Dilation Treatment 2

Honestly, it has been hard for me to come back to this blog and write more at this point...it's the emotions of the dilation that kill me.

But I will plug on.  Girls, ladies, if you are reading this and relating, I am so hurting with you.  Seriously.

So I started the dilation, and as I mentioned earlier, that was incredibly emotional. 

It's hard to hold the dilator in your hand down there, and apply pressure for 20 minutes at a time.  It hurt my wrists.  There's the physical part of it, but oh the emotional part of it was more difficult.  I tried all sorts of different positions, laying on my bed, sitting on it with my underwear and pants on.  I tried sitting in a cozy chair pushing on it with my clothes on and a blanket over me.  There is no comfortable position.   That helped but most of my underwear got stained somehow from the Astroglide.  A tinge, that whenever I saw them, was just another reminder of my freakish condition (or so I thought).  I tried to dedicate certain pairs of underwear to the dilation.  Astroglide is the best lubricant for this process (I tried several and Astroglide is MD recommended).  The problem with Astroglide (and really all lube) is that if you don't move the dilators around a bit, they will stick to your skin and pull on it when you try to remove it.
 
I worked my way up the dilator sizes over the course of the summer, but I was by no means done.  I headed back to school for my final semester.  My roommate, one of my best friends, knew about what I was doing and she was supportive.  It wasn't easy doing it in college, but I managed.

I had no shortage of guys who liked me, but I always wondered if they really knew what I was like, would they really like me?  My insecurity reigned, but I still went out a lot.  I remember distinctly running into Matt in the stairwell one evening.  He said he wanted to be with someone who disliked kids, cause he didn't like them.  I'm thinking to myself at that time, just because I can't have kids does not mean I don't like them.  I don't know what the heck he was trying to accomplish with that statement.

One of those crazy guy times happened when my friend John asked me to entertain his friend Scott while he worked in Palm Springs.  Scott and I went out in John's car, had a great date, and then he wanted to go out to a bar.  We walked over to the Sports Tavern, where he proceeded to flirt with a lot of other girls, and I met Mr.T.  Mr. T was a Norwegian exchange student who was here learning about American culture.  Mr. T invited me to a party a few days later.  I showed up, saw him, and then went off with another guy that night.  My time with Mr. T was by no means over.

I'll pick up on that next time.

Dilation Treatment

This topic gets difficult for me.  It may take me several days to get this out onto paper. 

So my mom made me an appointment to go to a specialist about an hour away from home.  I was very nervous for this appointment as well.  But first, I think I need to explain a bit more about what stirred me to treatment.

It was Matt.  I think that the numerous emotions I was going through did not make it easy for him to tell me that he wanted sex, and I understand that now, years later.  What bothers me so much about this condition, is the lack of options...I can't have sex until treatment, I can't ever have kids, you know the drill...and I was ready to give myself the option to have sex, when I wanted to do it.  So that's why I sought treatment.  I was 20.

Now you're probably thinking that is kind of late in the game, since most people have sex earlier, but what I figured with my religious upbringing, was that I was not going to have sex until I was married.  When I felt I was in that relationship, I would start the dilation process.  That was good logical thinking those days, but as a single 30 year old now, I am somewhat glad I didn't wait...I'll explain the somewhat later too...

picture from: http://www.disposablesmedical.com/sale-medical_vaginal_dilators-10956.html

So I went to the physician who I will call Dr. X, and he was fabulous.  He "prescribed" a set of silicone dilators for me to start the dilation process.  For those of you new to this treatment, the dilators come in all sorts of sizes, from pinky to small penis sized (see picture above).  I was to dilate twice a day for 20 minutes.

Honestly, it's a bit of a daunting task to think of going from nothing to having a vagina. 

Dilating was difficult for me.  It hurt (badly), and on top of that, I was actually mad at men during the time I dilated.  I know that probably sounds strange, but it made me mad.  The physical pain was such that my vaginal area was tender in the morning when I did it and then doing it again at night was nearly unbearable.  

(Also check my other dilation info at: http://mrkhlife.blogspot.com/p/dilate-painlessly.html)

summer lovin'

The summer was a challenge for me.  I was away from my support group of friends, working on a new routine.  I became pretty obsesive compulsive during the last year.  I remember being upset when my mom bought me some underwear that didn't match the others in the drawer.  Strange.

Anyways, I had a difficult summer.  One of the memories that has stayed with me is my family physician.  I went to see him at one point because I couldn't handle my head anymore.  I wanted drugs again.  I didn't know what to do.

He told me that he didn't have his own kids, that it was no big deal.

I never went back to him again.

Did he not know that the emotional ramifications of all of the other aspects of this was insanely difficult to handle?  Obviously not.  He was insanely insensitive. 

One of my best friends in college (and we had an on and off attraction), Mark, surprised me with a visit.  He lived over 200 miles away.  Seeing him was the breath of fresh air that I needed.  We went out hiking and had a lot of quality time together.  It was the blessing I needed to pull me through the remainder of the summer. 

I started out my Sophomore year in college in heavy counseling again.  I met this great guy who lived on the other side of the hall from me, Matt.  He was so much fun.  I was myself with him.  We were both so goofy together.  He was a ton of fun, and a sappy romantic.  He made me all kinds of cool little things and dropped them around in places for me.

