Sex And The Fibro Girl

Sorry Helen Gurley Brown, I could not resist. This is a topic I've been getting requests to talk about from day one of penning this blog. I have over 500 published blogs and finally, I'm going to address it. I'm not here to talk about why we need it, who's doing it, or who they should be doing it with. That's either something you already know or none of my business. I'm simply here to say in my experience, sex and fibromyalgia are vicious enemies. Or more directly, fibromyalgia is a heat-seeking missile out to destroy both the physical ability and chemical desire to participate in activities that require contorted muscles and repetitive motion. No matter the endorphin rush it may provide.

When my body was wracked with pain so great that wearing clothing or jewelry hurt, close, intimate contact with another human being was the last thing on my mind. If it's a flu or cold, surgery or procedure a person will heal from, a temporary hiatus is not the end of the world. But when that illness is chronic, and it does not go away, that can indeed become the end of a sex life.

It's a very frustrating position to be in. The last thing in the world my husband wanted to do was add to my physical pain. The last thing I wanted was a repressed and miserable husband who wasn't getting his needs met. The guilt of being sick in the first place was already torturing me! After a few tizzies of hurt feelings and mangled communication erupted into outbursts of frustration, we finally got real and talked about it.

Turns out we were both suffering from a similar emotion, for entirely different reasons. His position: my sex drive was nonexistent. We didn't know it at the time, but my testosterone was in the eighty-year-old woman range. But before that medical information became known to us, he mistook my lack of initiation as a lack of attraction. Additionally, the last thing he wanted to do was add to my physical pain, so he was ambivalent to approach me.

My position: I was in agony. Sex was a painful endeavor I had no physical drive to engage in. Plus I'd gained so much weight, I didn't think there was any possible way he found me attractive. I looked puffy under the eyes and grew a generous double chin. My middle, the most popular spot on my body to balloon up, thickened noticeably. I don't know how he saw sexy, for the mirror undoubtedly told me I was anything but. 

Luckily it didn't take long for us to discover the power of intimacy. Being who we are, we set out to make it a game. It was called "20 Minute Time." When either one of us shouted those words, we had to hightail it to the bedroom. We would lay on the bed and get caught up, holding each other in a reverse pillow talk, if you will. No TV or computers, no expectation or pressure. Just twenty uninterrupted minutes of each other's company. And if it led to something more, hey, that worked too!

Either way we bonded and strengthened the love and passion so hard to keep alive in a long-term relationship, even between healthy people. Eventually we figured out ways to modify sex itself so it didn't hurt, or my pain was very minimal and entirely worth it. Creativity in this arena is critical. And like everything else in my life, energy had to be stored up in advance. And rest was required after.

Ultimately I discovered my fibromyalgia diagnosis did not come with a sex-life death sentence. It was hindered, hampered, and complex to figure out. It changed, like everything else in my life. It required flexibility (ha ha) and an openness to new ideas. But there are ways, if determined, to accomplish pretty much anything. For many of us, this is a pretty important anything.

Thanks for joining,

Leah