Please read the story with caution. You may find the content distressing or traumatic and if you do, please take a break and maybe call a friend, or engage in an activity that will help ground you. Love, Team Sh! xx
When I was 16, I went through some sexual trauma, but that's not where this began.
I grew up with a muslim father. Boys were forbidden, and I was told they were all bad and would use me. My parents got a divorce when I was 8. My mother was too openly sexual around us, leaving toys about and telling us she's poly. My relationship and knowledge of intimacy were lacking, and sex was very much not talked about. I didn't know a lot, even about my own body.
When I didn't want to but was pressured and convinced into losing my virginity, it was and still has been the most excruciating pain I have felt. He told me the pain would go as I stretch, but the pain never went. I just got more numb, and this happened over and over, and now I struggle to feel any pleasure. And when I left that situation, I was SA by the other guys who wouldn't take no.
I then got my first boyfriend at 17, and that's when I went to a doctor and was told I have vaginismus. He couldn't deal with the fact I couldn't have sex (and other issues, of course), but he broke it off. He said some really nasty things to me about myself and got on Tinder to sleep with someone 2 weeks after. I always blamed myself - always thought my body was the issue, and I felt so unlovable and like no one would ever want to be with me the way I am.
I'm now 20 and I had a bf who was ok with my situation, but because we hadn't been intimate for a while because I was having gynaecological issues, he was 'weak' and cheated on me with his work colleague. Just touching and getting off, no kissing or sex because he stopped it, but it was going there.
I struggle to feel pleasure even from myself. My body immediately tenses, and I cant relax. I have never had an orgasm from someone or by myself. I struggle even peeing now. I can't control that, and I leak sometimes. Being in my 20s, and when I was in my teens, sex is literally the only thing people really talk about, and it makes me feel so ashamed.
Sometimes I read stories of women getting over it in 6 months or a year, but for me, it's been 3 years and it's looking like it's going to be a lot longer. I know I shouldn't compare, but it's hard when all you want is to feel normal. That sent me back down in the pit of no-one-will-ever-love-me, and my-body-hates-me. I wish it were different, all of this reliving trauma.
Now I'm here trying to connect to other women and read their stories to make me feel less alone - to know that what my brain is telling me; and what one boy told me once, isn't true and that we are lovable and our body's don't define us, we just need to be patient and give ourselves grace as we all have been through a lot, and that one day I will overcome this.
I really needed to write it down, to say it, so thank you for giving me a space to share my story with vaginismus.
Note from Sh!
My Body Back Project is a wonderful volunteer-run organisation that works with survivors of sexual violence.
The Vaginismus Network is a community for women & vulva owners living with vaginismus.
Body-Mapping - we wrote this blog post as a tool to help people figure out how to navigate pleasure after trauma.
