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.

All The Single Ladies… (with vaginismus)

I would like to take this opportunity to send a virtual hug to the person on my vaginismus support group who posted this message:

Where are all these kind, understanding and patient guys who aren’t put off by vag? Why do all the ones I meet run off into the distance as soon as I mention it? 

Am I so gawd-darn sexy that all a guy wants to do to me is hump me? Once upon a time I was flattered that a guy wanted to jump my bones but now I’m finding it down right insulting. There’s a human being here. I want to get to know a guy. Why doesn’t a guy want to get to know me?

Do they ever stop to think how they’d feel if THEY had some sort of erectile dysfunction problem and a woman ran off into the distance because SHE wasn’t going to get laid?

Do I live in an area that is heavily populated with moronic jerks?

Is it me? Am I such a horrible person? Am I THAT unlovable?

And I’m sick of my family telling me its time I found myself a nice man and settled down. I’m sick of going to family events and being the only single female there and getting the usual Spanish Inquisition about being single “at my age”.

I just needed to get that off my chest. Thank you for reading this.

Just when I was beginning to feel like I should take a break from the group because I was so sick of feeling like the only single woman with vaginismus, this post comes along to brighten up my feelings. It’s not so much that it makes me feel BETTER to hear that someone else is as frustrated as me, but I think I just needed to hear someone else bitch about all the feelings I’ve been having. After the hundreds of posts from vag sufferers with husbands and fiances and boyfriends, I was beginning to feel like there may be something else wrong with me besides my “broken” vagina. If all those other “broken vaginas” have found understanding penises, then why can’t I? Where’s MY penis!? I can try and blame vaginismus all I want, but maybe  it’s much more than that. Am I just so incredibly hot that when guys meet me all they want to do is bang me? (Ha!) Am I really that uninteresting and simple-minded and incapable of love, that a guy doesn’t want to take the time to look past my body and actually get to know ME and fall in love with ME?

On the plus side, I realize I need to overcome vaginismus on my own terms, and at my own pace. I don’t need some impatient penis at my side constantly wondering when IT’s going to happen. Who needs all that pressure?

You know what would help though? If my grandmother would stop calling me an old maid.

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].

Is vaginismus my death sentence to relationships?

Ever since I started hooking up with guys and after having come to the realization that I wasn’t totally normal in the sex department, I started wondering about relationships and sex and if I was ever going to be able to have a normal relationship with a guy. I didn’t have the chance to find out until this time last year when I met a wonderful guy who wanted me to be his girlfriend despite the fact that I was a virgin (sure, he kind of became an asshole in the end, when he dumped me with no real explanation, but he’s still the only man I’ve ever loved, therefore I’ll refer to him as “wonderful”). Needless to say, we never actually had sex. We tried and tried for months, and I couldn’t believe how patient he was being with me. Despite this malfunction in the relationship, I thought everything else was perfect, he made me insanely happy and I thought that one day I’d be able to just do it. But that day never came, and unfortunately, the relationship ended before I even got the chance to find out that my problem was an actual medical condition. I never got to find out if he would have chosen to stay with me, had he known about it (this is, of course, without taking into consideration the fact that he stopped having feelings for me). But anyway, all that is beside the point.

Needless to say, now that I know that I have this “disability”, I’ve become convinced that I’m going to spend the rest of my life alone, because no man in his right mind would wanna be with a permanent virgin. However, I was very happily surprised to see that a lot of the women in my support group are actually married or are in serious relationships. So at least I know it’s possible, and they’ve reassured me that there are nice guys out there who look past the sex. We’ll see if they’re right. They’ve also reassured me that intercourse isn’t the only type of sex. There are plenty of other ways to enjoy sex without penetration- “non-traditional sex” as I now like to call it.

Today, in one of my frustrated moods, I posted an email to the group talking about my experiences and my fears when it comes to relationships and vaginismus:

Hi everyone,

Please excuse this long, random, and somewhat off-topic post, but I wanted to share this with someone, and who better to share it with than my supportive, awesome group of women with vag? Ever since I found out I have this “condition”, I’ve been thinking a lot about relationships, especially when it comes to women with vag. I would normally just write this out in my journal or something, but if any of you actually read this, I’d like to hear some of your opinions/insights.

