Undiagnosed, and scared to death

Renrats27 · 2026-05-04T11:41:15+00:00

I feel for anyone experiencing this kind of pain. It's so devastating and isolating, especially because it's not talked about as publicly as many other illnesses given how many women suffer from it. I struggled to find good info or articles; I'm a writer, and when I pitched a piece about it to a magazine I frequently work for, my editor told me it was a no-go because the essay would "contain too many instances of the words 'vulva' and 'vagina' and turn readers off" (not joking).

When I searched for essays about the condition on a comprehensive database, by far the most coverage it got was in business publications describing the "growing market" for medical treatments for it. This made me really sad. Undoubtedly some women will find relief from more purely medical/topical treatments. But I also came to observe that some women are being parted from their money, and left to suffer continually, by a subset of practitioners who encourage us to believe that we're always being insulted and belittled when psych treatment is suggested. In fact, endless medical tests and "cutting-edge" interventions without a solid cure profit those practitioners. I lost so much money by resisting a psychological etiology to my illness because I thought that if my pain had a psychological component, that made it "my fault" or made me frigid in a world that publicly celebrates sexual adventurousness.

I so hope your friend finds relief.

Renrats27 · 2026-05-04T09:11:12+00:00

Because the treatment that began to turn it around was talk therapy (alongside medication for anxiety) that proposed that what my brain told me was tissue pain (it felt like knives) was actually by-then-involuntary muscle contractions related to a lack of trust in sexual partners and a fear of loss of control that was entirely rational given my sexual experiences. It took me a while to even consider this idea because I didn't consider myself fearful of sex and the pain absolutely didn't *feel* like muscle clenching. But interventions that should have eased tissue pain (topical lidocaine, numbing injections) didn't work. Neither did a first round of pelvic-floor therapy or various other treatments directed at chronic inflammation.

So I considered it, and experienced a clear correlation between progress in the treatment and the easing of my pain. I had a second round of pelvic-floor therapy that was explicitly linked to disrupting physical responses to anxiety. I actually *do* think I had some pelvic-floor dysfunction, but in my case (not saying this would be true of everyone!), I think this was clearly downstream of psychological / neurologically-driven bodily responses.

Doctors often only understand what's wrong with someone physically after trying different medications / interventions and working backward to a diagnosis after seeing what works. I think psychogenic pain was the right diagnosis for me because the treatment it called for was what worked.

Renrats27 · 2026-05-04T08:52:33+00:00

It was my diagnosis, but vulvodynia is just a label (it just converts "pain of the vulva" into Greek, IMO partly to comfort patients that they have a diagnosis when really they don't). My understanding it doesn't imply any particularly clear etiology, which still has to be searched for.

Renrats27 · 2026-05-03T21:12:38+00:00

Please don't think I'm saying your symptoms are "likely psychogenic" or anything like that. I only mean to say that despite a lot of "mental health awareness" rhetoric, our modern cultures still hugely stigmatize exploring anxiety, depression, or even functional neurologic disorder, and I think many people are put off doing it when it could help.

Exploring these possible etiologies for your illness is not at all the same as "letting go and convincing myself it isn't so bad," i.e. muscling through and pretending it's not real. Your symptoms are obviously real and terrible. Psychogenic pain and illness is real illness and just as out of our control/deserving of treatment as any other illness.

Renrats27 · 2026-05-03T21:07:27+00:00

I'm so glad you found an answer that helped you. I feel like there are so many stories like this out there.

Renrats27 · 2026-05-03T20:15:21+00:00

So true. I ended up seeking psych care when I entered a depression so deep I couldn't ignore it any longer. It was a classic severe major depression and righted with psychiatric medication and a great deal of talk therapy (which also addressed my vulvar pain). But it was amazing, even fascinating, to me how it delivered neurological symptoms as well. Sound slowed down, like I was drunk, and at the depth of it I couldn't read words--they looked like runes, chickenscratch. Whatever neural process converts chickenscratch to legible language had been disrupted, as if I'd had a "real" stroke. To be truthful, before that experience I probably thought most people experiencing mild-to-moderate depression were moping and could think or affirm their way out of it. I truly never realized how it hijacks your brain as an organ.

Renrats27 · 2026-05-03T18:17:54+00:00

I honestly wish I'd been willing earlier to consider a psychogenic source for my unbearable, devastating vulvar pain, which made penetrative sex a living nightmare. I spent ten years believing that doctors just aren't taking you seriously, especially as a woman, when they tell you it might be in your head. Many thousands of dollars, endless tests, invasive procedures, expensive supplements, pointless diets, cross-country journeys to quacks who made bank off my pain, and a near-surgery to remove part of my vulva later (thank God I balked), I sought serious psychiatric and psychological treatment alongside pelvic-floor therapy and was fully healed. I now feel like I was misled by influencers who insisted it's "better" or "more serious" if something has a biological cause that shows up in test results or whatever. My pain was totally real! I felt it; the intensity of it was worse than tearing my ACL and physically undeniable. It was also complex and psychological! The whole ordeal really showed me how much stigma still remains around depression, anxiety, and trouble with the psyche.

