Tag: Trauma

I finally started pelvic floor therapy last Thursday. I was told by the therapist who did my intake that most pelvic floor patients only come once a week, but I’m a special case because of course I am. I mean, why wouldn’t an obscure yet common condition impact me for multiple reasons instead of just one?

She confirmed I do have vaginismus, which was kind of obvious given that twelve years ago I had to be given general anesthesia for a pelvic exam and hysteroscopy. But it was still nice to officially have someone who knows how “my down there” works confirm it. (“My down there” was something that slipped out once in a conversation with Chris so now it’s something we joke about.) Anyway, she found out about my history of trauma, which she said is definitely a factor. Then she found out about my history of hip problems and attempted & successful orthopedic surgeries on it. And she found out about my hypermobility and how my joints can be “really flexible” but my muscles lack flexibility and can be extremely stiff.

It’s going to be hard for me to do some of the therapies required because relaxing muscles is extremely difficult for me. Like my brain will send the message for them to relax and my body will send one back asking WTAF it’s talking about. Physical therapists have literally had to slap and jerk my legs (not in a painful way) to make the muscles ease up before. And one of my new therapists, because I can’t just have one, will be doing dry needling for part of mine.

She decided on that path because checking my body for orthopedic clues about “my down there” (cute right?) always seemed to lead me to feel tensing & spasming in my vagina. She discovered my piriformis muscle, which has been a dick to me for years, was extremely stiff and just pressing once almost automatically caused a spasm for me. She said normally she could work it out with her hands, but she thought that could set me back weeks. So she is going to do dry needling instead.

If it works, it works.

And she will be focusing on my external therapy. The other therapist, who I haven’t met yet, will be working on my internal therapy. Not internal as in psychotherapy but internal as in INTERNAL. So that’ll be different, right? Because I need external pelvic floor/orthopedic physical therapy in addition to the internal pelvic floor therapy, I get to see them twice a week.

Oh, and to get any of this done, I had to ask my rheumatologist for a referral/order for it & set the appointment up myself because it was taking my family doctor too damn long to do a second one. I’m also still a bit annoyed at her office staff for trying to send me to a clinic that doesn’t take my insurance. (What is even up with that?)

So yeah. Now I get to go to pelvic floor therapy in the morning twice a week because that’s when the internal therapist works at this clinic. The morning part is what I dread the most.

Hopefully it will all be worth it.

I was minding my business, checking a former college classmate’s Facebook when I saw a name that I recognized and that I actively try not to think of whenever I can. Of course I gave in to my worst instincts and clicked. And what did I find? A post that made me roll my eyes.

Positivity+ is a proven application that provides students and members with affordable coaching, therapy and assessment support through Teletherapy Services. Check it out, free service offered this week. Telll [sic] a friend. Download the app! So many young people and individuals in general are having a hard time now. Assistance with any concern/issue; college, relationships with friends, classmates, professors and or mental health; Positivity+ can help.

It’s interesting she cares so much about the mental health of young people or people having a hard time or people with issues with professors now. She didn’t care about them when she was my professor and she marked off on tests where my handwriting was shaky due to lithium. She didn’t care when she refused throughout Fall 2006 to find a placement for my internship until the last moment (because I couldn’t drive at the time due to my disability) and she had no problem ending that internship prematurely either.

She didn’t care when she mocked me publicly as she taught Art of Interviewing and when she mocked me in front of my internship class. She didn’t care as she mocked me privately to my classmates, who would later tell me about it. She didn’t care when she mocked my family being too poor to afford Caller ID or when she knew I couldn’t afford nicer shoes or better clothes because of my being poor. She didn’t care that her decision (along with another professor) to coerce me into allowing them to attend a therapy/psychiatrist appointment with me caused me emotional distress & was traumatizing; nor did she care when it nearly caused me to be hospitalized. She didn’t care when she told me to my face that my diagnosis of bipolar disorder meant that I wouldn’t be allowed to graduate from the program when I had 11 hours to go in the program, that should get a degree in business instead (which I’ve never understood where that came from), and that I really shouldn’t be around people at all. She didn’t actually care when she said I could complete my internship Fall 2007 in January 2007, for me to call her about it in February or early March; nor did she care when she ghosted me on that until the fateful meeting in Fall 2007.

She didn’t care about healthy interactions between professors and students. She didn’t care that her actions and her words caused my mental health to worsen for a variety of reasons and that she made it harder for me to trust authority figures. She didn’t care that she violated my rights or that her actions caused me to be unable to not only get my degree but to get a job, thus making it almost impossible for me to escape poverty.

Maybe she’s not the woman she once was. Maybe she actually gives a shit about mentally ill people like she claims on her Facebook profile. I sincerely hope she’s changed but I doubt it with every fiber of my being because I don’t know that she’s capable of ever having that kind of empathy. I used to question why someone like her would become a social worker, but I’ve learned over the years that social work isn’t free of ableism. In fact, it may be more prevalent in this field than in others; and part of that is probably because people who lack empathy or basic compassion toward disabled people know that they can get away with taking advantage of them very easily in it.