I had a horrible session with my counselor today. I’m not even really sure what happened. It’s like there’s a disconnect between my mind and my mouth, and I have trouble forming thoughts and communicating them verbally. I’m always pretty bad with that, but today was just awful. It was like my mind was just completely blanked out and I had absolutely no other answers to her questions but “I don’t know.” I eventually got so frustrated with myself (and a little with her for her barrage of questions) that I just burst into tears.
My counselor seems to think that my vaginismus is somehow connected to my emotions. My vagina is physically closed-off because I am emotionally closed-off. This could explain why I have so much trouble in relationships. The only relationship I am capable of developing is a physical one, and since I am technically physically unable to develop that type of relationship at the moment… I am confusing even myself. But yes, basically that is why I am still single. Not only because I have trouble letting men “in” physically, but also emotionally. So due to this little problem, not only are we working on having me letting go of my mental block, but we’re also working on opening myself up emotionally. Which is extremely difficult for me. I buckle under pressure. Especially when people are asking me questions I don’t know the answers to. “How do you see yourself ideally?” “What do you need to happen for you to let your guard down?” “What do you think you have to offer in a relationship besides sex?” “What qualities make you you?” Well, I don’t know, I don’t know, I don’t know, and I don’t know. Frustration, frustration, frustration.
Besides that philosophical opening-up-to-people crap, we’re also working on letting my mind accept the pain so that I don’t freak out whenever something touches my vag. Basically, vaginal penetration is never going to be pain-free for me, so I have to deal with the pain. Apparently. That alone is extremely frustrating and makes me want to fucking scream. WHY is it always gonna be painful!? WHY do I have to accept that it hurts?! Isn’t the first rule of curing vaginismus to not allow yourself to feel any pain? This only reinforces the clamping down of the muscles right? So why in God’s name do I have to allow myself to hurt? What is the point of “curing” this, then?
So right about now, I am feeling extremely shitty about myself, and I just want to curl up under the covers and cry. Other women with vaginismus and VVS are able to deal with pain. They go to doctors and suck it up and deal with the physical therapy, they deal with exams, with dilators, the whole nine. They say, “oh it hurt quite a bit, but there’s some progress!” Me, no. I feel the Q-tip or the tampon applicator touching my tender parts and I cringe and I stop and occasionally burst into tears. I don’t have the strength that these other women have. I don’t have what it takes to cure this. So it seems really cruel that God (if he in fact exists) gave me this affliction.
I swear, I’ve been feeling really positive for the past few weeks about all this. I even changed my blog layout to reflect my new positive attitude that I’m supposed to be embracing. I’m not sure what happened today, but all that positivity has been thrown out the window. Maybe it’ll be back tomorrow.