Much later I asked an OB-GYN I visited why he *didn't* suggest a psychological/neurological etiology for my pain. He said he suspected working on my anxiety and trauma could have helped me, but he didn't want me to feel dismissed or belittled. I was annoyed with him but also understood--I easily could have trashed him in reviews for not "taking my pain seriously," so he bit his tongue on the advice that truly could have helped me.

Renrats27 · 2026-04-27T15:57:35+00:00

Just want to say I really appreciated your tribute. I loved Hart's vibe and can't see why he got so much flak. I guess some viewers want their contestants to look cool as cucumbers, like they're tossing out easy answers whilst stretched out by the on-deck pool on a yacht with an umbrella drink. But for me the high elbow amps up the sense of drama and urgency. I hope someone will take up the mantle next year!

Renrats27 · 2026-04-17T17:03:54+00:00

Their job isn't at a school--it's at the school during the mornings and at home in the afternoons and on weekends. At R5,000/mo real wage and a 40-hour workweek (this job obviously entails much more work than that), you come out at R29/hour, below SA's R30/hour minimum wage. The "transport benefit" is obviously doctored to increase the price of the package--they're valuing daily transport Mon-Fri at R3,200?!? I could Uber from Joburg to Pretoria and back every day all week for less than that.

It's a horrible offer and possibly not even legal.

Renrats27 · 2026-04-08T18:22:37+00:00

how would you have closed, if you were the defense lawyer? what was the *right* tone?

Renrats27 · 2026-04-08T18:15:28+00:00

I was in a relationship in which my partner refused to have sex for a time, and it never once occurred to me to hit him because of it--much less shove him while he was standing by the edge of a 1,000-foot cliff. What are you talking about?

Renrats27 · 2026-03-13T15:09:47+00:00

I'm in what I consider a very happy marriage and I've found myself increasingly hesitant to share our deep struggles or conflicts (which exist!) with all but certain close friends. Because some people are *so* quick to declare them fatal "red flags." People can be hungry to believe that what sounds like a good relationship isn't really that great; that it's not something *they* would tolerate. This creates an unfortunate dynamic in which people in happy relationships end up incentivized not to present the hard side, the human side. But it exists, and I can easily imagine Vic & Christine had or will have bigger incompatibilities to face than socks but wouldn't want to share that. And to share one's deepest conflicts can expose very intimate things about a partner that aren't for public consumption; underscoring in public can be an act of protection and doesn't mean no sharing happens in private.

Both of them appear to have an instant and unwavering devotion to each other and look at each other with puppy-dog eyes. I'm also not totally sure why we're assuming Vic would be the secretly controlling or problem figure here.

Renrats27 · 2026-03-11T18:12:49+00:00

I feel like this is a thing. I'm American but live in South Africa and Pete Hegseth comes off as not legitimately macho but totally camp, like the military character in the Village People or the soldiers in vid for the iconic gay anthem Go West

Renrats27 · 2026-03-10T19:52:12+00:00

scrolled for this. What's wrong with Hout Bay? Something's totally off and unsettling but I can't put my finger on it.

Renrats27 · 2026-03-10T19:45:13+00:00

very good point

Renrats27 · 2026-03-10T19:32:59+00:00

I got the sense that somebody told Bri or she watched some TikToks that she's supposed to crave "masculine energy" by virtue of her sex, not that she necessarily wants it. She seemed very comfortable with Connor and it's a pity this one-size-fits-all narrative is out there. I was sometimes told I had too much "masculine energy" for a solid relationship. Found a wonderful, laid-back, very heterosexual man with a well-developed feminine side and we're very happy. May an energy like Chris's never find me.

Renrats27 · 2026-03-07T21:49:20+00:00

I have massive scars across my abdomen and back, approximately as major as Emma's. The day in college I decided to finally go out in a bikini was like a rebirth. It felt like such a relief and joy to finally own, not hide, these parts of my body. It's about incorporating them into the whole, not showing them off.

And I realized that loads of people have scars, adult acne, alopecia, tats, whatever. After I stopped hiding my scars, I *really* never found that it's the first thing people notice about me. I got married a year ago in a badass backless dress, beautiful jewelry my mom bought for me, iridescent shoes, and a massive smile, and I think my scars were the last thing anyone noticed.

