Dealing with reality

I feel like this is something that doesn’t get addressed within traditional dialogue about healing, especially as a female. Most people speak about not having the energy for sex, or discourage it because it depletes your energy. Prior to this, my sexuality was an inherent part of me. In plain english, I enjoy sex and want it just as much if not more than my partners. However, recently my body has not been in the same place as my mind. I go through phases where it hurts to even touch my vulva, let alone have sex. I don’t know how to vocalize this to my partner, who would probably be more understanding than I give him credit for. The obvious answer is lube, but even that burns. So I have sex up until I can’t deal with the pain anymore and am left with the vague feeling of dissatisfaction.

However, at the end of the day, I think we all struggle with how to define our lives outside of our illness. We live for so long defending that we have something wrong with our bodies, that it’s hard to see life outside of that. I had to diagnose myself; every test I took had perfect results. On the flip side of that, I felt so awful some days I thought I was going to die. I felt as though I would never find an answer, and got to a point where I was prepared to live with perpetual discomfort.

Thankfully, I had an incident which scared me into doing something about it and ended up seeing an LLMD. Getting a diagnosis (Lyme + Babesia) came as a relief, but after starting treatment I didn’t know what to do with myself. I had spent so much energy finding out what was wrong that I lost myself along the way.  Combining that with the fact that treatment is never a straightforward process, I started feeling like an empty shell. Certain things didn’t disappear like they were supposed to, and the hopelessness that things would never be right again came back.