Feminists with Female Sexual Dysfunction

I lost 8 months to depression and all I got was this lousy blog post

Hello readers, blog mistress K here again, some ~4 months after the last entry. It’s a new year and I’ve been wanting to write something for awhile… something about going through depression yet again for what I initially thought was the 3rd time… but actually turned out to be more like the 4th or 5th time in my life. (But hey, who’s counting?) Of course, it wouldn’t be much of a party – or a blog post – if my vagina didn’t somehow get involved. Don’t worry – it did.

Feminists with FSD, now featuring soul-crushing depression!

[Description: Unicorn pony Twilight Sparkle, looking quite sad with her head down and eyes closed. (Source) (Why a unicorn?)]

My life has been kind of like this for awhile:

[Description: Unicorn pony Rarity doing her job, working at a sewing machine, but clearly not into or enjoying it. (Source.) (Why a unicorn?)]

I can still do work, do stuff, and do a decent job at it, but I haven’t really been living, you know? Not really feeling it. It, referring to, everything.

It’s been a long 8 months. I’ve been struggling with depression since early 2012. I’m only just now starting to come out from underneath the worst of the most recent depression, after trying a couple of different treatments. I’m going to break it down for you over a blog post or two to catch up.

The trigger for this round of depression is most likely tied up with work-related stress. I’ve been (and continue to be, for now…) stuck at a dead-end job. The job is related to the skills and education I gained during college, so I am able to do what I trained to do. But I do so at a company where we’re understaffed, overworked, and where stratified office politics rule. (In other words, ~a typical office environment!) It’s not the best or the worst job I’ve ever had, but the most important thing is that I’m dissatisfied there. Since it’s clear to me now that there’s no room for growth with the company, I’ve been working on improving my career path by pursuing continuing education outside of work. Continuing education is not easy – it’s time consuming, it’s challenging, and even the continuing education itself is related to the depression – it’s forcing me to re-evaluate my old survival techniques and hang-ups about grades & perfectionism. Plus, my concentration is pretty poor – I can only go for short periods before I get interrupting thoughts and need to take a break. The worst interrupting thoughts are related to depression.

But after awhile – and before I committed to working towards the continuing education – the job wore down on me. Being stuck at work reminded me of being stuck at home in a toxic environment. Feeling like this went on for weeks that turned into months, and eventually, with no hope of escape, I developed depression again. It was bad. I couldn’t make the invasive self-deprecating thoughts Shut Up. I internalized every little mistake as reflecting poorly on myself as a person. I felt like everyone could see right through me. I was emotionally and occasionally physically numb, unable to express or recognize my own emotions – my emotions were absent, I felt only Static. During the worst of the anxiety, I was spacing out, unable to feel physical stimulation (hot, cold, textures, etc.) And I was having nightmares a lot more frequently than I do when I’m not-depressed.

This isn’t normal sadness. The easiest way to describe it is to say it’s more like the stuff featured in some webcomics I relate to:

Hyperbole and a Half: Adventures in Depression! 
Depression Comix
Occasionally, comics etc. about depression on web comic & artist blogs

This has happened to me before. I don’t know how I came out of previous depression episodes – my memory is that I just muddled through it until it resolved on its own. So I don’t know how to be more active about recovery currently without getting help & instructions. Due to Stigma, I wasn’t permitted by my (Insecure, problem-filled/causing) family to seek aggressive treatments (medication) when I was younger, and I never had a chance to confront & work out my issues in a supportive, therapeutic setting.

But I got Shit To Do now, and I’m physically far away from my counter-productive family members. It’s also worth noting here that I Have Insurance – which means I have the means to seek treatment. Not everyone has that option.

But what to do, where to start? I looked for advice on what to do, got advice and I took it. I called for a referral to a therapist and started going in for weekly talk therapy without medication. I read self-help books, some of which were more helpful than others. (I won’t be doing a book review of these, but I do want to point out some of the titles I personally found more useful than others: The Gift of Fear, Outliers, Trauma & Recovery, Will I Ever Be Good Enough, My Mother Myself, Toxic Parents – Based on the last few titles, you may be able to guess where this is going in the end…)

But talk therapy was slow and the results were almost imperceptible… Lots of two steps forward, 1 step back… 2 steps forward, 2 steps back… 1 step forward, 2 steps back… two steps forward, 1 step back for a net increase equal to or less than 1 [Unit of Improvement.] Sometimes I left therapy feeling worse than when I went in. So for months, I persisted, but felt stagnant. I tried to work through my issues – but I kept bumping up against walls, ruminating and getting frustrated. I tried the self-help exercises recommended in the books – and felt more embarrassed about having to confront so many of my own issues when I wrote them down. I tried being nice to myself – and kept defaulting back to self-deprecation. My inner monologue remained turned against myself.

Yet in spite of the mental hardship, my pelvic pain issues, for the most part, behaved. (Isn’t that incredible?!)

Sure, I could feel the pelvic muscles tensing up and getting uncomfortable when I was under stress – but I didn’t go through any acute pain. Even with the depression, I was able to have sexual activity solo & with my partner, and I enjoyed orgasms on a regular basis. My libido was the same as its ever been, so I still had sexual desire. In fact, sexual interest & pleasure were one of the main things keeping me going! I even started to be able to have all-out penetrative PIV sex, with little to no pain. (It’s still not perfect and will never be perfect – but that’s a big improvement compared to a few years ago!)

