help with panic attacks every time I have sex
Hi I don’t know where to post this and I’ve never posted on reddit but I thought to start here because it felt like the most fitting place. I just turned 20, most of my life I’ve assumed that I had vaginismus (not diagnosed) because I had never been able to insert anything at all without excruciating pain until around 6 months ago when after around two painful months of trying I managed to have sex basically pain free. However, in the past few months this has basically turned around again and something new has been happening. Me and my boyfriend are able to have sex and it feels generally okay however after about a minute or two all of a sudden I start panicking, uncontrollably crying and feeling very scared. I have pretty bad anxiety and at first just blamed it on that bc it was especially bad a few months ago but this happens EVERYTIME now and i really don’t like it. My boyfriend is very lovely and patient about it and he never makes me do anything i don’t want to, and I’ve never been sexually assaulted or anything like it before so i don’t understand why this is happening? It might be important to note that i am asexual (maybe specially demisexual) but I am very comfortable with my boyfriend and this wasn’t a problem until recently.
I thought about therapy but I don’t understand what the therapy would even be for and how to access it (im from the uk). If anyone has any advice or answers that would be really nice and helpful. This has been really affecting me mentally and is really embarrassing to me and I just want a sense of normality, I’m also worried that it’ll end up affecting my relationship with my boyfriend and I really don’t want that to happen :(