“I am twenty-three years old and I have never had sex … I’m simply not interested.”

I am twenty-three years old and I have never had sex. I don’t know if this is unusual or if most people wait until they’re older as I’m not in the habit of asking people about their sex lives, but anyway. I was never abused, I haven’t had any bad experiences that could have put me off, and I don’t have any of the mental illnesses or conditions with which a low sex drive is often associated. I’m simply not interested. It’s fairly straightforward, and yet many people seem to find it a difficult idea to get their heads around.

Let me employ an extended metaphor. I view sex in much the same way I view football (soccer to any American readers). I have a reasonable understanding of the mechanics, I sometimes kick a ball around by myself for a while, I can enjoy depictions of it in fiction so long as the entire work doesn’t revolve around it and I can kind of see why so many people like it, but at the same time I have no interest in trying it myself and don’t really get why so much of our culture revolves around it or how people think they can make serious judgements about a person based on which team they support. Or play for, as the case may be.

I can’t remember where I first came across the term ‘asexuality’. Some time near the end of high school, I believe. I’d sailed through my secondary education with nothing in the romance stakes beyond one crush (on a young man in my year; we were friends, but romantically incompatible, since he was gay) or any particular desire for physical intimacy other than a hug, if that. From my lurkings in online asexuality communities, I’ve gathered that many aces go through periods of thinking they’re in some way ‘broken’, doubtless not helped by well-meaning sex-positive rhetoric that, in its eagerness to assure people that sex is a good and normal thing to want and enjoy (which I’m sure it is), often forgets to mention that it’s also fine not to want it. I am not one of those people, as I have never been less than comfortable with my lack of sexual desire, nor have I ever felt persecuted for it. This is probably the biggest reason why I’ve never really engaged with any of the aforementioned online communities; another is that compared to other aspects of myself such as my creative writing, love of video games and interest in many branches of science, I consider my asexuality to be a fairly small part of my identity and don’t really see much point in speaking to someone if asexuality is the only thing we have in common. I imagine the conversation would quickly turn to other topics. “You’re ace? Cool, me too. Have you ever seen Pacific Rim? No? Seriously, you should watch it.” (This is a little beside the point, but you should watch Pacific Rim.) One of my closest friends is also asexual, but with the exception of one discussion about whether or not an ace could Impress a dragon (it’s an Anne McCaffrey thing), our conversations are seldom related to our shared orientation and tend to be more about things like Harry Potter, cute reptiles, and the cultural differences between the UK and the US.

There are a couple of things that do sometimes annoy. One is a general lack of recognition; whenever I’ve had to fill out an equal opportunities form, the Sexual Orientation section has always given the traditional options of Straight, Gay and Bisexual, leaving me to choose the ‘prefer not to say’ option if it’s offered. If the forms offer One, the Other and Both, why can’t they also add a Neither? Another is the lack of representation of asexual people in mainstream media. Not to say that there aren’t any aces in media; Sherlock Holmes (at least in his literary incarnation, and his Benedict Cumberbatch one as well depending on how you look at it), Sheldon Cooper of The Big Bang Theory and Lord Varys from A Song of Ice and Fire/Game of Thrones are three that spring immediately to mind, but the keen observer may notice a couple of things they have in common. A, they’re all men. I don’t think I’ve ever come across a female asexual character. B, none of them are exactly ‘everyday’ people in other respects. Both Holmes and Sheldon are eccentric geniuses (genii?), with the implication that their asexuality is due to a devotion to intellectual pursuits or possibly because they both fall somewhere on the autistic spectrum (though I don’t believe there’s a correlation between autism and asexuality, as I’ve spoken to a few sexual autistic people online, it seems to be a common belief that there is), while Varys is a eunuch. I don’t recall ever seeing a character in a book, on TV or in a film whose asexuality was unrelated to some kind of physical or mental medical condition, which is disheartening as it sends a bit of a message that people can only be asexual if they fall into the above categories, which is certainly not the case, and probably makes things worse for the aforementioned ‘broken’ people.

