Got to see
the psychologist yesterday, usually I would travel with my boyfriend, but he
had to work and so I traveled on my own which was pretty stressful. Everything
actually went quite smoothly though.
I
showed her (the psychologist) my biofeedback papers and she was impressed with those, which
brought up the next step: dilators. We discussed whether or not I’m comfortable
trying out dilators, and if I’d prefer to use them on my own, or use them with
the physiotherapist. I think I’d prefer to use them on my own first.
I’ve looked
into the different kinds of dilators and such. You can buy a set of wax dilators
or silicone dilators. But actually, you can use any object you’re comfortable
with as long as it’s sterilized properly. For example, because dilators are
expensive, and actually made out of wax, theoretically you could buy different
sized wax candles, put a condom on the candle, lube it up well and use those!
Way more affordable, but not sure what I’ll do yet.
Here are some website where you can purchase dilators:
The site recommended to me to buy silicone dilators: pureromance.com
A different style of silicone dilators: coopersurgical.com
A site to buy individual sizes of silicone dilators instead
of a full set: soulsource.com
A site for a set of wax dilators: laurelprescriptions.com
After
that, we went over my thought records, which she said were done well, and we discussed
starting a new type of thought recording. This time, I fill out where I was
when I had the thought and what I was doing, the thought (and sometimes how
much you believe in it), and my emotions while having the thought. Nothing new
there, but then I need to write down things that support this thought, things
that do not support the thought, and then a replacement thought and how I am
feeling afterwards. She went through an example with me and it looked like
this:
Thought:
It’s never going to get better (believe this 98%)
Emotions:
Sad - 8/10
Supporting
ideas: I’ve had the condition for a long time, no cure has been found, a lot of
women don’t find relief.
Contradicting
ideas: many women do get better, research shows that most women have pains
reduction after two years of being diagnosed with or without treatment, we can’t
predict the future (I don’t know for sure that it won’t get better), a lot of
my hopeless thoughts don’t turn out to be true
Replacement
thought: It could get better (believe in it 30%, but now only believe “it’s
never going to get better” by 60%)
Emotions
now: Sad 2/10
We were successful in minimizing the sadness and changing my
beliefs. As you fill out the form more often, your replacement thought could also change
in how much you believe it or even change entirely to “it is getting a bit
better.”
After
that we discussed that I had discovered an area between my labia and my
clitoris that doesn’t hurt when touched. She pointed out that we don’t really
have a baseline as to where my pain is or how bad it is, so a goal would be to
look at my own vagina and try to determine where the pain is… one problem, I have
a huge fear of looking at my vagina! So I’m going to do my best over the next
couple weeks to explore a bit and see what I can discover down there.
That
was pretty much all we discussed, I see her again on the 17th! So here were my
costs:
Psychologist:
$300.00
Transport:
$52.00
Total
for the day: $352.00
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