From reading all the posts, it seems to me that a great majority of you are married or are in serious relationships, even though a lot of you have never been able to have sex with your partners. Although it’s great to hear that women with vag are still able to have normal relationships with men, I find it kind of baffling. I guess I have a warped view of men and relationships, but judging from my experience, I find that men are complete horndogs, and would never want to be in a relationship with a woman he couldn’t have sex with.

In college, “dating” consisted of a girl going to a frat house with her girl friends and 5 bucks in her pocket, drinking as much keg beer as possible, and hooking-up with the first good-looking drunk guy to hit on her. If she was lucky, said drunk guy would like her enough to make this type of drunken hook-up a regular weekend thing. I am ashamed to say that I was one of those girls, although I hardly ever went past the making out phase, and there was obviously no intercourse involved (thank god for vag, in this case!) Needless to say, my relationships at that time never went anywhere. As one guy bluntly put it for me, there was no point in him continuing to hook up with me because our hook-ups never went anywhere. Once I graduated college, I did manage to meet slightly more mature men who took me out on standard dinner-and-a- movie type of dates. These guys were seemingly interested in getting to know me, but somehow I could never get past a second or third date without the guy trying to slip his hand in my pants. Then there was the awkward conversation following the “I’m sorry, but I’m a virgin.” Most of them had already figured it out before I even said it. Most of them didn’t wanna have anything to do with me after that. The one who did told me that he didn’t care that I was a virgin and wanted to be with me anyway. Then he dumped me and broke my heart after 4 months of unsuccessful attempts at intercourse.

My point is, how is it that so many of you have managed to build stable, committed relationships with loving and understanding men, without sex? I don’t know much about relationships at all, and I know I’m being completely superfici al and naive in thinking that men only want women for sex, but my experience has taught me otherwise. Even the nice guys seem to need a physical connection before they can establish an emotional one. How is it that all of you have made that emotional connection, without the physical part of it? What was the beginning of your relationships like? How did your relationships progress? For the single women who go on the occasional date, what has that been like?

I’m sorry if I seem like I’m prying into your personal lives, but I just want some kind of reassurance that us single women with vag can still have hope that we’re not going to end up alone. Ever since I found out I have vag, I’ve thought of it as my death sentence to having a serious relationship, and I’ve therefore stopped even trying to meet men. But I’m only 24 years old, I don’t WANT to give up.

I got some wonderful responses. Some highlights:

“Having vag. doesn’t mean that you can’t have any physical contact at all, and there are lots of men who like orgasming, and like being with lovely people, and are more than happy to orgasm with lovely people in ‘non-traditional’ ways!”

“I understand what you are saying about college, frat parties and that kind of dating– i knew a lot of people in college who were into that. But i think that to understand how these relationships can work has to do with having a mature and open idea of what a relationship is and not letting yourself be bullied by what asshole guys tell you. Cuz i think in reality sex doesnt really make a relationship- -ultimately it is friendship, to have a partner who is a close or best friend, who you can talk freely with about everything that is on your mind…. i think romance and sex arent codependent. you can ahve sex without love. you can have love without sex.”

“Think of how many rotten eggs you can eliminate from their reaction to your decision not to have sex (involuntary or not!!) Sometimes those reactions may tell you a lot about a person that it could have taken a long time to figure out if you were in bed together immediately. It gives you the opportunity to know the person on many more levels besides physical.”

“I would just say to have faith that there are great guys out there and you’re not naive in thinking that someone can (and will) love you without the penetrative sex, because that is absolutely true!”

and my personal favorite…

“I know it’s extremely frustrating, but don’t ever lower your standards for a man. In a way, you can look at vag as a real test as to whether or not a guy will be able to handle the rough parts of life, which are inevitable, whether it’s vag or something else. Just know that all of us deserve to be with the right person for each of us; what that means can be very different from person to person, but in general there must be trust, respect and affection. Sex is great too (or so I’ve been told), but it’s not the be-all, end-all.”