment and as I’d driven myself over an hour to get to the hospital it would have been useful to know I wasn’t likely to be able to drive myself back???

No complaints over the staff despite the hospital being renowned for being truly awful, but previous experiences and unfortunately a tendency towards extreme anxiety (now worse due to past experiences) panic attacks etc within a clinical setting – leaves me extremely distrusting of the medical profession.

That’s difficult to admit as I work in the NHS and my sister herself is a nurse. All that aside with little to zero information I consented to try and get this experience out the way and myself out the door as soon as possible.

But due to the extreme anxiety, once clamped into the machine for a guided biopsy, panic ensued and my body and mind took over …. Issues since I was just four years old and I am now 43, so its not going anywhere … and I’ve tried everything.

Discussions took place between them on how they could manage me under the circumstances and they agreed that after my holiday they would give me some sort of relaxant prior to the procedure and that I would need to be driven to and from the appointment.

I don’t have a partner and never will and everyone works as I do and I can’t tell my mother as I know she will, as my grandmother did, believe that she has somehow “murdered her own daughter” and she can’t handle that stress.

They then gave me a load of information on the procedure - which due to the placement of the tissue at the back of my left breast is going to be extremely painful and could mean I am clamped into a machine for half an hour?! I cannot tolerate that.

I’ve always been quite adamant that if I was to get breast cancer, I wouldn’t want treatment as I’ve watched my family endure its horrors and I am ok with dying thanks.  I was just pressured into going.

So my point is, surely I am wasting clinical time and enduring high levels of medical trauma for something that would be unnecessary?

I’ve drafted the email to cancel the appointment which is in two weeks but my friend is getting very angry at me for wanting to cancel, and told me to just grow up.

I am finding it really upsetting and wished I’d never gone for the screening and certainly won’t be going for future screenings.

I can’t be the only person who has been through this? Any advice on how to handle … well everyone … I am being made to feel like I am a bad person?!