You know how sometimes it feels like life is sneaking up at you from every direction and slapping you in the back of the head, then fading back into the shadows before you can turn around and slap back? Life's done a lot of that to me lately.
Right now I'm sitting here typing and looking down at my fingers and my hands and my arms. I see veins popping through the surface of my skin that start halfway down my forearms and run to the middle of the backs of my hands. My skin doesn't have the firmness it once did either. It looks thinner somehow, a bit crepy. Older. It reminds me of my grandmother's arms, thin and delicate and oh so pale. My arms now are like echoes of her arms, and though it scares me to see them and I find myself thinking, when did all this happen? there is also a small part of me that warms inside because I can see my grandmother reflected within me. It's like she's still alive. I can think of no greater honor than to be like she was.
I didn't get that job at my office. I expected it to turn out that way and was relieved that it did for the most part. I didn't really want the job as much as my pride demanded that I place my name in the hat for it to see what would come of it. I needed to measure what sort of worth my current company placed on my tenure there. Being told I didn't have enough managerial experience (I was manager of a retail store for over a year and assistant manager of another retail store for approximately the same amount of time while the person who received the job had only been assistant manager for 3 months) was the icing on the proverbial cake. Being told I needed to keep trying for an assistantship when I had made it clear to the hiring manager beforehand that I had not done so because of the restrictive hours (nightshift, while I have a daughter) was yet another bone of contention. It was obvious that these things were excuses, plain and simple.
On the upside, I now know where I stand at my current company. Any hesitation I may have had about leaving them due to some misguided sense of loyalty is completely gone. I see the green light towards pursuing other employment, post-haste.
The only other thing stopping me from seeking gainful full-time employment was removed today as well. I had been told that I would perhaps need surgery for a long-term issue of mine that I looked forward to "fixing." I've dealt with this issue for about 14 years now. It is called dyspareunia* and vaginismus.* This was today's diagnosis and I feel that it is finally probably the correct one. In the past it's been diagnosed as anything from urethral diverticula to complications from a traumatic c-section to vulvodynia. You name it, I've heard it.
For more information on the words I've used above, see the following site:
(http://www.vaginismus.com/faqs/vaginismus-questions/dyspareunia-diagnosis-treatment/)
I've gone from being hopeful that it would be resolved, to struggling to ignore that I even had it, to soldiering on through the pain and ending up becoming psychologically traumatized, to blaming myself, to blaming others, and finally to a mixture of deep, agonizing despair and resigning myself to everything. I can only say that it may seem like a small thing to deal with but the impact this has had upon my most personal relationships -- not to mention my own self-worth -- has been devastating. I am not able to explain the entire why of it, but suffice to say that I would not wish this sort of ongoing emotional and physical pain upon anyone.
As treatment I will have to undergo some physical therapy, which includes dilator therapy. The physical therapist uses a series of gradiated-sized dilators. The insertion of these is coupled with pelvic floor exercises and other things designed to "retrain" the muscles so that they can stop unconsciously spasming.
Everyone I've told this to has expressed some form of the "wow, dildos now, and you're paying someone to do this to you?" idea. Especially my male friends, who also add a healthy dose of laughter and some added wistful/lustful murmurings of wow, where do I sign up for this job? I can tolerate their humor and their laughter to a point because it doesn't affect them, they don't understand, it is a source of humor for them. But then there is my husband. This has affected him in every way, shape and form, yet he couldn't stop his chuckles when I finally got to the therapy part in my retelling of the appointment. I could see his lips quirking and I knew exactly the sorts of thoughts running through his head. And when I mentioned the name of the therapist (Debbie) he began a running commentary of Debbie Does Dallas.
While I laughed a little along with him and I knew there was a bit of humor to the whole situation I admit to leaving our bedroom and sitting at the kitchen table with my back to him, letting the tears course down my cheeks as he was casually joking about the humor in using dildos and calling them dilators. I didn't let him see that I was crying, though. There was no point; if he had seen me he would have asked what the matter was and I would have had to try again to explain. And again, he wouldn't understand, which would have brought me to a greater level of frustration and despair that I just don't have the energy to do any longer.
The point is, he doesn't really have any fucking concept of the pain I carry. I've explained and explained ad nauseum. He doesn't understand why I have reacted to it like I have. To him it becomes a geez, can't you get over it already sort of thing that I've seen behind his eyes and heard upon his lips. Or worse, when he gets frustrated his real thoughts and feelings come out and he lets me know he believes that while I may experience some pain (and he's seen me bleed so he cannot deny that there is pain), it's a problem that can be fixed like any other and since I haven't tried enough (whatever that means) it is really nothing more than an excuse I use to avoid him physically. He makes it become about HIM and not about ME. Even when he is genuinely concerned and thoughtful I know that he doesn't really understand and never will.
