i'm scared of my vagina // i hate having a vagina

[Scooby]

I am 20 years old and I HATE IT, I hate that it's down there, I hate how there is a giant self destruct button on my body in the form of a large gaping hole.

Everytime someone mentions vagina / sex / babies I start to freak out a little. It's fine when I'm not concious of it, but today there was a pain in that area so I looked down there with a mirror and went to move some hair away and then freaked out because even brushing past that area feels so dangerous, as if i'm going to hurt myself or damage myself in some way

i feel the same about tampons (i use pads) and sex, like the idea of putting anything up there sounds painful and dangerous and ugh

I KNOW this is a really strange / weird issue but I don't know what to do, I shouldn't be this scared of my body / hurting myself

[Sam W]

Hi Scooby,

I'm sorry that this is causing you such distress. So I can make sure I'm clear on how you're feeling, can you tell me a little more about why your vagina feels like a self-destruct button?

[Scooby]

I feel like there is a thing in my body that is an entry way to my insides and it's sensitive so it can easily be hurt, and I really hate it because I can accidentally hurt myself as much as other people can, because it's a GAPING HOLE and i feel i can't touch it / put anything near it because it terrifies me that there is a HOLE that goes inside my body and it's a self descruct button because it's a literal weak spot. Like if anything went in there or went near there I will be hurt because I feel I have this giant hole in my body and if I had a giant hole naywhere else it would be dangerous. If I had a giant hole in my chest, things could get in there and things could fall out and I could touch it the wrong way or someone else could touch it and it would HURT and I would be in PAIN and my organs would be DAMAGED. And it's exactly how I feel about having a vagina.

I'm not sure if I explained that right, it's a really weird issue

[Redskies]

I think I'm grasping what you're saying.

Even if the way you're feeling were weird, it's certainly not unusual for people to have all kinds of individual, challenging or hurtful feelings about our bodies. Too, any kind of entryway into our body can easily feel a good deal more personal and vulnerable than other body parts, and even more so with genitals.

I wonder how you feel about your nostrils? Your anus? How do these seem similar or different to your vagina, to you?

How solid do you feel about your anatomy knowledge about your vagina? I ask because the ways you're describing it don't quite match up with the actual anatomy - for example, the vagina isn't actually a big hole at all: most of the time, it's closed against itself. Would some more accurate anatomical information be helpful to you?

[Scooby]

I've tried to reply to this SIX TIMES and it hasn't worked so sorry if I sound a bit frustrated !!

My nose is different because I can see it every day of my life and I can see other people's noses every day, and the nose is just a normal thing like a forehead or an eye. The nostrils are small and I KNOW nothing is going to get in there to harm it and nothing is going to try to hurt it because I would SEE it or other people would SEE it and it would be fine. To look at your vagina you have to squat, place three mirrors down, bend over, squirm into the right position just to see what's going on, and that's ridiculous and terrifying because you have no idea what it looks like unless you really try to see it, and it looks horrifying and it upsets me so I never look.

But yes if you were to describe in detail how egyptians removed organs through the nose I would def squirm in the same way I would squirm if you talked to me about tampons or sex or putting a finger near my vagina. I don't understand how if someone ever said "I stuck an entire cucumber up my nose up my nose" people would say "oh that's awful, that sounds really painful" BUT when someone says "I had sex" everyone just replies like "Okay" as if sticking something into your body isn't a horrifically painful experience

I think I know a good amount about the vagina, but to be clear about my message earlier, I haven't seen or touched my vagina. I've seen and accidentally brushed against the labia and it always looks awful / feels insanely delicate, as if I shouldn't be touching it because the skin is too thin and it could tear or I could damage it. I don't think I've ever seen my vagina, because you have to move the labia to see it and that is something I could never do. Tearing past bits of skin to have a look at something that leads inside my body is terrifying. For me, it would be like removing a bandage covering a wound that has still to be healed. That area seems delicate and easily hurt so removing the labia (bandage) and looking at the vagina (wound) I could easily hurt myself in the process.

