Painful Realizations, Sexual Trauma

I just finished reading Emily Nagoski’s Come as You Are, a book that, though I had several qualms with it, gave an interesting insight not only into sexuality but in many ways also into the devastatingly life-altering effects of anxiety and depression in a more general sense. Though I’d love to do a more thorough writeup/review of this book once I can more clearly understand Nagoski’s theory as well as once I can more clearly articulate why I had the qualms with it that I did.
Two things about those qualms: the first, if anyone has read this book or heard about this book or even follows that Amazon link and reads the synopsis, I do want it to be clear that my issues were solely with Nagoski’s literary style; not with her theory. As a feminist/sexuality academic myself, I praise Nagoski for her mission to spread healthy messages and undo dangerous myths about sexuality and health. 
The second and even more personal note about those qualms is that I can’t articulate them right now because I’m in the midst of a disheartening bout of depression. I have struggled with general anxiety and self-esteem issues for my entire life--much like many, many other members of my family--and depression sprouted once I moved out of my childhood home and came to university. My fight with depression (and severe anxiety) has been a roller coaster of feeling like it will literally kill me, to feeling like I have conquered it to never look back, to feeling somewhat-comfortably emotionally flattened by medication; i.e. a trajectory most sufferers will likely know all too well.
The reason why I’m talking about both CAYA and about depression is because through reading Nagoski’s discussion of sexual trauma, I came to a painful realization about my recent past. Some background: I had been on an antidepressant for about a year and a half and after some major life changes had begun to feel really, really good. I went off of my medication and for the most part handled it pretty well. At this time I was also involved with my current male parter, so I was on the Pill, and I had started having major issues with breakthrough bleeding. About two months after I went off of my antidepressant, I switched to another birth control pill that had a significantly higher estrogen dose, one that I learned fairly quickly gave me unbearable mood swings, depressive symptoms, and killed my libido. 
Desperate to feel better, I got a Mirena IUD three months later. Insertion was easy and painless, I only cramped moderately. I was glowing in my excitement of getting to ditch the seemingly-ever-troublesome Pill. Fairly quickly, though, I began having pain with penetration. No matter how turned on I was, I swore I could feel the IUD being prodded during intercourse, causing severe pain in my uterus and abdomen.
This pain was confusing and extremely difficult and led to totally unforeseen issues. Resenting the idea of a totally halted/disrupted sex life, I continued having intercourse with my partner; intercourse that was often so painful that I would be wincing in pain or choking back tears minutes into the act. I kept having sex with him because it was equally as painful to tell him no--which I had already started doing and which was totally uncharismatic of me; though I didn't have a super intense libido, I enjoyed having sex with him so much that I would always accept any prompt to have sex.
This continued for eleven months. During that year, I saw several doctors, many of them unconcerned with the pain I was in. Though one doctor responded to my pleas and called for a blood test and ultrasound, once there was nothing unusual revealed, she nonchalantly said, "Well, remember, you hated the pill. And what's going to be even more unpleasant for you than all of this is pregnancy." Several other doctors responded with a "Huh!" when I told them about the pain I was in, and said I could research online about other methods of birth control if I was interested in switching. 
Nagoski talks about doctor's dismissal of women's pain during intimacy, and this struck a chord. As someone whose degree is in humanities, admittedly I don't know what else could have been done for me. I don't know medicine. I don't know if maybe that really was the entire spectrum of my options; I don't know if that since the IUD hadn't punctured my uterus, that the pain really should have been dismissed so nonchalantly. But I have a hard time believing that's true. Even if those were the realities I was facing, having someone look me in the eyes and tell me that the IUD maybe just wasn't right for me, and if I was interested in hormonal birth control to help me, from a professional, medical background, compare the pills I was on and that didn't work for me with a hormonal birth control that was different enough to warrant an experiment instead of telling me to go online and figure it out myself. I was going to the doctor's office at once of the best research universities in the US. Again, I don't know, maybe I'm wrong, but something tells me this was unacceptable; especially to have happened so many times.
On another note, Nagoski also discusses trauma, and the painful realization I mentioned earlier is that trauma can happen through something like this. This experience was extremely sexually traumatic. My body still makes the association that intercourse = painful. Really painful. It is devastatingly difficult for me to find the will to have sex. It is devastatingly difficult to go through this with a partner, and with a parter with whom you had founded a sex life that was abundant and healthy. My partner is patient, gentle, and as understanding as he could possibly be. But the fact of the matter is he doesn't understand. He understands that my interest in sex has shot down. He understands that this, among other things, landed me back on an antidepressant. But he doesn't know what to do. We are partners, and sexual intimacy is a significant part of our relationship. When he prompts me for sex, and when he prompted me for sex over the last year, even when, out of the kindness of his heart, it was in the context of simply oral sex, of gentle sex, of it being dramatically less often than it was in our past, I don't know how to say no every time. I'm not saying he has assaulted or violated me; I'm saying that the pain of rejecting him, the pain of eliminating sex fully from my life ended up on par with the pain caused from the IUD. I'm saying that I wish I had been listened to sooner. I wish I could have solved this issue sooner than a year into having something inside me that on bad days feels like it literally destroyed one of the most positive parts of my life, and on good days feels like it set me back tremendously in my mental health progress and put a huge strain on my relationship both with my parter and with my sexuality. This was NOT sexual assault, but it was trauma. 
Reading Nagoski's book, one that was filled with tactics and methods and the like, at this point still seems so overwhelming. I don't know which ones to try, which ones apply to a situation like mine. I struggled to comprehend the book in part because of the aforementioned writing style, and in part because of the cloudiness I am feeling from my returned depression. I'm not saying the depression I'm back in is only because of this, but I don't think I would be back on Celexa if this hadn't have happened.
The internet, which I was instructed to consult far too many times, will tell you to stick out an IUD for several months to over a year to make an adequate decision on whether or not it's the right method for you and to allow time for any adverse effects to calm. When pain started coming on in the early months, and when it failed to subside, I used this information and gave myself the goal of one year before making a decision about whether or not to keep it. As an aspiring sexual educator, I have my own goals about the messages I hope to share as I grow my practice, as Nagoski does. I know that because of this experience I will be more powerful in my role as an educator, an authority, a mentor, and even as a friend. It has given me insight I truthfully wish I didn't have, but at least it can function as even more fuel for the life and career I have always wanted. So my message today is this: Listen to your body. If something feels wrong, don't take no, or rather, "I don't know," for an answer. Don't let months of anguish turn into a sick goal for a year. I have qualms with the IUD for this reason; if something truly has to take that long for your body to adjust to it, maybe it is something that is too intrusive for most women. I'm not sure. I have a lot of my own research to continue. Nonetheless I still feel confident in that message, and will reiterate it: Listen to your body. Keep listening. Keep respecting it. Nothing is intentionally worth your pain and suffering. You deserve so much more than that.

