u/Drumsticks__18

And I couldn’t agree more. I don’t know about your parents but my parents treat a lot of parts of the home as a storage unit when it should be a space that should feel like a home. There’s even instances when my mom would use my room as storage when she would have guests coming over, simply because there’s no other room in the apartment to place her stuff because every other space in the apartment is occupied with random clutter! Now I wouldn’t say my parents are comparable to extreme hoarders like the ones where you can’t even see the floor, but they’re definitely on the mild to moderate side of hoarding, which in my opinion is still bad because it doesn’t even feel like you’re living in a proper home, it feels like you’re living in a storage unit!

My parents are Ghanaian, and one thing about Ghanaian people, they’re going to throw a funeral like a party, and they usually do it in their homes, and my mom thought it was a good idea to throw a funeral party in our apartment. I can’t even begin to express how frustrated I was during that time because they were literally turning my room into a storage closet. I could barely open my door all the way or walk through my room properly because of all the shit they stuffed in it. And yes, they also shoved a bunch of shit in their room to make space in the living room area for the funeral. A lot of the stuff that they have sitting around the apartment is stuff that they don’t even need! They think I shouldn’t throw away books and papers from when I was in middle school, and I’m literally a senior in college right now💀 I remember throwing away a bunch of papers and books I didn’t need anymore from my room and my mom literally looked through my bag of trash to see if there was anything important in there. Like I understand the concern of accidentally throwing away something important but like that’s the issue. The things that they think are important are actually unimportant and that’s what leads them to have piles of unnecessary items.

The thing I find so funny about this is that when they have guests coming over, they’ll move all their shit in their room to make the living room more presentable, but they won’t even do that for themselves or their children. Why do they put the comfort of others first over themselves? Like I understand they want to be accommodating but like there’s nothing wrong with wanting to do nice things for yourself too.

I’m not sure because I’m not a doctor and I can’t diagnose myself, but at the same time I’ve done research online and have scrolled through this subreddit, and can relate to most of what Ive read.

For some background, I am 21 years old and have never performed penetrative masturbation. So I’ve never inserted a finger in myself. I’ve never had sex, and I’ve never used a tampon. Ever since I was a pre-teen, I’ve always been afraid of the idea of putting anything up there, even if it was my own finger, it just seemed a bit frightening to me. With the research that I’ve done from vaginismus, I learned that some women can have this due to certain upbringings that involve teaching “purity culture” to young women. I was raised in a very religious Christian household, so that may have some association.

As I got older, I would attempt to insert my pinky, but it felt like I was pressing it against a wall. Also, it felt as though my mind was too afraid to just let myself go and let my finger push further.

When I turned 21 and had my routine doctor’s checkup, my doctor told me that I am due for a Pap smear. Of course I’ve heard stories about how uncomfortable it is, and I didn’t like the idea of having to go through one. How could I possibly endure having a speculum inside of me when I couldn’t even push my pinky in? After expressing my resistance to the procedure, my doctor asked me more questions, and that’s when she would find out that I had never experienced any type of penetration before. She suggested that I could do the swab procedure instead. They basically take this q-tip and push it up your cervix to collect whatever they need to test for cervical cancer and whatnot. But even the idea of a q-tip being inserted seems terrifying to me as well.

This whole thing that I have just makes me feel weird and broken. I feel like I’m at an age where I should not be afraid to do these things. Even when I told my friend that I’ve never used my fingers before she was a little surprised. Kinda makes me feel like I’m behind in life or something.

I am someone that is used to doing things by myself all the time. (Eating out, arcades, movies, events, festivals, etc.) But as I’ve started to branch out and try new activities, I feel like I might be a little self-conscious about doing certain things alone, and it makes me feel bad because I don’t have anyone that I can do these things with. Few weeks ago I was contemplating on going to a concert simply because I didn’t have anyone to go with, but I went anyways because I don’t have to miss out on fun things simply because I don’t have anyone to experience them with. So I went to the concert alone and I had a great time. Now there’s another concert that I want to go to in a few months, and Im still getting that feeling of wishing that I knew someone that I could invite to come with me. Obviously Ive learned that I could go alone but it really makes me feel bad because how many times do I have to do these things alone. When will I get a chance to actually have someone that will be willing to have fun and experience these things with me?