[Heather]

I am so sorry you have had to live with these feelings. Feeling so afraid of your own body is a very difficult thing to live with, particularly because it's not like you can get out of it to even get a break from those feelings.

You probably know this already, but way you are talking about much of this isn't rational. In other words, it's not square with the general realities of this anatomy in a lot of ways, most ways, and how you are thinking about this is all about how you are feeling, rather than being based in fact. What you are describing here sounds primarily like irrational (though if you have survived any trauma involving this part of your body, it may have a rational basis) fear; like a phobia.

Phobias are a mental health issue, best addressed and treated by a mental healthcare provider. They can help you get to the root causes of this phobia, and can also probably help you settle it down over time, and maybe even get rid of it entirely.

Are you open to looking into that kind of help?

[Scooby]

I KNOW this isn't rational, but it's not something I can stop feeling, and I really hate feeling like this !!

I would be open to it, but I've talked to my mum and she says if I go see a doctor I could be labelled as depressed or anxious and that's not something I want !! Especially when I KNOW I don't have things like depression or anxiety !! And because of I have an autoimmune condition I get tired quite easily and I would hate for my condition to worsen and for it to be labeled as something mental instead of physical !!

How would you know for sure you have a phobia ? If there was a way for me to KNOW this was for sure a phobia I would maybe try looking for help !! But also where would you find help, this is a really personal issue and I would be very embarassed talking to my Doctor about it! What would I even say if I were to go in?

[Heather]

Your mental health information from a healthcare provider is private. If you're concerned about if mental healthcare is confidential, you can always ask a provider or their office staff about their policies so you can hear that for yourself, though.

A phobia is, simply put, a pervasive irrational fear. If this isn't brand new, and it's as chronic as it sounds, you can know for sure this is about phobia. But the person who can verify that for us is a mental healthcare professional.

Since your family doctor probably isn't also a therapist -- and it sounds like even if they were, they're not who you think you'd feel comfortable talking to -- you have a couple options. You can ask them for a referral to a mental healthcare provider (and if you don't want to tell them about this, saying something like that you are struggling a lot with anxiety -- you are, for the record, describing some kinds of anxiety here, and that's okay, it's a common human experience -- or fear should do it). Alternately, you can directly contact a local mental health service, and likely skip over talking to your usual doctor first: http://www.hse.ie/eng/services/list/4/M ... /services/

[Heather]

Just FYI, Scooby: I saw your most recent thread, and I also saw your request about feeling very uncomfortable after having posted it, so I did take it down, as you requested.

But I do also just want to give you a basic answer, since you and I know what you asked: that answer is yes, that sounds like a kind of abuse to me, namely a combination of sexual harassment and a kind of sexual assault. And I think the other people who were told about it also did you and the person who did this a profound disservice by not taking it more seriously and making clear that kind of behavior is abusive. I also think that it's pretty likely those experiences have at least something -- if not quite a lot -- to do with these feelings you've posted about in this thread.

[Scooby]

thank you for taking it down

i posted that thread because i have been kind of afraid it's the reason for this thread, but it's also something i don't want to think about because it makes me feel ill. I'm also afraid of talking to anyone about that particular problem because I don't want to hurt my mum by telling her that this has messed me up the way it has. BUT I also don't want to talk about it with friends or with /help/ because I'm worried they will look at my family in a bad way.

I also feel my scenario is nowhere near as bad as anyone elses and i feel like i'm exaggerating the problem in my head! Which is probably silly but still !

[Mo]

One reason why a good therapist can be so helpful, when thinking about dealing with a past trauma or persistent fear, is that their entire job is to listen to you with the goal of helping you out. They aren't personally tied to your situation so there isn't the same worry about upsetting them or having them treat your family differently that there might be if you talked to your mom or a friend. A therapist might even help talk you through what it might look like to talk to your mom about things if you ever wanted to, but even if you don't ever want to, a good therapist is a neutral person who's on your side, and I think that can be a really helpful space for talking about upsetting or stressful things.

