I don't remember if I've ever talked about this on here before, but I think it's something that is very important. I don't think sexual health in those with chronic pain is talked about openly and freely. I know so many people with chronic pain that have sexual dysfunction, for many different reasons: too much pain to have sex, fatigue, loss of libido, they feel ugly because their medications made them gain weight, and so on.
So I want to talk about my own sexual dysfunction.
When I was 12, I was on a swim team. I loved it too. I have always been such a fish in the water, and I loved being part of it. Around that same time, I started the journey of womanhood known as menstruation.
I side eye which ever deity thought that one up.
Anyway, my mom used tampons while I used pads, but we decided that we needed to teach me how to use the tampons so I wouldn't miss a week of swimming every month. Mom showed me how best to situate myself before inserting it, showed me how it should go, and then let me try. It wouldn't go in. Strange. Tried again. Still wouldn't go in. I told mom is was hurting the further I tried to put it in. So mom decided to try it because it couldn't be hurting that much; it doesn't really hurt to put a tampon in, it's just uncomfortable.
I screamed in pain and ran from the room.
Mom felt horrible for not believing me when I said it hurt, and we set the issue aside. She made an appointment with a gynecologist to see what was going on. The woman we went to told us that I was too young to wear tampons and sent us on our way. And so with no other option, I had to quit my swim team.
Fast forward a couple of years. I'm 15 years old, a sophomore in high school, and I go to my mom upset because I've had a slow period for a month with no end in sight, and it hurt so bad. No only was the vagina itself inflamed and hurting, but thanks to the pads, my vulva was red and swollen. At this point we had moved more than halfway across the country, from Cali to Ohio, so we had a new gynecologist. This is when I first started taking Hormonal Birth Control (HBC). My periods go back to normal, and everything seems fine.
Still can't put a tampon in, though. He tries to do a pelvic exam but it hurts too much, so he stops. He thinks it might be the hymen, which is a small, stretchable membrane that goes around the vaginal wall (it doesn't close up the vagina, like many think. There is a hole in the middle.)
So there are 2 options:
1. Try to break it myself.
2. He can cut it.
We walk away from the issue for a couple of years until I'm finally wanting to be sexually active with my boyfriend (around the age of 18). I decide to let him cut it, because I'm too afraid to try and deal with it myself. And how would I know it was broken? Now he has to do the pelvic exam. Just having the speculum in was excruciating. I just keep telling myself that it will be okay and this all to a good end.
Except halfway through the exam he tells me he sees no evidence of the hymen.
What the hell am I supposed to do now? My doctor tells me there isn't much that he can personally do. The only option left is to just try and push through the pain. And so that's exactly what I did. That first time having sex, all I could think of was "please, please, please, finish fast."
And so we decided to just keep pushing through. It took a long while, but finally one night the pain actually subsided, and I could feel good things!
Oh! So this is why we do this!
Every time I have sex though, the horrible pain is there for about 2 minutes until it finally subsides. And so I figure this is how it's supposed to be.
To be continued.....
No comments:
Post a Comment