The year was 2013. I was… younger (okay, FINE, I was 27), and I was in my third year of dealing with excruciating vulvodynia.
If you’re unfamiliar, vulvodynia is any kind of pain, burning and/or discomfort in the vulva that isn’t linked to a specific cause.
I had developed this excruciating condition in 2010. I’m still not really sure what caused it, and neither are the four hundred thousand doctors, gynaecologists, pelvic floor physios, psychologists, psychiatrists, endocrinologists — you get the point, right?
Know the news with the 7NEWS app: Download today 
Here’s what I do know: In 2010, I visited the United States. Shortly after landing back in Australia, I got sick. Not like ‘caught a cold’ sick; I was off work for about six weeks. I had one (1) day back at work, and I remember thinking how exhausted I was, to the point where my legs hurt from standing up (I worked in retail at the time).
That evening, I developed appendicitis. I knew it was appendicitis immediately, because like many millennial women, I had been raised on a media diet of Madeline and Babysitter’s Club books (Kristy’s stepsister Karen had appendicitis once).
I went to the emergency room, where my suspicions were soon confirmed. I had my appendix taken out, and I was sent on my way the next day. By all accounts, it was a pretty routine appendectomy, except that, for whatever reason, it marked the beginning of a long, excruciating journey with chronic pain.
Shortly after the surgery, I realised that I could no longer use tampons, because inserting them felt like a serrated-edged knife slicing up my insides.
I was 24 years old at the time, and obviously, this was not ideal. I went to my first gynaecologist, who put me on the pill. When that didn’t work — and she seemed completely unwilling to even listen to me explain the issue — I went back to the GP and got a referral to a second gynaecologist. After running a number of tests and trialling a few medications, I sat across from her at a follow-up appointment.
“I think I’m out of bright ideas on this one,” she said, before charging me hundreds of dollars and sending me on my way. Thanks, babe!
I went back to the GP, who referred me to a third gynaecologist. This one tried injecting my vulva with pure alcohol, which made me pass out from pain and also did not help my vulvodynia. He also put me on the wait list to see a vulva specialist, and this is where our story really kicks off.
So here we are in 2013, right? I had been unable to use tampons for over two years, the thought of sex was now completely terrifying to me, and I was beyond frustrated because I’d seen so many doctors (or, that’s what I thought at the time — insert my jaded laugh here!) and none of them had been able to help me at all. But on the horizon was the promise of this vulva specialist.
Going into my appointment, I was so hopeful. After such a long wait, I had pinned all my hopes and expectations on this woman. I thought I would go in, meet her, and she’d just … give me the fix, whatever that was. I wanted to salvage what was left of my fun and flirty 20s!
It’s also worth keeping in mind that this was a very pre-TikTok world I was in, and the social media landscape in general was completely different. I had googled my condition several hundred times over the years, but the closest thing to community I could find was an online messaging forum, and even then, it wasn’t very helpful.
When women spoke about the things that had helped them, it made me furious with envy, because they hadn’t worked for me, and when they were like me and hadn’t found a solution that worked for them, it made me despondent and fearful that I’d also not find a cure. It didn’t help that a lot of the women in the latter category were older than me. When they wrote about how they were navigating their condition with their loving, committed partners, I hated them. Sure, they were suffering, but at least they had a partner. I was all alone, “defective”, and would surely never find someone unless I could fix this problem.
As you can see, I was putting a lot of pressure on this appointment, and on myself, to “fix” my vulvodynia. It wasn’t just that it hurt like hell; it felt like my entire life was on pause, waiting for this issue to be resolved so that I could go back to enjoying my 20s.
I remember being a little taken aback by this gynaecologist’s tone pretty early on in the appointment. I don’t know what I’d been expecting in the months-long wait, but her bedside manner left a lot to be desired. Still, she was a specialist, not my best friend. I didn’t need her to be nice, I just needed her to fix me (spoilers — it was not that simple).
But when she tried to put me back on medication that had already not worked for me, and that I’d had an adverse reaction to, I was frustrated. She wasn’t listening to me.
I remember crying and pleading with her. I remember telling her that I’d been waiting 10 months for this appointment; that I’d been in pain for three years; that I couldn’t use tampons or have sex or sit down; that I didn’t feel normal.
She asked if I’d been able to have sex without pain before this. I said yes.
She asked if I had a boyfriend. I said no.
“Well,” she said. “We’ve got all the time in the world, then.”
I was stunned. Too stunned to speak, and I’m a yapper to my core. I remember retreating into myself for the rest of the appointment, quietly crying as she told me the next steps — which involved her suggesting, again, that I go back onto the medication that hadn’t worked for me because I was “a little bit teary”.
Wasn’t my pain enough? Wasn’t I enough?
Even now, in 2024, it makes me angry to think about, because truly, what do you mean “we’ve got all the time in the world” because I didn’t have a boyfriend?! Should I have lied and said yes? Would she have put a rush on it if she thought I had a sexually unfulfilled man at home? If he couldn’t use my body to get off because I was in excruciating pain?
And, look: the reality of the situation was that, man or not, there was no easy fix, and it did take time (and several other gynaecologists and pain specialists) to get it under control.
But in that moment, I remember trying to plead my case, to get her to understand that I had been in pain every single day for three years, that it was affecting my mental health, that I was at my wits’ end, that I just needed her to PLEASE help me — but she didn’t.
Over the years, I’ve had a number of specialists say some truly wild things to me (shout out to the endocrinologist who smirked at me and said, ‘Well, you just want it all, don’t you?’ when I told him that the pill he’d put me on was making me bleed every day). But this is the interaction that still pops into my head from time to time to this day.
Maybe it’s because she was a woman, and she should have known better. Maybe I’d built my expectations so high that the reality stung so much more. Regardless, there are a few things I would do differently if I had my time over.
I would have advocated for myself in that moment. At the time, I was too scared to call this what it was: sexism. If I had my time over, I would have looked her dead in the eye and asked why it mattered if I had a male partner or not.
I would have filed a complaint. Again, I was too scared to advocate for myself, and at the time, I really thought she was the end of the line for treatment options, so I didn’t want to get her offside.
And finally, I wouldn’t have gone back. That’s right, folks! I gave this woman a few more appointments and left every single one in tears. Eventually, she referred me to another gyno, and I never saw her again. I wish I had been the one to make that decision.
If you happen to find yourself in a situation like this — the likelihood of which is much higher than I knew at the time — know that you’re not alone, that you can (and should!) advocate for yourself, and that you deserve better. We all do.
This article was originally published on Mamamia and has been republished here with full permission.