“If you walk in a short skirt in winter, you’ll grab cystitis,” our grandmothers scared us. But what if even in positive temperature you wrap yourself in three layers, and cystitis is still your eternal companion?
Cutting pains in the lower abdomen, frequent urges to the toilet, which sometimes end in nothing, fever, chills – these are symptoms of a well-known disease to all of us. I don’t know if there are any fortunate ones among us who have never experienced them on themselves, but I know for sure that for some girls cystitis is a familiar background of life.
Familiar, but no less painful. And it’s not just about pain. Being a “below the belt” problem, it greatly complicates personal life, forcing sex to be postponed to an uncertain future, which for some reason does not occur. And this is in the XXI century, when every medical student knows what cystitis can be and how to treat it.
Common symptoms and treatment for cystitis
The stories of chronically ill girls are very similar. Here is the first episode of the disease – an acute form, confirmed by tests, and no doubt with the diagnosis. Here is the first course of antibiotics that quickly brings relief. It seems that you can forget about the trouble and live on. But no. Several weeks pass, and the familiar discomfort flares up with renewed vigor.
And then – more and more new medicines that empty the wallet and overload the first-aid kit. “Perhaps you did not get an antibiotic – you need to try a new one,” says the urologist. “Check for all STDs,” the gynecologist insists. “What a weak immunity,” the therapist clicks with his tongue and writes out something completely utterly irrelevant.
But when the symptoms return right in the process of antibiotic therapy, the doctors suggest retaking the tests – and voila! Fresh results show no inflammation. That is, there is pain and pain, but no disease. And it already looks like a dead end.
Psychosomatics and cystitis
Here I want to make one important note. We are not talking about cases where, amid stress or acute anxiety, I always want to “like a little.” This condition is called a “hyperactive bladder”: it is well studied and cured with the help of various relaxing practices – auto-training, for example. We are talking about the developed symptoms of cystitis in its formal absence – first of all, about a pronounced pain syndrome, which at first glance is in no way connected with external events and manifests itself even in the calmest moments of life.
Here, psychologists and psychotherapists have a curious assumption that this problem is not so much physical as mental. And the reason is internal sexual conflict: either between “I want” and “not,” or between “must” and “I don’t want.” In the first case, pain occurs as a punishment for forbidden pleasure, in the second – as a good reason to abandon intimate relationships.
However, both of these conflicts can exist simultaneously, reinforcing each other and turning the area of physical contact with a man into a dangerous, incomprehensible and not too attractive territory.
“I don’t feel anything like that,” a patient with chronic cystitis may say. – There is no conflict in me, I like to have sex with a loved one, but my illness prevents me from doing this. And here is psychology? ”
In fact, very much so. That’s just getting to this conflict and the truth is difficult. Any psychosomatic manifestations therefore arise so that the problem is lived bodily, but does not disturb the psyche and remains unconscious at this level. Yes, the setup, but as it is – human nature is imperfect. The question is different: what to do with this disaster now?
How to treat psychogenic cystitis
I have two news for you – good and not so good. I’ll start with the one that is not very.
Not a single self-respecting psychotherapist (which you need to go to if urologists are powerless) will give you an absolute guarantee that he will be cured quickly and completely. And not because he studied poorly. It’s just that the human soul is so obscure that no one can predict in advance how much you have to circle around. It happens that in just two or three sessions the client gets rid of the problem. But it happens that work takes months, but nothing changes.
And now the good news. Something psychotherapy – namely, cognitive-behavioral – will help you for sure. She will teach you how to respond to discomfort in the most correct way – one that will reduce their impact on your life and make them subjectively more tolerant. There is even a definite chance that even without opening a long-standing conflict, you will find your condition good enough to live a full life. Including sexual.
To increase the likelihood of success, you can also turn to a hypnotherapist, since psychogenic cystitis is exactly the case when hypnosis shows good results. What is especially pleasant, it does not give any side effects, unlike antibiotics that you do not need.
In any case, first it would be nice to do your homework on your own and answer a few questions:
- What happened in your life just before cystitis first appeared?
- What did adults tell you about sex life? Were you scared of the consequences? How did your parents relate to your growing up and starting a relationship with boys?
- Have there been any negative sex scenarios in your family – for example, unplanned pregnancy, abortion, “fatherlessness”? In what context are they mentioned or mentioned before?
- What was your first sexual experience? What emotions do you remember him with?
- Are you satisfied with your current relationship? Do you feel that your man truly loves you and treats you with respect? Do you like your intimate life?
I’m far from thinking that you can cope with your problem yourself, even if you find some painful points in your history. So we are arranged that we can’t solve the tangle of contradictions alone – we need one more person. Nevertheless, these answers will come in handy in working with any specialist. They will allow you and the therapist to start not entirely from scratch and work harmoniously and efficiently.