Tell her how beautiful she is when she gets diagnosed with a whole bunch of health problems and promise her that her beauty will never fade in your eyes.
Tell her that there are endless ways to be intimate without having sex and promise her that you'll have fun finding those ways together.
Promise her that you won't leave her even if she can never have sex again and even if she will never blow you again (that blow job thingy was part of the original dating agreement).
Promise her that you'll do whatever you can to support her.
Then, as time goes by tell her how beautiful she is but do it from further and further away from her, until it is impossible to touch one another.
As time goes by, keep your physical body in the same room, but "check your mind out." Forget about her doctors' appointments. Let her continue to try and manage life the same as she used to-you know, manage the housework and all that other "womanly stuff". Fail to see that she doesn't meet your eyes (because they are full of tears) when you ask if it's ok to do whatever it is that takes you completely away from her when she needs you most
Then, as more time goes by, and she is having "yet another flare-up" and "can't have sex again" tell her how every night you think about rubbing one out. And do so, as she, half-heartedly encourages you to because she no longer has the courage to ask you to hold her through her pain instead.
And when you fight about it, as you surely will, remind her how beautiful you think she is, even if you can't remember the last time you touched her shoulder or her fucking toes. Remind her of how hard you try to be there for her, even if you can't remember when you did more than drive her to the occasional doctor's appointment and make so many squeamish faces as the needles were about to be inserted deep into her, that you were more of a hindrance than a help. Promise her you'll call the counselors and repeatedly forget. Say "I'm sorry" more often than you say "I love you".
But most of all, if you really want to make your partner feel loved, especially when she feels like a loathsome, diseased piece of pond scum, tell her that she is beautiful from the other side of the house, while you're washing dishes and remind her that you'll do anything you can to help her as you race off to the burdens of your world, leaving her ugly and untouched to handle everything you promised her, all alone.
Friday, July 16, 2010
My Gigantic Diseased Organism
Lately, say for the past 10 months or so, I've been feeling that old familiar feeling that I'm not living in my body anymore. I thought that those feelings had more or less ended when my dad went to prison and the abuse stopped and I could pretend that I slept soundly at night.
But now, with my diagnoses, that one friend (?) put it, my doctor, "fucked me with!", I feel less and less like I live in my body or any body for that matter, unless I am standing naked in front of a mirror. Then I suddenly tend to feel like I am transformed into a walrus with blond hair, glasses and an eyebrow piercing, but a fat, tusk-less walrus nevertheless.
The more things hurt and the more intimate areas where things hurt, the more detached I feel from myself. It's kinda funny in a way. In a humbling, humiliating sorta way. I used to fancy myself a sex educator before all of this. I was open minded and outspoken and I firmly believed that there were endless ways to have sex and intimacy, which are NOT the same thing, without, in my case, ramming something into my vagina.
However, once Dr. E told me I had Vulvadynia and Lichen Sclerosis and all other pleasant sorts of vaginal diseases, I began again to view my vagina (and I'm using the term incorrectly- I really mean the vulva-the outside part and the vagina-the inside part) as one more thing that was wrong with me, albeit one more thing not too many people would see. Ha! That was before I realized how many doctors and specialists I would see and how much poking and prodding I would get by a nearly endless stream of people. Now I could probably have an entire gyn exam done in the middle of Times Square and be nonplussed!
The more that old familiar feeling (I hate that I vaguely feel like I'm quoting Frank Sinatra here, even if he was from New Jersey!) of loathing my genitals (a word I despise) crept over me, and eventually overtook me, becoming part of my identity again, the more worthless I felt. The more hopeless I became about my prognosis, although I generally pretended to be just fine to most people since I didn't trust them to care any way.
With sex becoming a cruel and distant memory, and spontaneous "flare-ups" between my legs occurring more often, I retreated further into denial. I went from someone who used to get dressed up in lingerie when I had the house to myself, and masturbate in front of a mirror for the sole purpose of turning myself on, to someone who wouldn't even ask their partner to look at my vulva, perineum, rectum, whatever, unless it was so fucking painful and it had literally been plaguing me for days!
As the pain and denial continue to intensify and I continue to feel less and less like I live in a body and more like I inhabit a flow-blown diseased organism, I have flat out refused to look at my "private parts" at all. That is, until today; when the excruciating pain of the worst sunburn ever, combined with an endless onslaught of paper cuts, mixed with lemon juice and saltwater, in my labia and perineum, ceased to get better, and in fact, got worse over the past two-ish weeks. Nothing. Absolutely nothing was bringing relief for more than an hour or two at best and I'm using up my Lidocaine so fast that my insurance company is gonna refuse a refill!
Only this morning did I haul out the super magnifying mirror and flexible reading lamp and arrange it all between the blob that used to be my vulva.
Perhaps I should have done this sooner, because I noticed the reddest inflammation I've ever seen along the inside of my outer labia (the lips the pubic hairs grow on) and bumps I can't explain along my labia and perineum.