The most common definition of asexuality I see is ‘lack of sexual attraction’. I don’t think this is always particularly helpful. For one, the fuck does sexual attraction feel like? I don’t know. I have a strong appreciation for Jason Momoa’s pectoral muscles, but that doesn’t mean I have any interest in climbing into bed with the man. For another, it leaves the label so ill-defined that people who don’t really fit it start calling themselves by it. Some asexual people are actively repulsed by sex; others are merely indifferent, so yes, asexual people can have sex, and yes, asexual people may enjoy sex; doubtless everyone has their own reasons. Maybe they want to have biological children, maybe they’re in a romantic relationship with a sexual person and do it for their partner’s sake, maybe they like it enough to go ‘eh, OK’ if someone offers, but I still think that if you’re sufficiently interested in sex to actively seek it out, you’re probably not asexual and should consider using another label.

Sometimes I do wonder if I’m actually asexual, or just uncomfortable with physical intimacy to the point that I can’t imagine myself getting that involved with another person. Then I shrug, think ‘fuck it, I’m awesome either way’ and go play World of Warcraft for a while.

Posted on by taithannah 5

~This Body~

I survived abuse,
I have abused myself.
I’ve survived trauma,
Trusted hands still scare.
My body has been broken,
my flesh pierced- not by choice.
I emerged with a louder voice!
I am not a victim,
But I’m in pain every day.
I AM A WARRIOR.
I fight for my body,
I fight…

A Body of Hope

Posted on by taithannah 1

“I think of the many lives I have had and I am grateful for each one.”

Facebook asks me to take these ridiculous quizzes. Am I a pair of stilettos or a unicorn?

You know the ones; they are meant to be fun… Like personality quizzes a psychology dropout on pot (lots) would have put together.

I can say that I like potato chips over honey, but am I answering it because I now have low blood pressure and I crave salty food all the time?

On a lazy afternoon would you go hiking, hang with your friends, or lie around and do nothing? Well, now that I’m sequestered to bed in a dark quiet room on account of my “hot messness,” (intractable chronic migraine) how am I meant to answer?

I think of the many lives I have had and I am grateful for each one. Because I’m a woman, I know that every woman reading this has multiple lives. Many great-balancing women juggle all of their lives at once, but my lives are like a cat’s. Each one is unique and crazy with stripes and spots. While each life ends and another begins, my soul remains constant. Once I could tell the pothead quizmaster exactly which kind of fabulous shoe I prefer without my pain condition in my leg confusing my answer (fyi: wooden strappy wedge).

Do I answer a personality quiz without taking my ailments into consideration? But those things are just what I do, they are not who I am. I am not my illness and my illness is not supposed to define me, yet it’s really good at influencing just about every part of my life now. What about becoming a mom and how much your life changes when you have a baby? You are still you, but everything else in your life is now changed forever. And the truth is, my personality HAS changed in some ways because of these hardships…how could I not grow?

I’m still the person I was. I still love all the things I can’t do anymore: the hiking, the kayaking, wearing fabulous high heels (probably not simultaneously)…I don’t pine away 24/7, but when I’m faced with the specific question: Who are you? I do feel fractured.

Oh well… I’m fractured, I suppose. Oh, and I’m also a Dragon, apparently (thanks quizman). I wanted to be Fairy. Well, maybe in another life (wink).

A Body of Hope

 

Posted on by taithannah 0

“Never in my twenty-six years have I felt so self-conscious as a woman in public spaces as I did in almost every city I visited in the US.”

This summer, I spent three months travelling in the US and Canada. Although it was not my first time in the United States, having visited family and an American ex-boyfriend there several times throughout my life, it was my first time travelling extensively in the country, and my first time navigating America’s huge cities by myself. I had a marvellous time; I met amazing people whom I hope to see again in my life, and experienced so much kindness and generosity from strangers, both through using Couchsurfing, and through the people I met randomly. 

One thing stood out as a major cultural difference between the US and my home town of Edinburgh in Scotland, above the differences in language and snack foods: I consistently experienced a level of street harassment I had never faced in my life before. Of course, like most women, I have experienced whistles from building sites, shouts from the windows of vans, and drunk arseholes passing comment on my appearance as I walk home from work. I’ve been chatted up inappropriately by men while I was working in pubs and clubs. I’ve been groped while collecting glasses on the club floor. But never in my twenty-six years have I felt so self-conscious as a woman in public spaces as I did in almost every city I visited in the US. 