I was relieved to be back in my circle of good friends.  The people I met in college were and still are the best friends I have made in my life.  I used to think of myself as very stable, but when I think about all of the things I did and the emotional times, I would have to disagree.  My friends helped to keep me grounded, and help me to remember to have fun.

The summer between my Sophomore and Junior year, I went home once again for the summer.  This time, I had Matt, who lived in another state, but still we talked all of the time.  I went and visited him at one point.  We had so much fun.  His companionship meant a lot to me.  He never pressured me sexually.  We messed around a little, but really, it was quite innocent.  He was a virgin too. 

Junior year was a great year.  I lived in the student apartments with three other friends.  We had a blast.  I remember going to Wal Mart on Friday nights (don't ask!) and having fun there.  We did a lot of shopping.

Matt and I held strong through the winter, and fell apart in March.  He had told me that this girl, Jen, approached him to have sex with her.  I told him point blank that if she asked him that, knowing we were together, he should disassociate with her completely.  No one worth time would try to break up our relationship.  That was so rude.

So, I don't know what happened, but as I say today, Matt followed his pecker to greener pastures.  That's the only way I can explain it.

Our relationship ended, and he followed his dick.

That just crushed me.  We didn't talk about sex, but it wasn't that I was not open to it, I just needed to go figure out what to do to fix my problem first...

When I left school that year (and even though this crap happened it was a fabulous year), I had contacted the nurse practitioner who had helped me during diagnosis three years prior, to get the name of the professor in Texas who has seen someone with this condition.  I contacted the professor, and she connected me with
another physician who was in the city over an hour from my house.  Time to start treatment.

That's where I will pick up next time.

Emotional wrangling part 3 of many...

My last entry was short. It was as long as I could emotionally handle.

What I can say for John now is that he honestly did as well as he could for a 19 year old guy. What could I expect? He really did care about me with his whole heart, and I recognize that now. But then, I thought he was just thinking about that one part of him. In retrospect, I think it was more.


Counseling

I spent hours and hours in counseling. I was the one who initiated it. My mom says that she didn't think I would complete college had I not opted for it.

In counseling, we talked about all sorts of topics. We spent much time talking about relationships and what was normal and natural. I remember some statements she made including that 98% of my friends are having sex, 2% that don't are likely due to religion or some other reason. That was a surprise to me.

I was raised in a religious household. We went to church every Sunday, no excuses unless we were out of town. I was also raised under the guise that sex is only for married people, so I had planned to keep it that way. I didn't talk about sex with anyone either, cause it's something that was never discussed in my home. Dad and mom inadvertently put in my mind (and I later heard my sister's too) that sex is dirty. I had a very skewed view of sex before I found out about this diagnosis and it really made thinking about it all much more complicated than it needed to be.

I was supposed to be having sex?! This is something that rolled around and around in my head. I didn't know what to think.  Many other thoughts rolled around in my head (and some still do). Why do so many teens just have the ability to so easily have sex and I have to make my own vagina to do it? Why me? I am responsible. Why do these teens have the ability to have kids and I can't? Is it normal to have sex as a teenager? Can I get on some sort of a board where people who want to have kids need to petition to me and explain how they are qualified to be parents financially, emotionally, etc? Can I become a nun (wait, that came later)? Do relationships revolve around sex? What should the focal point be?

I was very private with who I told. I explained it to my very close college girlfriends, but I was very quiet overall. I made my mom hush hush. I remember mom telling me when she told my grandparents I couldn't have kids, one of them cried. I think they were just sad about the option, that it wasn't there. That was and still is one of my biggest complaints about this condition. It takes away the options that I never would be able to decide on, and I didn't and still do not like that.  I talked about all of this in counseling.

Needless to say, I was "mildly" depressed. I had some low, low days. This affected my friendships and my relationships with men. Sometimes I got mad (and still do) about men and their animalistic desires. I am a person!

From counseling, I took away some coping skills for my depression. One, exercise. Two, eat right. Three, do not isolate myself from people. I held on to those like a lifeline.

I ended up seeing the school's psychiatrist, which was one of the biggest mistakes I made. She prescribed to me Prozac, which I took for about a month, until my blood pressure was 80/40. Then I took another drug that I can't remember the name of anymore. I had the worst headache in my life. Needless to say, the other depression advice was much better, and that I stayed with for the long run.


Home

I went home that summer after Freshman year, only to fall back on old habits, and the depression nearly swallowed me. More to come on that...

Emotional wrangling part 2 of many...

So maybe you can say that John and I were just a high school romance. When I started college I was 200 miles away from him. Perhaps, but it was still hard.

One of the most poignant times I had with John that flipped our relationship in my mind was February of my Freshman year in college. We were celebrating what I believe to be the worst day of the year, Valentines day. He had given me a faux diamond studded cross, which I didn't think fit us so well.

I don't recall anymore if this conversation was over the phone or in person, but I am thinking over the phone. The following dialog:

John: I know you can't have sex with me, and that's ok.

Me: (sighing in relief and also comfort in the understanding).

John: Since we can't have sex, do you want to have oral sex?

Had I been in the head I am now, I think I would have hung up on John. That basically was the end of our relationship.

It was so difficult for me because I was still dealing with the diagnosis and that was enough.