I’m so glad that I stumbled across this post, and I actually made an account just so that I could respond to you. I’ve been through this exactly. I’m 25 now, and I’ve recently (in the past like 2 years) been able to figure any of it out myself. To me it sounds like you have vaginismus (that’s what I have). Basically what that means is that your vagina involuntarily tenses up when anything tries to enter it, whether that be a tampon, finger, or anything else. This can make it incredibly painful, like you mentioned with the tampon. I suggest you look into it, just to get a broader idea of what it is.
On that note, the thing that helped me was seeing a physical therapist. It sounds like your mom is pretty open about all of this, so you should talk to her about the possibility. You may have to go to a gynecologist to get a referral, but you should not have to get any sort of internal exam, whatsoever. In my experience, my physical therapist did 2 things: internal exercises and stretches (basically just exercise lol). There are a lot of muscles in your pelvic region involved with the vagina, and if you do have vaginismus, you might also have not so great balance because these muscles are constantly tight. You can probably also look up noninvasive stretches for vaginismus if you don’t want to see a PT; however I highly recommend it because the biggest benefit is that they know where the hole is lol.
When I say our experiences are identical, I mean it. I also tried really hard to practice penetrating because I wanted to be able to use tampons, but I couldn’t seem to get anywhere past a certain point. A physical therapist is really reassuring because they know exactly where everything is, and know when they can push, where you might think there’s nowhere to go. They can be incredibly informative and honestly, if I had all this info, but hadn’t gone to a PT, I probably still wouldn’t be able to figure out how to get anything inside. It’s really scary, and from an outside perspective, sometimes people can’t understand that you actually can’t figure out where to go because those muscles are so tight.
Anyway, I really really hope this helps, although I think I may be a few months late… I wish you the best of luck! Vaginismus is a relatively new concept that is only just starting to gain traction but it’s actually incredibly common (between 1% and 7% of all women). Even if this is not the exact thing that you’re going through, I want you to remember that you are not alone. So many people are going through this and don’t realize that people they know are going through the same thing. You’re doing great by being proactive, and you’re gonna kick this in the butt