But then, that all went to Hell because I developed a Cyst.

And that pushed me over the edge till I hit Rock Bottom.

This cyst. This fucking cyst. Let me tell you about my cyst, because that’s how the depression ties into this being a “Vagina blog.”

This all went down over the course of about 48 hours…

Sometime around a weekend in October, I noticed an acutely painful vulvar bump, in between the labia minora and clitoris. It’s a bad, scary place to feel a painful lump. (I suppose all places are bad and scary to find cysts.) You’d think I’d have noticed something starting to go amiss sooner, but no: It hadn’t even been there a day or two earlier! By the time I found it, it felt huge…

…But the truth is, the cyst never got any bigger than pea-sized.

After I noticed the pain and found the source, the cyst grew more defined. Over the next ~2 days, swelling from a sore, vaguely internal lump to a visible, discolored, painful bump.

From experience and from having already read up on vulvar bumps & lumps, I knew it was a cyst. I’ve had one before, related to the vulvar vestibulectomy surgery. I knew going into surgery in the first place, cysts are a potential side effect, and I accepted that risk. So I wasn’t surprised when the old one showed up near the surgical site. That old one formed nearby one of my Bartholin’s glands, and at one point was big enough for my physical therapist to notice. But the old one just kind of resolved on its own and hasn’t come back in years.

The weird thing is, this new, recent cyst was nowhere near the surgery site! In between the labia and clitoris — WTF, what are you even doing there?! Nothing happened there! I was like, “CYST. CYST. WAT R U DOIN. STAHP!”

Since I knew what it was, I also knew what to do as treatment at-home. I called a nurse hotline to see if I should go to urgent care early, but was given the same information I already knew – take it easy, use warm compresses, sitz baths, hope for the best; maybe it will resolve on its own.

This is a TL;DR tweet version of how that plan went down.

I followed the cyst care instructions. I kept warm compresses on it and didn’t mess around (squeeze) with it. Spent some time in the sitz bath. Walked funny. Complained a lot about being in pain, took some OTC painkillers. No sexual activity. Continued doing my continuing education study stuff in spite of it all.

And then of course, it broke.

By itself. And that made a mess. And it scared me. And luckily it broke while I was at home, so I ran into the shower and at this point I’m like, “Okay it broke on its own, whatdoIdowhatdoIdowhatdoIdoooo!”

(It may be worth noting here that, anecdotally  I’ve heard that broken cysts can smell bad… this one had no odor whatsoever.)

After cleaning up the wound and washing my hands, what I did was call the nurse hotline again and got told basically, “Yeah you can probably go in for urgent care now…”

So I hauled ass to urgent care.

And of course by the time I got to urgent care, I already knew what the treatment for draining a cyst is: You can get an incision,  marsupialization or a word cathether installation.
None of these really appeal to me since I don’t want to risk any more scar tissue in and around my vulva, especially not so close to the side of my clitoris. In the end, I was too chickenshit to get the usual treatment! I said to the attending doctor, “Just give me the antibiotics to kill off whatever infection caused this and make a follow up appointment for a few days from now in case I get a complication! I’ll take my chances!” The attending doctor agreed, took some swabs to check for germs and complied – for better or worse, I decided my best course of action was the least invasive one.

Cysts and depression don’t really have anything to do with one another. They should develop independently of each other. However, in my case, the wires got crossed and became interconnected: The cyst forming and breaking was enough to finally break me.

Depression alone is one thing… throw a vaginal problem into the mix and that’s where I draw the line. Developing a vulvar problem while depressed triggered all the other old memories and anxieties from when I was stuck in the worst of the vulvar pain. I felt like I was right back to square one with the Vaginismus and the Vulvodynia/Vulvar Vestibulitis. So not only was I dealing with “Regular” depression and anxiety, I was also dealing with old sexual problem shit and invasive thoughts!

I crossed the minimum thresh hold required to make going on antidepressants worth the risks of sexual side effects. By now I was a shivering ball of anxiety, anger, fear and sadness. I refused food; called in sick from work and spent some time in bed, hiding. None of the self-help techniques in my books or suggested by the therapist could reach me. No one could console me.
By now my thought process when I was hiding in bed was something like, “What is the point of staying off of antidepressants due to a fear of sexual side effects, if I’m just going to go around developing sexual side effects anyway?! Fuck this shit. I’m not doing this anymore. Oh but then people are going to say shit like, ‘Americans are all over-medicated and ~*~Big Pharma~*~ and blah, blah, blah, overdiagnosis, blah blah blah STIGMA.’ Well FUCK THAT TOO!”

At the follow up appointment a few days after visiting urgent care, the doctor confirmed that the wound was still draining on its own. All the swabs came back negative for the strains of bacteria tested for. There wasn’t much else to do or that needed to be done. No need for surgery or a word catheter at that point. Whatever caused the cyst to form in the first place, I still don’t know. The doctor okay’ed going off antibiotics early (I am fully aware that you’re supposed to finish the entire course. I was instructed by a medical professional to not do that in this case. Kids, don’t try this at home.)

And while I was still in the examination room, I asked the doctor to give me the prescription for Bupropion. Because seriously, fuck this shit, at that point I was like, I’m not doing this depression the hard way anymore. I went on medication for it…

…And for awhile, that worked out pretty well. The medication was doing its job. I started making more progress in therapy. I started to feel better…

…Then I developed a side effect: I started losing my hair.

To be continued…