Currently listening to…
Remember at the start of the year when I said I’d be talking to more people with vaginismus for my book about vaginismus while actively trying to overcome vaginismus? Well in case I haven’t said this already, writing a book is a hard thing. I spent over a decade of my life purposefully not talking about vaginismus only to girlboss so close to the sun that I now have to talk about it in order to see this project through. That transition has me feeling a little out of my depth. I wake up most mornings overwhelmed with intrusive, unshakeable thoughts that I’m messing everything up.
I know deficiencies in my self-worth have a lot to do with my absent father, but I don’t think it's coincidental that these feelings are coming up as I write and talk about vaginismus. My diagnosis changed my life for the better, but it also became a shorthand way for me to reaffirm some of my own worst fears. Most notably, that I’m not good enough. For anything. Ever.
In a lot of ways, I’m comfortable with that narrative. I had it on internal repeat for a decade as I tried and failed to have penetrative sex. I’ve memorized (and internally accepted) the idea that I’m less of a romantic partner, less of a woman, less of a human being. It wasn’t a leap to add “writer” to that list and then let my anxiety run with the new story. So much of my self-worth was (and unfortunately, still is) tied to my struggles with vaginismus. Hearing @thevaginismusmonologues talk about this connection has helped me understand that I’m not alone in these feelings.
I’m not alone in real life either. My partner is patient and kind. I speak openly to my friends about imposter syndrome and lame dads and dilator woes. Check-ins with my agent lately have ended with statements like, “You’re the real deal!” and “You’re wasting too much time on anxiety.” There comes a point about every other day when I become paranoid that I’ve depleted everyone around me and that surely, nobody really likes me and that they’re only pretending. Just as those feelings begin their arduous journey from my brain to the tension in my shoulders to the sinking feeling in my stomach, my mom calls to remind me that I’m loved and that also, I’m a great writer.
My inner critic is loud, and it works overtime when I’m doing something new (like writing a book) or crossing things off my to-do list (like writing a book) or trying to succeed at something difficult (like writing a book.) It’s so loud that even the voices of my supportive partner and understanding friends and optimistic agent and wholehearted mother aren’t always able to drown it out.
Another layer of frustration comes from doing all! the! things! that self-care TikTok promises will make me better. I’m a regular in therapy, I run in the Florida sunshine every week, I’m hydrated, I eat leafy greens. I’ve got a stress-relief candle lit as I type this sentence. I sleep underneath a weighted blanket every night and do Legs Up The Wall every morning. I meditate and stretch and journal and smoke pot and have sex and apply tinctures and ice roll and limit caffeine and practice affirmations and take hot baths and… yet.
I don’t feel better.
There is a page in my notebook where I’ve started writing little notes to my imposter syndrome. Some of the little notes are rude and some of them don’t make sense to me the morning after I write them. Three of the little notes are affirmations that resonate every time I read them again. They were gifts to me when I first heard them, and I’m sharing them here to offer some resolution to anyone reading this who feels like me.
I have worried enough.
I am performing a service for womankind.
As a matter of principle, I don’t give everything my all.
If everything I want is on the other side of feeling insufficient, then certainly I can overcome, right? I will keep you posted.