Some days I was catcalled by so many different men that I wished I didn’t have to walk down the streets. It would happen if I was in a jumper and trousers; it would happen if I was in a crop top and little shorts. I experienced more – far more – unsolicited comments on my appearance from strange men on the street in those three months than I had in my entire life. I couldn’t sit and have a cigarette on a public bench in the city centre without a man I didn’t know attempting to engage me in conversation. It was wearing and unpleasant, and I have the greatest admiration and respect for American women who deal with this all the time. I never truly felt unsafe, and thankfully I was never assaulted, but I felt uncomfortable and unable to just sit in happy solitude in public spaces populated by men. I would be aware when I sat down somewhere that a man would probably try and talk to me. I would start to feel wary every time a man was walking toward me on the pavement, bracing myself for a comment. 

I don’t know what it is about American culture that makes it this way for women. For what it’s worth, I did not experience anything like this level of harassment in the similarly large cities I visited in Canada. I didn’t know how to respond. For all the cultural similarities we share with the US, it is still a different country, thousands of miles from home, and it is not my culture. I was far from my family and friends. I didn’t know which men might be truly dangerous, which men might have knives or guns, which men might seriously wish me harm. And so, most of the time, I ignored the catcalls and walked on, feeling ashamed of my female body and my inaction. I made conversation with the men who approached me when I was sitting, and made excuses to leave once I felt it wouldn’t seem rude. I accommodated their harassment into my daily life, because I didn’t know what else to do. 

It was a revelation to me, even as a feminist woman, to really experience first-hand this kind of harassment. Obviously this is a problem for women everywhere, and it is far from absent in the UK. But I had never experienced it so relentlessly. Never. And I am speaking from the relatively privileged position of a straight, white, cisgender woman. It made me all the more aware of how important it is for us to fight to be allowed to walk through public spaces as women. My body is not yours to comment on, whether I’m in a bikini or a winter coat. My time is not yours to take just because you see I am an unaccompanied woman. I don’t care if you like my arse, or my tits. I don’t want to go for a drink with any man who would impose himself on me when I’m clearly uncomfortable with the interaction. I want to feel safe and comfortable walking down the street. I want to feel able to sit alone in public without being hassled.

Posted on by taithannah 7

Want a beach body?

I love this quote that has circled my newsfeed and the internet over the past couple of months.

tumblr_mpo76qO0X11qzzk3fo1_500 

(I googled this so not sure who to give credit to for the picture but it’s no mine!)

I came across this article on xojane and in the height of summer wanted to share it with you all because the photos and messages underneath are spot on.

Real Beach Bodies

Don’t let anyone or anything put you off wearing what the fuck you want this summer! If you have a body, then you have a beach body so get out there and soak up that vitamin D

Posted on by pinkapplejuice 4

“My relationship with my body is love/hate – mostly hate.”

TW for bulimia.

My relationship with my body is love/hate – mostly hate. I have a 1 year old little girl and she has COMPLETELY changed my body! Before I got pregnant I was pretty curvy but felt fine about myself. I did always want to look like they did in magazines but not enough to actually do something about it!

I was about 30-something weeks pregnant when I started getting stretch marks and I felt horrible. I felt fat, bloated and ugly! Then I gave birth by cesarean and have been left with a scar that makes my belly look weird and saggy. I was sick of feeling fat and ugly so I did something about the weight. I lost 2 and a half stone within 6-8 months. I felt great physically but mentally still ugly.

I follow hundreds of clean eating and body building pages on Instagram and I want to be like them but I am so mentally drained with being a single mum that I have no motivation. I weigh myself everyday and if I put on a few pound I sometimes make myself sick. It’s so stupid. Sometimes I look in the mirror and feel great and think, “well, I look pretty hot for a mum!”, but that’s soon wiped away and I look closely at my stretch marks and lifeless boobs and feel like a deflated balloon.

Posted on by taithannah 2

“My body is strong, it has endured and survived so much, it has forgiven me countless times. I am proud of it. I am proud of me.”

