I haven’t felt like myself lately. I haven’t been sleeping well, my mood swings have been irrational, and up until now, it’s something I really haven’t wanted to talk about. I still don’t know that I’m ready to strip naked and bare it all, but in true Vagina Antics fashion, I’m going to do it anyway. I’ve worked hard to keep my anxieties from boiling over and scalding those closest to me, and my efforts have left me exhausted. I’m easily distracted, and to be honest, I’m not even sure how to begin this blog post.
It’s no secret that my vagina is a delicate flower. Yeah, yeah. Go ahead and laugh. Heather certainly did the first time she said it. As a matter of fact she may have snorted, but as humorous as it may be, it’s the truth. Whether it’s perfumes, certain soaps, or even something as simple as too much sugar in my diet, it’s a precarious ecosystem that is easily thrown out of balance. As any woman knows, when something is amiss with the lady bits, trying to focus on anything else is like throwing an entire pan of brownies away after eating only one. It’s not likely to happen.
In my case, vaginal helter skelter began when my partner and I neglected to take the necessary precautions as we transitioned from anal to vaginal. It was a foolish move that has given me a new respect for my vagina. I’m embarrassed by our irresponsible behavior, and I would love nothing more than to pretend it never happened. That momentary lack of self-control left me with simultaneous urinary tract and vaginal infections of the bacterial kind. Merry fucking Christmas, right?
If I could kick my own ass I would have, a thousand times over. I’m a grown woman. Scratch that. A grown, educated woman who is far from naive when it comes to sex. I know better. And to add insult to injury, my doctor couldn’t pull her own head out of her ass without direction from the lab which meant two more weeks of physical and mental torture. Her suggestion in the meantime was to take sitz baths three times a day. Seriously? She’d obviously never felt as if she’d had a leaky cactus shoved up her vagina. But after I realized that drowning her in a sitz bath wasn’t a realistic solution, I did what I was told. When the lab confirmed what I already knew, I began a harsh regimen of antibiotics that gave me the gift of a complicated yeast infection.
I’d like to say the assault on my body ended there, but it didn’t And the fear that it would never return to its normal state manifested into a dense fog that settled over me casting a shadow on every aspect of my life. I declined lunch dates with my girlfriends because they would have known something was wrong. Hell, only two of them actually know I have a boyfriend, and I wasn’t ready to spill my guts about my private life over grilled chicken salads. I didn’t feel like working out, or going out, and I damn sure didn’t feel sexy. I retreated into myself and watched way too many reruns of CSI: Miami. My thoughts became a slave to the frustration of my body feeling out of sorts, and I spent hours on Google as paranoia sunk its teeth into my brain. I began to have bad dreams of sex gone horribly wrong, because even in my sleep the health of my vagina occupied my attention. I was bordering on depression.
I kept my struggle hidden from my friends and family. I even hid it from my boyfriend which in hindsight was probably a huge mistake. We were both dealing with different issues that were slowly gnawing at the membrane that held us together. We were in a fragile place, because like me, he chose to shoulder the stress that was circulating in his brain instead of hashing it out. I watched as he gradually took back the pieces of himself he once gave me so freely, and I was powerless to do anything about it. It hurt like hell when he tried to redefine our relationship into something less complicated. I wanted to scream my pain at him. I wanted him to hurt just as much as I was hurting, but I held it in. Then I got angry, even a little defiant as I went into protective mode. I began to disagree with him just for the sake of disagreeing, and I pushed the issue of the tattoo that I knew he wouldn’t like. I was purposely being a brat, and he knew it.
I think it’s pretty obvious that I have a high emotional threshold. I don’t give in to them easily, and it takes a lot to wear me down. But I was broken, and I felt like I’d been betrayed. First by my body for not being stronger, and then by my boyfriend for not verbalizing the complexities of our relationship. The distance, the travel, everyday responsibilities, and guilt for not being able to give me more were weighing heavily on him. He tried to deal with it on his own and it was an epic fail.
The combined stress was taking a toll on me and my sexual impulses began to weaken. That realization scared the shit out of me. What would I do if I lost all desire to have sex? Would it die? Go dormant? Or would I become the crazy cat lady of the neighborhood? I think cats are assholes, but that’s not the point. The point is the most significant cerebral and sexual relationship I had ever known was slipping away, and so was my libido.
We had to blow everything apart in order to piece ourselves together again. It was a successful reconstruction, and now we communicate our thoughts instead of holding them in. Together, we redefined our relationship, and we did it in a healthy way. We realize that we don’t have to have constant contact throughout the day and night to know how important we are to each other. We’re in a good place and I couldn’t be happier.
I have a new doctor, and both my body and my heart have healed. I’m no longer tired all the time and my desire to connect with people has returned. I feel confident about my body again and I’m very much the sexual deviant I used to be. So much so that I devoured my boyfriend six ways from Sunday last weekend. I didn’t eat him alive though because that’s messy. And illegal in most states.
