Sexual Relationships 
Sexual Health 
This is a condition that is quite common but one that not many people are aware of. I wanted to write a little about it and share personal experiences in hopes that it may help many women suffering in silence as well as their partner or loved one. Although I am currently battling with this condition, I am starting to come to terms with having it and have become determined to do something about it.
I am 20 years old and have been happily married for 3 years, It began on my wedding night. I was excited and nervous as was my husband. Both virgins, we didn't expect the first time to be perfect and knew the basic 'ins and outs' of sex. I put on my new lingerie, walked towards the bed and slowly began to climb onto his body. We were both very aroused at this point and I began to please him orally. All of a sudden, I felt this panic inside me unleash. I had never really thought about sex to the minor detail before and when I held his penis in my hand I wondered how it would get inside me without it being a painful experience. On top of this, I remembered people telling me about their first time and how painful it was. I specifically remembered asking my sister about her first time to which she responded "I'll be honest it felt like a log." I brushed the thought aside trying to make myself forget about how painful it must be. By this point into foreplay, I wasn't aroused and instead was beginning to feel dry. My husband slowly kissed me, we engaged in foreplay for almost an hour, yet I still couldn't take my mind off painful penetration. I was scared but wanted it over and done with so I wouldn't have to go through it again. Of course, this wasn't healthy because sex only works when both female and male are fully aroused. He tried his first attempt at penetrating me, which failed miserably causing me to further panic. Of course, this was going to happen, we were virgins, lubeless and I was scared. After multiple attempts, we gave up, reassured ourselves we would no longer be virgins tomorrow and fell asleep. This continued for 3 long years and I began to feel extremely disheartened, lost, alone and scared. I was too embarrassed to ask anyone for help because I felt they would snigger at a married virgin. I began to research and look into failed attempts at penetration. I didn't know at the time that this was even a condition because of all the other problems I was finding on the internet. Trush, STD's, cervical cancer and vulvodynia were some of them. After considering all these options, I knew my condition was something else. After continuously researching, I came across Vaginismus. I knew straight away, this was it. I was relieved to have finally diagnosed myself so that I could fix it. Vaginismus is a term used to describe persistent involuntary tightening of the muscles around the vagina whenever penetration is attempted.
The symptoms are feeling worried or scared before attempting penetration and whenever being penetrated by something as small as a finger or tampon to having a pap smear and being penetrated by a penis. There is of course a bright side, Vaginismus is definitely curable. The treatments for Vaginismus include therapy, pelvic floor exercises and dilators. The thought of a dilator scared me, let alone using one. So I started off looking into therapy. Therapy helps because Vaginismus is a psychological condition where your brain gives your muscles negative signals causing your muscles around your vagina to tighten, thus rejecting any form of penetration. Although, I found a few therapists in my area, they were expensive so I decided to leave therapy to the side for now. The next thing I looked into was pelvic floor exercises. Pelvic floors are ideal for women who have given birth, older women, and women dealing with bladder control problems. However, many websites stated that doing pelvic floors were an advantage for Vaginismus sufferers too, as they train you to control your muscles and strengthen them. I do pelvic floors as often as I can remember but I felt like there had to be something else I could do to speed up the process to recovery. So I turned to my doctor. Surprisingly, she didn't seem to know much about Vaginismus so couldn't do much to help other than refer me to a psychosexual clinic to which I'm still waiting to be seen. At this point in my life, I felt like my marriage was slowly crumbling. Although, my husband is understanding we couldn't deal with having a sexless marriage, and disheartened us both about any hope for us sexually. A lot of the times, I give up and think about living without sex, adopting and even contemplating divorce to free my husband to live a life where he can enjoy sex with someone. But, although this condition disheartens us both at times, were not ready to give up. After a rare moment of feeling optimistic, I decided to research more Vaginismus treatment on the web again.
That brings me to now, I came across something called the vagi-wave. A small 10cm ribbed tool that you place inside your vagina for a total of 21 nights. This trains your vagina while you sleep, and not only helps your body get used to the feeling physically but also your subconscious mentally. At first, it seemed like a gimmick which reminded me of dilators. However, there was a small piece of me that still had hope for it after reading many reviews about the product, overall being 90% positive. I was hopeful. I was even eager to try it but I still sometimes wonder how I'll be able to insert it if even the thought of it scares me. However, the unique shape of the vagi-wave makes me think differently. The small bumps which give it the unique ribbed shape fit and slide in easily when lubricated. It also comes with a retrieval thread which ties onto one end which you then gently pull out in the morning. As well as the tool, the vagi-wave website offers you free support and live help through the 21-day programme. Something as small as 10cm has given me hope and helped me out of my negative feelings towards Vaginismus which I suffered with in silence. I wanted to help others out there who are also feeling hopeless, lost and disheartened. Although it may take me some time to actually have full penetrative sex I still feel that I have made progress in coming to terms with the condition, my body and hope for one day being cured. Have the strength to come to terms with something and then you will eventually have the strength to overcome it.
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