I went to a store yesterday. I tried on a size 10 skirt. It fitted perfectly. Guess what? It hasn’t changed my life. It hasn’t instilled unshattering confidence in me. So, that’s that theory blown out of the water. Back to the drawing board. I don’t want to drone on about my personal issues with body image – my own and everyone else’s – my teenage to early twenties eating disorders, my use of food as a replacement for experiencing actual life, etc., etc., for I would argue that rather than being among the minority I am, in fact, among the ever increasing majority; one of those who cannot pass a mirror without casting a highly critical, horror-inducing glance at the self, or, in actuality, what we merely perceive to be ourselves. The eye, as we know, plays logic defying tricks. I live in a country where, among young women anyway, a size 6/34 to 8/36 is the norm, a country where frail women are the desired object. And believe me, ‘object’ is the apt word. I am strong, I have muscle of the physical and intellectual kind and I like this. I like it a lot. No amount of social conditioning will beat this out of me. Perhaps I should be honest with myself and admit I am only at liberty to say this now as I am about to leave my adopted home…hopefully to one with a more well-rounded selection of bodies. Take that as a pun if you wish. It came to me some time ago that no matter how much I adore this country I cannot be a part of a culture and society which fetishises the thinner and paler among us. Every day I workout I think “fuck you! How can strength be seen as a weakness?” Patriarchal forces are stronger here than anywhere else I have ever lived, that is how. That is why. It is with a heavy heart but an enormous sigh of relief that I leave. I do realise that my body, this body, and all its attached emotional trauma is coming along for the ride, joining me on my next big adventure to a different continent. I find myself strangely glad however that this is the body I am taking with me. I wouldn’t swap it for anyone else’s. My body has been my shell, my shelter and friend for 39 years. I am only now beginning to see it as such. It has been victim to three overdoses, bulimia, anorexia, compulsive eating, alcohol dependency; laterally friend to a healthy eating program, daily exercise, meditation. What can I say, I don’t do things in small measures. My body is strong, it has endured and survived so much, it has forgiven me countless times. I am proud of it. I am proud of me. So, next time I go to a fitting room I will focus on the overall package, mind included, mind foremost! Regardless of dress size I will look in the mirror and fucking smile! After all, how we react to our bodies is performative. If media advertisements tell us success is being a size 8 and we believe it, then surely every day we can look in the mirror – or not look at all – but instead remind ourselves that the key to happiness (and happiness is success!) is a strong and independent mind, emotional intelligence and community with others. Repeat this every day and surely we can believe it. It sure as hell costs a lot less than a pair of tummy tuckers from M&S.

Posted on by taithannah 0

I am a trauma survivor

**TW: child abuse, sexual abuse/rape, self harm, suicide, mental health issues -depression, anxiety, violence, sex**

My relationship with my body is just that – a relationship. It’s a negotiation between what I can do and what my body can do. Sometimes my body is like my best friend, and it looks out for me and protects me. At other times, it feels more like my body and me are an old married couple that bicker and throw tantrums and sulk at each other for not being good enough. I am a trauma survivor. I dealt with pretty bad emotional abuse for most of my childhood and adolescence. Even after managing to escape the people who inflicted that abuse on me, I perpetuated these abusive behaviours in my behaviour and my interactions with people. I am living with the consequences of this trauma now, and part of where I carry these memories is in my body.

I have depression, which comes and goes but often brings fatigue with it. Fatigue is the hardest to deal with of all my problems. It makes walking from my bedroom to my kitchen look impossible. It means that I can’t carry a light bag because my arms and back end up actually painful. It means I might want to go out and see my friends, but I’m worried that I won’t be able to walk all the way there and all the way back. Fatigue means my muscles often hurt and simple tasks like walking can be painful. I am lucky enough that I have enough money now that if the worst comes to the worst, I can get a taxi home from the bus station – but it wasn’t always like that, and I’ve learnt through necessity that my body can do things it is 100% sure it can’t do, if there’s no other option.