To be fair, it did become more and more about him over time. When the symptoms first began to appear after the birth of our daughter, I did it through the pain for years because I didn't want him to feel the sting of rejection and because I loved him enough to subsume my own desires in order for his to be met. At the very beginning of it, I wanted it too, but less and less as the years went by. I began to anticipate the pain, to tense up, and tense muscles on top of unconscious spasming makes it worse. I then began to attempt to avoid sex with a multiple array of excuses, feeling guilty as I did so. Another few years saw me begin to dislike and finally become disgusted by sex. I felt guilty for feeling this way since it wasn't his fault that I was like this, so my guilt caused me to continue to do it with him.
Continuing only fed my growing feelings of resentment. Resentment, because more and more the burden of carrying that guilt caused me to project it at him and to find him as the cause of it all. I struggled to understand why I felt I had to protect his feelings at the cost of my own. What made him more important than me and why wasn't he seeing what I was giving up for him? Which was essentially, my enjoyment of sex. Oh how I resented him for that because I didn't want to take responsibility for the fact that my own behavior was partially at fault. I had a choice, and though my choice was motivated by my feelings of duty and obligation and responsibility for him -- that wasn't his fault. At any time I could have said, enough.
I fully recognize my part in all this. But still and all, he had his as well. Rationally I understood in some fashion that he was trying to assure himself he still mattered to me by seeing me express it physically (a natural reaction, and I'd probably have made the same error if I'd felt someone pulling away from me.) Whatever his reasons, though, I told him time and again that it hurt for me to do it. A test, of sorts. Did he truly believe me? If he had, I felt, he would have stopped something that hurt me. But he didn't stop initiating and each time he did I was faced with a choice. A test of his own, for me to take. Say no, which led to him feeling rejection and anger and the unspoken implication that I was a frigid bitch, or say yes and make him feel assured but make myself feel as if I was merely the object he used to satisfy his baser physical needs. His test was often enough that eventually I felt while his words said he believed me and he cared and that I didn't have to do it with him, his actions told me deep down where rationality doesn't make a difference that I did have to do it or I had failed him, that I didn't love him enough. And followed to its logical conclusion in my head? Plain and simple. Sex mattered to him more than me or my feelings about it did. For good or ill, right or wrong, that is what I felt.
Somewhere in the midst of all of this (and it took years and years) all passion and desire for him drained out of me. I couldn't sustain it. I tried to, but I failed. The most aggravating and exhausting thing is that somehow no matter how much I explain this to him, he doesn't get it. He doesn't seem to see how that could happen. So I have to ask: does this cycle not make sense to anyone reading this? Do I sound crazy?
But here's the thing.
His own sexuality has never been so basely threatened.
If it had, he might get it. I don't know. But honestly, he has no idea how he'd react in the situation I was in. None whatsoever. He seems to think that I should be able to just forgive him and forgive myself and just go get it fixed and everything will be hunky dory. But it's not that easy. I know some can do it but not me. I am just not that person, I suppose. I'm not that big. Those feelings -- disgust for sex, bitterness, anger, sadness, resentment, frustration -- are all primally attached to him now and the loss of my physical desire for him has been the price. I am saddened to say that, but that it how it is.
Take back what I said earlier about not wishing this upon anyone. If there was one person that I would wish what I've experienced on for a year, it would be him. He of all people should have to have this experience and have to experience it like I have, not like he thinks he would. He has no idea of the vast difference that exists between a woman's sexuality and a man's. Oh, he thinks he does. But when you get right down to it he expects me to react like he would, with his libido, and he resents me for not doing so -- for not being him. How insane is that? So yes, he needs to grok it, truly grok my full experience. To emphathize and not just sympathize or imagine some sort of scenario. Perhaps then it would not be this pivotal matter, this constant central source of confusion and emotional pain that it has always been.
And as far as my own sexuality?
I can't even begin to make anyone really understand the loss I've suffered. My desire for sex has been weakened to the point of near non-existence. Its power over people -- men in particular -- makes me bitter and cynical and disgusted. Why? Because its power to hurt people and make them question themselves runs so deep and I hate that its power is such. For it has done that work upon me. How so? Well, I question whether any other man would ever be able to love me. All men want sex and will, no matter what they tell me. They'll say, "It's all right, honey, I love you just the way you are and I understand your problem," and meanwhile silently resent me for not being able to give them what they want. It is what I have experienced so far and it is the way I would think over time, and one tends to project how one reacts upon the motives of others no matter how accurate that may truly be. Rationally I know that not all people think that way and that the man that wants to be with me might actually be telling me the truth.....but will I be able to believe? That is the real question, and the central issue. The loss of my own confidence in my sexual self. If I cannot give to someone, can they love me? How am I worth it?
I dealt with trying to build my confidence in many ways. But more about that another time.
I know this therapy sounds ridiculous, but who knows. It might just work. I can't just not try it; I need to explore all options no matter how seemingly out there they might be. It comes too late to save my marriage because the problems that originated from this eventually wore down all the passionate and desirable feelings for intimacy with him on all levels but dear and loving friendship, but perhaps it is not too late to save the rest of me. I struggle with the feeling of hope. For too long hope has been something shot down, time after time after time. We'll see, I suppose.
((Song: "One Last Chance" by James Morrison. Lyrics here:
http://www.james-morrison.net/lyrics/#Wonderful%20World))
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