Not

Not that this isn't usually "personal;"

I'm in the process of making a short film about loneliness with my best friend on an Arri SR2, and it's been really difficult to come up with ways to convey that, especially since I'm making it with him. He makes me feel less lonely than I've ever felt before. I'm so excited for the chances I've been getting to not only produce, but to collaborate with him.
I've battled with anxiety my whole life, and this time in my life, for many reasons, is helping me learn how to channel my fears into excitement and productivity rather than letting them turn into crippling anxiety. He's helping me a lot, and even right now, for instance, I'm afraid of making a shitty product because I'm dry on ideas, but instead of letting that make me shut down, I've got to use it as a sign to consume more art, to find inspiration in the world around me, even if that world sometimes gives me anxiety.
Along those lines, I'm also in the process of going off my SSRI. I've been prescribed to it since I came back to college (after dropping out); I was eighteen then--I'm twenty now. I've taken many other steps recently to nourish my body more naturally, and as maybe kind of part of that, am taking it upon myself to peter off of my prescription and see how I can handle life without drugs. I'm not going to be scared. I'm letting myself be excited about it, whilst not abandoning the notion of it maybe not being time yet and having to go back to them. Things will work out the way they're supposed to, and I'm going to see how things work out off of my SSRI.

I thought about attempting to make this into something more like prose; there's time for prose another day, or, who knows, maybe even later today. This is just thoughts I wanted to share (with nobody, let's be honest).

Femininity

I'm in an experimental film class right now, and here are some super short shorts that I've done for it over the past month or so. Cheerleader was prompted by an assignment of a 60 second video with no editing. Factory used an audio track that one of my classmates made and I put the visuals to it. Not a whole lot of grief or stellar equipment went into these, but it's some stuff I've done. I don't intentionally set out to make all of my projects about femininity, but it's kind of happened with the work I've done in this class. Taking two classes on queer sexuality simultaneously will do that, I guess.

Experiments

Doing some film and some still experimenting lately; need to get film for my Canon AE-1 to do some mooooreeeeeee. These were all taken in one night with two pals. I edited them this evening, despite the fact that I haven't fucked with Photoshop in about five years.
I need to keep up the experimenting to develop a personal photographic aesthetic. I'm going to school studying film in hopes to...get a job. But ideally I'd like to DP. I just got a bunch of books on cinematography, but I've gotta get my hands on more more more!!!

Pizza is from South U Pizza in Ann Arbor, Michigan; served to my intoxicated friends with love by my best friend. This is her beautiful mug:

I didn't edit this one, I just think she's pretty.

Drown

What did I say? I knew this would be lacking bulk. Maybe I'll try again. Here's something that I did camera (and a little bit of design) work for last month. 24 hours to write, film, and edit a movie. So physically taxing, and I skipped out on work and almost got fired. It was something like summer camp; I loved it.

Independent

On July 4th I was drunk all day with my best friend. Last year I went for a walk and found nothing interesting, went back to my dorm room and watched a movie. My hair is a lot longer now. Things are ever changing.


Why are these photos so tiny? I'll figure this out eventually.

All right.

How many times have I felt so unusually, mildly creative that I've started a blogger account, only to get so frustrated by the ugly blogger layouts and by my old, glitchy Canon Rebel XT that I abandon it within the week? Many. A lot of times. And here I am again. This blog will likely be worthless, because I think that the only way for me to really realistically post anything online, it will be primarily consisting of the written word, and that's a dying medium, right? And it's not even like I'm going on a mission trip or doing anything exciting or philanthropically that's worth blogging about. I'm just me, here.

And being "me, here" is maybe what I'm trying to explore. I used to write every day, even when there was nothing to write about except my being overwhelmingly sexually frustrated about boys in my precalculus class. I took a creative writing class at my university over the Winter 2014 semester and loved it, but also failed to continue any creative output as soon as the semester ended. So let's try this.

It makes me sad to think of things like the hundreds of journal pages devoted to pubescent douchebags and the zero that I have devoted to my father, who passed away completely unexpectedly in May. And no, this isn't going to be a blog about my facing death, but maybe me just facing how essential it is to constantly be creating, whether it be explicitly art or simply just productive thoughts, regardless of whatever shit life decides to throw at you.

So let's try this.

Finally, a photo of myself and my other half; for good measure. 

-R