[giraffe_lady]

It sounds like they have a donation-specific experience around it.

But in general, non-emergency surgery is a very common cause of ptsd. It has a lot of the "checkboxes" of pain plus knowledge of powerlessness and lack of agency in the face of impending suffering. The psychoactive effects anaesthesia may play a part too; I've never read anything too concrete about it but some of the sufferers I've known believe that strongly.

In my years in and out of ptsd support groups I have almost always known someone who ended up there from a scheduled, "routine" surgery. A lot of fairly common scenarios can cause it. About half the people I see in there are from car accidents, the rest a pretty even split between sexual assault and childhood abuse. Only ever come across a handful of the "typical" combat veteran type folks, though I understand they mostly have their own networks.