I have anxiety, most of which is a direct result of emotional abuse destroying my confidence, and I feel that in my body as well. Overwhelming anxiety starts by stealing all the feeling from my legs, so that they’re numb and shaky and heavy. My tummy starts going round and round like the alarm light on a police car. Low level anxiety, which is with me most of the time, can manifest itself by blotting out my bodily functions. I won’t get hungry or need to go to the bathroom if i’m in a situation that is potentially stressful (like staying at a new friend’s home) – this is my body protecting me from the anxiety these activities can trigger. I might not even notice that I’m panicking, until I’ve realised that I haven’t eaten anything all day and still don’t feel hungry.

Incidentally, my fatigue is actually pretty good for my anxiety because sometimes I just have to sit by the side of the road for half an hour – and necessity makes it easier not to care that people are staring at me. If I’m too exhausted to have many emotions, reason kicks in and reminds me that it really doesn’t matter what random people on the street think about me.

Depression and anxiety are the mental consequences of my experiences. There are physical consequence as well. My abusers taught me that nothing I had was really mine, including my body. While I was living with them, there was nowhere that couldn’t be violated without warning. No privacy and no safety, even within my own body.

This came out into my relationships with other people as well as in how I dealt with and felt about myself. I started having sex when I was 14, and looking back I can recognise almost all my adolescent sexual experiences as non-consensual and abusive. Now, I’m trying to work through all of the sexual abuse I’ve dealt with and exploring ways to actually want and enjoy having sex. Being present during sex is a challenge because I learnt to have sex by dissociating and zoning out. My body automatically tries to shut that whole area down because I’ve learn that it’s wrong and that it hurts and that the best way to survive it is just to shut it out and let it happen. But I don’t want to feel that way anymore, and I’m making efforts towards allowing my body to feel sexual and for that to be a positive thing. Trying to actually be in my body during sex means that I’m more likely to have anxiety and find it difficult not to panic, but I’ll take that because it means I’m making progress. Allowing myself to experience sexual attraction is also hard because that’s one of the things my body decides it’s not worth experiencing – but my brain is pretty sure that it is, now that I’m only sleeping with people who only want fully-consensual, mutually enjoyable sex.

My body is intrinsically wrapped up in all of my trauma issues; it is also a key part of my healing. The worst of my abuse was over by the time I was about 14, and I started recovering by forcefully making a claim over myself and the environment around me. I wallpapered my bedroom with pictures cut out of metal and rock magazines. The entire room was black and ugly but it was finally a space that was mine. I dressed my body in corsets and skinny jeans and eyeliner – and when I got abuse about looking ridiculous I felt proud inside because I knew I looked shit hot – I’d chosen this outfit with care! The claim I staked over my body was somewhat violent – partly because the clothes I wore and the music I listened to got me attacked by strangers on more than one occasion, but also because my tendency to self-harm (present since I was a child) became a regular and defined habit. I don’t think self-harm is healthy, but I know that it was positive for me because it was the first time I’d really been able to stake a claim over my own body. Because my abusers at this point were also people who loved and cared about me, I was obligated to keep my scars hidden from them – and they became my first secret, the first thing that was really and truly mine. My body also demonstrated its remarkable capacity for healing by swallowing the scars time and time again – keeping my secret with me.

I moved out of that house as soon as I possibly could. Living away from there for the first time was an eyeopener – until recently, I didn’t even recognise a lot of what happened to me as abuse because it was presented as so normal. My mental health issues are my body reacting to being safe. I am no longer in a crisis situation, and my body is beginning to let some of that in and deal with it. That’s why I’m considerably less able to function on a day-to-day basis than I was when I was a teenager. I’m forgetting some of my coping mechanisms because I no longer need them every day. I used to be superb at hiding my emotions and thoughts (I could have a panic attack without anybody around me noticing) and now I can’t do that – but I’m working to see this as a positive thing because it means I’m surrounded by people who are going to be ok if I have a panic attack. Actually, I’m pretty sure I’m surrounded by people who are going to everything they can to help me if I have a panic attack..

