Like a lot of our challenges in life, vaginismus is one that presents new challenges and milestones to face even when we think we’ve beaten it. I experienced this fairly recently – I am no longer dating the person I was with when I went through the botox procedure, which brought up a lot of feelings with a new partner I have. There’s guilt, for one thing – about not being with the person who helped me so much with a problem that made me feel like a prisoner in my own body. There’s the fear that sex with this new person won’t work and that I’ll be back to where I was years ago, miserable.
Fortunately that second one didn’t come to pass and intercourse with a new partner was great and pain-free. But I know that I like to think of vaginismus as something I’ve overcome, that’s “behind” me. In a lot of ways this is true in that the worst parts of it are things I’ve worked on and the things I really wanted to achieve (intercourse with a partner) have been done. But even though vaginismus doesn’t define my sexual life anymore, it will always be a part of that story. I have to make room for it in my narrative because of how much it taught me. There will always be new challenges and new feelings, but I know now that I have the strength to face them.
