Most of the things I can talk about unendingly can be broken into three categories: sex, mental health, and food. Strange combination? Well, I've never really been called a "normal" person, so I guess it works.
"What do you mean, you can talk about sex forever? That should be personal and private!" Yes, the act of it absolutely should. I don't want to hear any details of anyone's love life either, don't worry. However, I have a physical condition that has, in the past, prevented me from being able to partake in such acts. Had I known such a thing was possible, my first marriage could have been saved (although at this point that's really not a huge regret - again, more on that later).
Two problems that I have faced in my life that have caused great upheaval are ones that people in general seem to be somewhat uncomfortable talking about, if they're not just straight-up tabooed. And yet, had I known about them, I could have skipped a lot of pain and heartache. So I'm here speaking up about it so that hopefully someone, somewhere doesn't feel as alone as I did, and can maybe even feel empowered to do something to help themself before hitting rock bottom.
Rock bottom, for me, was October 2015. Six months after my husband left me (due to a distinct lack of sex in our relationship). He was the only person I'd ever dated, the only person in my life who told me they loved me and wasn't a blood relative. We'd been together nearly six years when he left. We'd been happy for five of them. Then we got married.
We had both grown up Christian and lived by the rules, including no sex before marriage. When we started dating, I was 18, he was 16 (grades 12 and 11). I went to college an hour and a half away (four hours by bus), came home most weekends. He went to college in the nearest city. My program was two years, his three. I graduated, and we got engaged. I had trouble finding a job, and we got married. He graduated, and we split.
Sex was not the only problem. It was the elephant in the room. If he talked about it, I felt bad. I cried. Nothing got worked on. I didn't talk about it. I tried going to see my doctor, because there was no way in hell it was supposed to hurt that much. "Yes it is, it's your first time. The first time always hurts." No. Not that much. Just no.
Doctor changed my birth control.
Nothing changed.
I changed doctors so I wasn't bussing 2 hours to get my parents to drive me the remaining half hour (past the end of the bus route) to an appointment. Now I only had to bus half an hour total. Brought up the issue again. Keep in mind, I was a shy Christian girl who felt awkward saying the word "sex", let alone talking about it as a topic. A few months had elapsed. Possibly as many as eight. I honestly don't remember.
New doctor signed me up for counselling (free, offered at the same office). I'd tried counselling for my depression in the past and it had gone.... not well.... but, for the sake of my marriage, I was willing to try it again.
Counselling was a good step, but it wasn't the entire solution. Having given it four months, I made another appointment with my doctor. Of course, she was now on maternity leave (ironic, no?) so I was meeting yet another new face to talk about my least favourite topic.
That appointment ended up being the day after my husband and I first discussed getting an annulment. He agreed to keep trying to work on things for the summer. He'd have more time, being done school, and I was trying everything the doctor suggested.
If only he'd been honest.
I got my diagnosis at that appointment. Well, the doctor said it might be this thing, and I should see someone else to be sure. I made that appointment. They had a cancellation and saw me earlier. It was already too late.
If only I'd known. Actually, no. Then I would have stopped looking for the help I needed. Then I would have followed up on the backup plan in the back of my head and vanished so I was no longer ruining his life. Take some cash out, catch a bus, disappear. It scares me that I was actually seriously considering this as an option. Especially knowing how much the story changed over the next few weeks.
My condition? Vaginismus. The muscles down there were too tight to allow anything in. Treatment? Physiotherapy. Lying on a hospital bed with no pants on while a (sweet, friendly, gentle) complete stranger stretched those muscles manually with her finger.
Did you know that as many as 1 in 3 sexually active women will experience painful sex at some point in their life? Psychology Today wrote an article about it. I'm not talking "the first time hurts" kind of painful. I'm talking "difficult, if not impossible, to continue" painful.
I had no idea. He had no idea. He thought I didn't want to and I was being a wimp. So did I. What a great relationship.
Another statistic (because numbers paint
At these rates, someone I knew was going to be affected. So I started talking. I had wished I'd been prepared and known things could go wrong, and I wanted to do that for people near me. Besides, when your "fairy tale romance" ends after less than a year of marriage, people ask why.
Once I started talking, I found out that a number of people I knew had been so affected. I had mixed feelings. Relief that I wasn't alone, sadness that they'd been suffering in silence, and I mild amount of betrayal that I could have been warned but I wasn't.
That's when I made it a personal mission to deplete the stigma around it. If people wanted to talk about sex being less than ideal, I was available for that. I even got up on a stage and talked about it a couple of times. People tended to request I stick more to my mental health issues, but the two were intertwined for me.
My message, to anyone who is interested:
-it's okay to be curious
-it's a good idea to figure out what you like, so that you can communicate it to a future partner
-sometimes it hurts and it's nobody's fault
-sometimes it takes the doctors a few tries to rule out what the problem isn't
-and sometimes it's time to see a new doctor