I am still learning that all of the things I learnt as fact when I was growing up are not fact. It’s beginning to sink in, after four years away from home, that I can do whatever I want with my body and my life. I have piercings and tattoos now, and some of my tattoos are ridiculous and anaesthetic and my family Do Not approve and I’m yet to explain them to anyone without getting a sort of disbelieving sneer in response – and my reaction is to shove two fingers up at them and remind them that nobody gets a say but me! Now I can put write a note to myself on my mirror, and know that nobody is going to come in and look at it without my permission. I can leave my diary lying on the floor of my bedroom. Hell, I can leave my diary lying on the floor of my living room because nobody would even dream of opening it! I can walk out of my room with fresh self-harm marks, and the only reaction I will get is people who care about me and want me to explain to them how I want them to help me. I can lie on my bed and kiss someone, and not be required or expected or obligated to have sex with them, and even though I still have difficulty feeling that that is true I know on an intellectual level that it is. I’m just waiting for my body to catch up.

My depression in high school made me want to not live because I couldn’t envision anything remotely worth living for. I expected to get married and have children because that was what I’d been taught inevitable happened, and I would probably have a job – but none of this held any particular emotional or motivational appeal for me. I didn’t have any dreams or hopes because I couldn’t envision anything giving me a positive life experience. I went through phases where I didn’t particularly want to die, but I sure as hell didn’t want to stay alive and I’d fall asleep at night praying I just wouldn’t wake up. But now, I’ve worked out that there are things I want to do – and I mean want with a burning passion that occasionally keeps me awake at night because I’m so excited about doing them. Now, I want to live so badly that even when I’m going through a bad depressed period and beyond experiencing emotion at all, I can remember that those feelings and wants exist and feel sure that I just need to hold on and work through the depression and when I come out the other side, all of the good things and good people in my life will still be there waiting for me.

annonymous 

Posted on by pinkapplejuice 1

It was as if my body, from the skin in, had been awakened.

Elle on bodybuilding

I ended up being a woman bodybuilder by accident: my husband (a runner) and I walked by a gym in Brooklyn, looked in, were curious, and went in. This was in the 1980s, when women had just begun going to gyms The manager offered me a year membership for $100. How could I resist?

Then, because he was bored at the time of day I went, he trained me. He’d won the Mr. USA contest at some point and he knew what he was doing. You can still find photos of him on the web: Joe Spooner.

The first thing that happened was that I felt parts of my body I’d never experienced before. For instance, the muscles between my ribs got sore. Who knew there were muscles there? It was as if my body, from the skin in, had been awakened.
But the coolest thing was that I woke up to my internal senses. You know, besides the senses that are turned outward, we have sense that are turned in, like balance, sense of time, direction, and temperature. Even the feeling of the difference between simple-pain and injury-pain seems like an internal sense. Do you know the feeling you have when your body is working perfectly, like everything is easy and maybe you’re weightless? You might feel it running or working out, but you might feel it dancing or just walking to the subway. I think that’s an internal sense, too.

The next result, besides fitness, was that I became conscious of another level of body experience and enjoyment. Really, when you think of it, sex is an internal body enjoyment. Appearance may help get you there, but it has nothing to do with what happens next.

Now I do yoga in a class and crossfit with my husband. Both make you feel your whole body, like bodybuilding.

Posted on by pinkapplejuice 0

Mirena IUS coil experience

Mirena IUS coil experience.

I have just gotten the Mirena IUS coil fitted, and since I hadn’t heard of it before two friends mentioned that they had it, I thought I’d use my experience with it to make others aware of it as a contraceptive option.

I used to take the contraceptive pill everyday whilst I was in a long term relationship but found that it made me hungry all the time, and if I didn’t eat *a lot* almost constantly, I would feel sick and get terrible acid reflux. It got to the point that it would often wake me in the night, and when I awoke in the morning I would almost always feel sick.
Which, as you can imagine, was not great.
Aside from the physical side effects, emotionally I was a mess. I suffer from depression anyway, but the pill made it much worse.

As soon as I stopped taking the pill I noticed these side effects begin to wear off, and over the last 9 months I feel like my body and mind are my own again. I can’t put into words how good that feels.

I was talking to a couple of friends about sex, as you do, and they mentioned that they both had the
Mirena coil, and that they loved it. The main reason being that it generally means your periods are very light, if in fact you get them at all over the five years that you have the device implanted.

No periods for five years sounded just fine to me.

So I went to go get it fitted yesterday, here’s a run down of what happened.

