Sexual Dysfunction (Warning: Raw, graphic)

Today was a very hard session, and I can't even identify the hardest part(s).

One thing I know is this is one of those times when I want to push away the very people I need - particularly Bill. I want to push him away so hard....no, no, no....no you can't come in, no you can't see this...Oh dear God if you knew....you can't come in.

And Cindy, I am content just letting her be there, just kinda hang out.

I don't want this. I hate this. I hate me. I hate my body. I hate what and who I am.

I will try to explain..... but it's rather um...personal and graphic and I apologize in advance for humiliating my friends and family. As far as me, well, I presently feel I have no dignity left. I am a shadow, with no substance. I feel vulgar, damaged.

I hurt myself the other night - intimately. Nothing serious, but painfully punishing.

I spent most of the day hitting myself (mostly punching my thigh or slapping myself in the head or face) as memories of my self-abuse flashed in my mind. This occurred even as I was in session today...hitting myself...it's like my arm takes on a life of it's own and I can't keep it from hitting me.

First let me clarify one thing: I do not and never have enjoyed masturbation. I've done it to satisfy my partners (mostly Gary). I don't like touching myself (barely can stand taking a shower) and I certainly don't like looking at myself. My ex-husband used to make a comment about my um...vagina that was, I suppose, intended to be a compliment but all it really did was imply that proper maintenance was required. That was back in the day when I felt it necessary to douche four times a week, or any time after sex. So, see, my body's always been ugly to me. Like it's not even mine.

I want to also point out that I have had a total of four serious relationships - two of them marriages. Yet, somehow, I am a "whore".....My father, brother, ex-husbands, and other key men in my life have said this to me and if they didn't say it, they treated me like one (like my most recent ex).

And, naturally, when you're standing on the cold tile bathroom floor with your father's penis in your hand and being told what a good little girl you are to do this for Daddy, that ugly, dirty feeling sets in, even if you're too young to understand what it means or where it comes from. Such conflicting emotions.

My family/friends yesterday encouraged me to tell Michelle (my therapist) about my most recent issue.... I wasn't going to do it. I started her an email, wrote two sentences, and then clicked "cancel"....too humiliating.

But then I thought about it....... a lot.

And today I told her. It was excruciatingly painful and humiliating but she was very kind and understanding. She asked me a lot of questions (first, obviously, if I was hurt).

So we talked about being a whore; talked about masturbation; talked about the reasoning behind my rationale.

At times I couldn't talk. At times I folded myself up into my own lap, pulled my sleeves over my hands, hiding every bit of my skin I could hide.

She kept assuring me..."It's okay, Cristina. You're okay. It's okay."

So I tried explaining to her, my rationale, stuttering breathlessly through the whole thing. It's the first time I ever told anyone that I'd done this before....sexually punished myself.

You start off as a whore, something happens and you want it, so since you want it, you're even more of a whore and since you're a whore and you want it, you must be bad, and if you're bad, you must be punished, and if you're bad enough to punish yourself, then you need to punish yourself for that, too. This is also the case when you do things for men, that you don't want to do (such as was the case with my ex) just to please them. Yep. You're a whore. The process repeats.

"Even now, sitting here, I can hear it in my head, over and over and over again. 'You're a whore! You're a whore!" (I also had flashes of an online conversation I had one, where he was drunk and put in giant bold letters, "WHORE!") - that, too, kept flashing in my mind and it was actually that image that had me crying on the way home.

That was my explanation. She sat across from me (I didn't look at her most of the time but I could feel her posture).

She sat quietly for a moment and then she asked me what I meant.

"I'm just trying to connect the dots for you so you understand what I mean."

She paused and then she said, "Cristina, I am never going to lie to you, and I am going to tell you when you're wrong. I am your barometer," she said, and I looked up briefly as she turned away to illustrate. She held her hands up to simulate a dial with a needle. She held her right hand in a circle, used her left pointer finger as the needle.

"This," she said, with the 'needle' all the way to the left, "Is okay."

She moved the "needle" all the way to the right, and said: "This is bullshit."

She didn't say it meanly, but she turned and looked at me and said, "Those dots don't line up. They don't match."

I was surprised by this. "Well, then I need new dots because these are the only dots I know."

She explained that women often try to take blame for their rape/incest, in an effort to have some control. This made me cry because it made so much sense....I had never thought of it before. I always blamed myself, "I shouldn't have been there," or "I should have said no" or "I asked for it."

Yeah....that's the mantra of many women, I suppose.

Then she made a comment that startled me: "...when you were assaulted."

Daddy never assaulted me.... well, only twice. But that was because I said "no" so it was MY FAULT. Other than that, he was always kind and benevolent.

I told her I had two lives. She asked why two lives.

"Daddy, and then the rapes."

Oh

"They were very different."

"I see," she says.

Either way, I have always been a whore.

Things got still for a moment, and I quietly cried into my kleenex, whispering to the wadded up tissue: "You know what I want?"

"What?" she asked.

And I cried harder, and I admitted, "Bill. He's never said or done one single unkind thing to me. Ever."

"That's what you deserve," she said. "I'm glad you have him."

And here I am....sitting in my office....

Wanting desperately to push him away.