I about flipped out before I remembered that I was no longer living in a body and therefore not subject to things like STDs (of which I've always tested negative for, so has my monogamous partner of 6 years). And then I got super pissed off for not looking at myself sooner and insisting that the doctor see me sooner than today's scheduled appointment so I could be healed. After that, I got super pissed off at myself for breaking my denial and looking at my "down there" in the first fucking place-like I was gonna know what to do with whatever the fuck I saw?
Turns out Dr. E doesn't know what the bumps on my blob are either, but he isn't concerned about an STD. I guess that's good. It would be hard to explain an STD when you aren't even fucking yourself!! He just proscribed two courses of Diflucan and thought it might be a latent "flare-up" to last month's antibiotics and told me to avoid sex, swimming and everything else that might bring me pleasure. And we're going away for the weekend for our anniversary.
I barely avoided a nervous breakdown in his office as I thought about how little my partner touches me now anyway and I left feeling like an even more loathsome and diseased organism than I did when I first arrived.
But now, with my diagnoses, that one friend (?) put it, my doctor, "fucked me with!", I feel less and less like I live in my body or any body for that matter, unless I am standing naked in front of a mirror. Then I suddenly tend to feel like I am transformed into a walrus with blond hair, glasses and an eyebrow piercing, but a fat, tusk-less walrus nevertheless.
The more things hurt and the more intimate areas where things hurt, the more detached I feel from myself. It's kinda funny in a way. In a humbling, humiliating sorta way. I used to fancy myself a sex educator before all of this. I was open minded and outspoken and I firmly believed that there were endless ways to have sex and intimacy, which are NOT the same thing, without, in my case, ramming something into my vagina.
However, once Dr. E told me I had Vulvadynia and Lichen Sclerosis and all other pleasant sorts of vaginal diseases, I began again to view my vagina (and I'm using the term incorrectly- I really mean the vulva-the outside part and the vagina-the inside part) as one more thing that was wrong with me, albeit one more thing not too many people would see. Ha! That was before I realized how many doctors and specialists I would see and how much poking and prodding I would get by a nearly endless stream of people. Now I could probably have an entire gyn exam done in the middle of Times Square and be nonplussed!
The more that old familiar feeling (I hate that I vaguely feel like I'm quoting Frank Sinatra here, even if he was from New Jersey!) of loathing my genitals (a word I despise) crept over me, and eventually overtook me, becoming part of my identity again, the more worthless I felt. The more hopeless I became about my prognosis, although I generally pretended to be just fine to most people since I didn't trust them to care any way.
With sex becoming a cruel and distant memory, and spontaneous "flare-ups" between my legs occurring more often, I retreated further into denial. I went from someone who used to get dressed up in lingerie when I had the house to myself, and masturbate in front of a mirror for the sole purpose of turning myself on, to someone who wouldn't even ask their partner to look at my vulva, perineum, rectum, whatever, unless it was so fucking painful and it had literally been plaguing me for days!
As the pain and denial continue to intensify and I continue to feel less and less like I live in a body and more like I inhabit a flow-blown diseased organism, I have flat out refused to look at my "private parts" at all. That is, until today; when the excruciating pain of the worst sunburn ever, combined with an endless onslaught of paper cuts, mixed with lemon juice and saltwater, in my labia and perineum, ceased to get better, and in fact, got worse over the past two-ish weeks. Nothing. Absolutely nothing was bringing relief for more than an hour or two at best and I'm using up my Lidocaine so fast that my insurance company is gonna refuse a refill!
Only this morning did I haul out the super magnifying mirror and flexible reading lamp and arrange it all between the blob that used to be my vulva.
Perhaps I should have done this sooner, because I noticed the reddest inflammation I've ever seen along the inside of my outer labia (the lips the pubic hairs grow on) and bumps I can't explain along my labia and perineum.
I about flipped out before I remembered that I was no longer living in a body and therefore not subject to things like STDs (of which I've always tested negative for, so has my monogamous partner of 6 years). And then I got super pissed off for not looking at myself sooner and insisting that the doctor see me sooner than today's scheduled appointment so I could be healed. After that, I got super pissed off at myself for breaking my denial and looking at my "down there" in the first fucking place-like I was gonna know what to do with whatever the fuck I saw?
Turns out Dr. E doesn't know what the bumps on my blob are either, but he isn't concerned about an STD. I guess that's good. It would be hard to explain an STD when you aren't even fucking yourself!! He just proscribed two courses of Diflucan and thought it might be a latent "flare-up" to last month's antibiotics and told me to avoid sex, swimming and everything else that might bring me pleasure. And we're going away for the weekend for our anniversary.
I barely avoided a nervous breakdown in his office as I thought about how little my partner touches me now anyway and I left feeling like an even more loathsome and diseased organism than I did when I first arrived.
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