I went to the Chalmers clinic, had to give in a wee form to say that I’d watched a short film explaining what was going to happen (I’d actually watched several on YouTube as well as what was offered on the Chalmers website, and did some reading as well). As well as this, I’d also had to say that I’d eaten and taken some painkillers an hour before.
There are a few other things that I can’t remember, but basically just accepting that you’ve been given all the information you need before you have the device implanted.

The doctor goes through all these points with you before the procedure anyway.

After handing in my form, came the waiting.

Oh the waiting.

I took a friend with me, one of the ladies who told me about the coil, it was good to have someone to chat to as I was quite nervous, and she was there to make sure I got home ok. Both my friends suffered a lot of pain on their relatively short journeys home, (about 15 and 30 minutes respectively) so I wanted to make sure I had someone to look after me.

I went in and had a chat with the doctor giving my recent sexual history, why I had chosen to try the coil and if I had ever been tested for STI’s and if there was any chance I was pregnant.

Whilst you’re getting the coil fitted they can also take a swab for chlamydia and gonorrhoea, and do a smear test if you’re not up to date. So handy! Three birds, one stone! Let’s face it, no one likes being naked from the waist down being prodded with a cotton wool bud, might as well get it all over and done with in one go!

So I find these things quite embarrassing, but the female doctor and nurse were both lovely and put me totally at ease, I had to just remember that they both do this every day, and my fanny is nothing special to them.

So the doctor went over what was gonna happen, and I went to go get my pants and shoes off and lie down in the stirrups.

One the best pieces of advice that my eldest sister ever gave me is this; “Always wear a skirt for these things.”
You’re welcome.

I hoiked my skirt up and laid down. They raised the bed up so that I was at eye level with the doctor, and started the procedure.

First the doctor has to physically feel which way your womb lies, you feel her touching inside, and also your stomach. Then they have to open you up a wee bit with that funny looking clamp thing that I seem to remember someone making quack like a duck in an episode of ‘Friends’…

Then you get three jags with a local anaesthetic to numb the opening to your cervix. The first one was like a sore pinch, the second one less so, and the third I didn’t feel at all as it had already started to take effect.

Next the doctor has to grab the opening to the cervix and pull it to open it, I felt a pressure like a full period cramp, but it wasn’t too sore. The doctor then inserts a measuring device to tell how deep your cervix is, so that she knows how to place the coil. This was quite sore, it made me wince and draw in breath, it was just like a bad cramp, it’s over quickly and the nurse was right there making sure I kept breathing.

The nurse and doctor were both great at making small talk and taking my mind off of what was happening. We talked about the World Cup and how I glad I am that it’s over.

Finally the Mirena is inserted, it felt just the same as when the measure was inserted, just a bad cramp. Again, it was over quickly, and probably only lasted for 5-10 seconds.
The Mirena has two tiny wires that extend from the base of the T shaped coil and descend from the opening of your cervix into your vagina. These you check to make sure the device is still in place on a regular basis. When the device is inserted, these are cut and you’ll see the excess when you get up.
It’s weird.

The clamp was removed from inside me, and I bled a little from the anaesthetic jags, the doctor cleaned that up and gave me a second to get up slowly and get dressed.
I felt absolutely fine.
And at this point was super grateful I could just drop my skirt back down instead of fannying around with trousers!

Another piece of advice I would give is to take a sanitary pad with you, or else you’ll get get given one from the clinic, which is practical, but feels like a brick in your pants.

The nurse left and I had another wee chat with the doctor to make sure I was ok. I felt absolutely fine, not even a little sore.
I went out and met my friend, and we walked back to my flat in the beautiful pouring rain.
Edinburgh. Standard.

It’s about a ten minute walk to my flat, and I felt a little weird, I could feel that there was a foreign object inside me, but it didn’t hurt. It was a little sore towards the end of the walk, but I still felt fine.

It really didn’t begin to hurt for at least an hour or two. Then I had bad periods like cramps for the rest of the day, and some light spotting.
Over the course of the day I lay on my bed with my friend, took 6 nurofen and two paracetamol and utilised a hot water bottle.

I slept fine, woke up after a good long sleep, and feel totally normal today.

I’ll keep you updated as time goes on, and I hope that this is helpful.

Feel free to ask me anything!

–Kate – 25

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