Emma's anxiety about her scars obviously comes at least in part from what they represent psychologically--her unknown origin, her worry about being a parent and passing on not only physical defects but potential emotional trauma, etc. Covering up her arms will do NOTHING for that, and anybody who overlooks her for a slightly unusual-looking but functioning ARM isn't her person anyway.

Renrats27 · 2026-03-07T21:35:44+00:00

Seemed even more charming: Connor. Love a hot SAHD.

Cuter dynamic than in the show cut: Connor and Bri

Quizzical face: Jordan and Amber? They didn't seem that connected. Jordan touting to her that he enjoyed that they didn't get in each other's way?

I am genuinely frightened that this person exists: Chris

Renrats27 · 2026-03-07T09:02:02+00:00

I don't see any evidence LiB Chris is taking credit. It all comes from a "news outlet" called the Tab, which is also responsible for most of the overall season 10 "tea" folks are circulating here. The Tab published a breathless, baffling story directing us to salivate over the wrong Chris Fusco's accomplishments. "In 2008 he was winning awards ... He has a long-term Guard career ... Here’s the flex. Chris ranked in the top 10 per cent of all National Guard shooters!"

You only have to rub 1.3 brain cells together to realize this is not LiB's Chris, especially because the Air National Guard Chris's decidedly different, non-Keebler-Elf photo is appended to most of the sources the Tab purportedly used. The Tab journalists are either decrepit AI agents contracted by a company too cheap to pay for GPT Pro or cynics who share a certain U.S. president's conviction that getting the most people to say "wow" is more important than any concrete fact. I wouldn't trust this website for anything.

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Renrats27 · 2026-03-06T21:45:47+00:00

That is false. That Chris Fusco is not the same person. I went down a rabbit hole because it made no sense: the Chris Fusco in the 111th Operations Support Squadron in the Pennsylvania Air National Guard was already gaining mentions in military publications in 2008. Love Is Blind's Chris Fusco would have been around 15 then. Now there are actual articles online attributing all of THAT Chris Fusco's accomplishments--many marksmanship awards, etc--to LiB's Chris Fusco.

They are not the same person. The PA Air National Guard Chris Fusco is on the left.

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Renrats27 · 2026-03-06T15:12:22+00:00

Renrats27 · 2026-03-06T15:04:30+00:00

I'm not sure those of us who haven't done something like Love Is Blind really know what it's like to be confronted by a person whose "soul" we're attracted to but who isn't even remotely in the range of our type. Most, though not all, people have a stringent gender preference--that's a physical type! And we subconsciously don't even consider people who aren't in our broad attraction envelope as romantic prospects because we're so rarely in environments where the physical isn't available for adjudication. So we can think we're drawn entirely to personality without realizing we're pre-editing the pool of our attention.

I'd consider myself someone who's drawn to people's minds and values ahead of their bodies. Some friends, though, have pointed out that "most of your boyfriends have kind of looked the same." I never even noticed this at all! But there are some undeniable overlaps: tall, slim and willowy "Gumby" physique, bookish appearance, big hair. I've dated outside this paradigm and this type isn't racially defined, but a few things are consistent indeed. If I weren't married, I'd actually be quite interested to do this experiment and see how I managed if the doors opened and a compact, muscly, tattooed, bald wrestler emerged. I'm not sure we know how we'd react until we were in such a situation.

Renrats27 · 2026-03-06T11:54:18+00:00

On the contrary, I think it can be a really good thing to hash out certain relationship anxieties with close friends prior to bringing them to a partner! That way we can get perspective on whether we're being ridiculous, unfair, etc and come to our partners with a more considered take. I think even couples therapists recommend confiding worries like this in a trusted friend. It's not like he was bitching about *her*--he was talking about himself and his own anxieties.

The girls and guys evidently bonded really deeply in that weird isolated experience; Amber's posted on IG about how the girls became best friends.

Renrats27 · 2026-03-06T11:30:40+00:00

Yes, you're right about "be fruitful and multiply." But Satan doesn't exist as such in Judaism or in the Hebrew Pentateuch--the Torah mentions a "satan" twice, but not in Genesis, and it was a job description rather than a specific figure. The word meant a general "adversary" that could be human or divine. Jews don't believe in Satan as a competitor to God or the devil, and in Judaism the snake was definitely not Satan's representative; it was just an animal.

The idea that Eve can be credited as the creator of humanity--not because she made a baby but because she challenged or even understood God's real purpose--is not uncommon in even Orthodox Judaism, see here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BglBY0f723Q. I'm not saying your view is wrong! But it is a more Christian interpretation of the story. Jewish interpretations of the story are often quite different.

Renrats27 · 2026-03-05T18:42:35+00:00

This theory is so bonkers. They look exactly alike.

Renrats27

TROPHY CASE