Frustrated to tears

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.

Like a broken record…

Ok, so I guess I’ve been on somewhat of a hiatus lately. I haven’t given up on my journey to a cure (not at all!) but I guess I haven’t had any noteworthy progress to write about. No “yay, I just conquered the first dilator!” or anything remotely close. 4 months and nothing close. But I shouldn’t be too hard on myself. I’ve made lots of progress on an emotional level. In fact, both my sex therapist and my hypnotherapist have told me that I’ve made significant progress in a very small amount of time. I wish I could see it that way! In a way I do, but I just want to get past that damn initial insertion already!

But anyway…

I’ve been thinking a lot about what’s really been upsetting me regarding this vaginismus business. It’s not so much the fact that I feel broken, that I don’t feel like a real woman, or blah blah blah. It’s not so much the lack of sex… well, yeah I guess part of it is that, but I think it’s more of the absence of a potential sex partner that’s got me feeling so bitter and down-in-the-dumps. But to be honest, I’ve felt that way for a really long time. I’ve wanted a boyfriend for as long as I could remember. Ever since I was old enough to like boys (was it around the age of 4? haha). But I’ve never really gotten one. Sure, I’ve hooked up with a ton of guys and had many chances to be with someone. And sure, I was in my first and only real relationship last year and was insanely happy that I’d finally gotten what I always wanted, but I guess it was all a mere illusion. I got a small taste of bliss, and just like that, it was ripped away from me. So I guess I wouldn’t really count that. A real relationship is one in which you feel happy and loved, and safe and secure, and I’ve never had that. It seems to come so naturally and so easily for so many people (even for my fellow vag sufferers… it seems like every goddamn one of them has an oh-so-patient-and-supportive partner), and yet there’s something about me that’s made it impossible for a relationship to come my way. Maybe I want it too badly.

Thinking back to my therapy sessions, I’ve said on a couple of occasions that I naturally feel more comfortable with women than I ever have with men. My therapist finds that interesting, and we both wonder why it is, because I sure as hell don’t know. (It makes me wonder if I really do have some repressed memories of having been abused. What else could explain all this?) I’ve been shy with people for as long as I could remember, but especially so around boys. If I walk past a cute guy at the grocery store, for example, I immediately avert my eyes or look down at the ground. If I catch him looking at me, it sends me into a nervous frenzy, and I feel immediately and mortifyingly self-conscious. I’ve never understood why I feel like that, because I am HOT goddammit!!. I have absolutely no reason to feel insecure and self-conscious when I know I should feel confident and self-assured. But I’m so awkward around boys sometimes, it’s no wonder I don’t attract potential relationships.

The bottom line is that all these emotions are somehow connected to my vaginismus, and it constantly upsets me that because of my vaginismus, I feel like I’m never going to have the confidence or the sexual prowess to attract and hold onto a relationship.

It pains me to look around me and see that women everywhere have normally functioning vaginas and they’re using tampons, and having sex, and being promiscuous, and loving life. Things that normal women take for granted everyday are those things that I can’t have. It also pains me to hear that sex is the one thing that men love the most. Great and frequent sex is a man’s ultimate happiness. I can’t have a conversation with a co-worker, or watch TV, or read a magazine without seeing or hearing about S-E-X. Sex is one of life’s great pleasures… Sex is the ultimate act of love… sex sells… without great sex, you can’t have a great relationship… sex this and sex that. How am I supposed to feel self-assured and confident in myself if I’m being told left and right that I’ll never be loved and appreciated, that I’ll never be a whole human being, unless I am capable of having sex?

Are you ready for some angry bitterness?

The other day I was watching a TV show in which one of the characters has a major crush on her neighbor. This girl is the ultimate symbol for pathetic. She would stand at her door and listen for her neighbor to come home from work so she could walk out in the hallway and give him one of her homemade lasagnas and gush like a little girl about how great he is. He is way too hot for her, first of all, and second of all, it doesn’t seem like he’s into her stalkerish tendencies. Well somehow she ends up hanging out with him in his apartment one day, and oh, what a surprise, they end up having SEX! (The scene would not have been complete without her moaning her appreciation, by the way.) And now miraculously, the very hot neighbor ends up falling for semi-unattractive stalker chick, just because her vagina felt great wrapped around his penis. You try and tell me that if she hadn’t fucked him (as so many people like to say these days), he would have fallen for her anyway… Riiiiight.

Looks like I’m screwed… Oh wait, no… I’m not. [Insert bitter chuckle here].