There's also no minimum amount of distress required to seek out therapy, and I think that's important to keep in mind. If something's upsetting you or negatively impacting your life, it's ok (and generally even good!) to seek out help, and you doing so doesn't diminish or take away from the experiences or needs of people who've suffered more than you have. This isn't like an amusement park ride where you have to be a certain height to get on a ride, or have suffered a certain level of trauma to access therapy. If it's something you think might help then you absolutely deserve to seek out and receive that support.

[Heather]

On taking it down: of course. What you, or anyone, puts here is supposed to help you and make you feel safer, not less safe or create more stress. I also know how it can feel to be brave enough in a moment to make a disclosure, then after you have made it, to realize that maybe you're not there yet. It's okay, and we're around if and when you are there. You also may want to consider using our chat service to talk about this sometime. If our standard chat hours don't work for you, let me know: we can usually work something out.

I do want to let you know that it's not helpful to anyone -- not you, not others -- to think about trauma the way you are, where you think somehow talking about yours, that you feel isn't as bad as trauma others have experiences, takes something away from those people. It doesn't. Plus, trauma is so, so relative, it's kind of mind-blowing. One personal example I often give people trying to wrap their head around that is that even just in my own life, where I have experienced a wide range of kinds of abuse and trauma, I found that some verbal abuse I survived actually has been harder for me to heal from, and ultimately more traumatic for me, than some aspects of a gang rape I survived.

As someone who has also survived some kinds of trauma a lot of people have in mind when they talk about other people "having it worse," I also always like to mention that other people talking about or getting help with their own trauma doesn't take a thing away from me, nor have I ever felt it has diminished my own trauma or myself. Sometimes it just helps for people to hear someone say that, so there it is, in case it's helpful to you.

[Scooby]

Sorry to you both for the late reply, it was my birthday earlier in the week so I have been offline a lot.

That is exactly how I felt, thanks for putting it into words. I would love to use the chat services but as I am from the UK the times don't really work for me.

I'm so sorry for your trauma, that must be really difficult to deal with, and you are right, trauma is subjective to the person.

Thank you for the last paragraph, it is helpful.

I would love to seek help but it feels as if this is really personal / vulerable information and I would like a limited amount of people to know. In the UK you have to tell a doctor and get refered to someone and I just don't think I can do that. While I would LOVE to deal with this and feel better about myself and safer in general, I'm not sure how to go about seeking help, and I would hate to have help and for them to be rubbish at giving help !

[Mo]

I hope you had a nice birthday!

I'm afraid I don't know a ton of details about how mental healthcare works in the UK but I'm wondering if you can get a referral from a doctor without being super specific. If you were able to say something like "I have some past trauma and some fears about my body that I want to talk to someone about," would that be enough without going into detail? I'm not sure if that sounds any better to you than providing more detail would, but I wanted to float that idea out there in case that might be more manageable.

[Heather]

What might feel best for you is to go through/use a service that is expressly meant to help abuse/assault survivors instead, where I assure you, they're good at what they do. That way, you can skip the wait for a therapist you'd probably have anyway and talking to your family doctor.

How does that sound? If it sounds okay, and you give me a vague idea of what country and area you're in, I can likely suggest one or two good starting places.

[Scooby]

Thank you! I had a good day.

Those are both good suggestions.

I'm from Scotland, I go to university in Dundee.

[Sam W]

Hi Scooby,

Okay, let's see if we can find you some local resources aimed at helping survivors! This center is located in Dundee, and it offers a hotline, one on one counseling, drop-in support, and several other services (it looks like they also provide a link to the national survivor support hotline for the hours when their hotline is closed): https://www.wrasac.org.uk/our-services/ . How does contacting them and asking to schedule an appointment sound to you? Does it feel doable?

Another option would be to see if there are any support services at your university that you could access, as many universities try to have some resources available for survivors. Do you have any sense of whether your university has such a resource? If not, is there somewhere like a student resource center that would have a list of all available services so you could check and see if there was one that met your needs?