Posted at 1:00 p.m.
Catherine has just had cancer. Not just any: gynecological cancer. Since then, it has been difficult for her to forget the pain or get rid of the fear. Especially for everything that directly or indirectly affects his intimacy. Interview with a survivor, in search of her lost vitality.
” I suffered a lot. And there, at 34, my sex life is … wiped out, ”she wrote to us, just before Christmas. Not only does she no longer have a libido, but her youth has also vanished, with an imposed “radical” menopause (we’ll get to that). And all the hard knocks attached to it, we understand, to see her grimace.
However, at a glance, nothing seems like it. The beautiful redhead with a luscious pout welcomes us to her home one early winter morning, in the vast sunny kitchen of her house in the North, to tell her story. For a good hour, she reveals herself as an open book: her first love affairs as a teenager (and those “acquaintances” which “poof”, from one day to the next, no longer give any news), her “correct” sexuality (” I’m pretty conventional, let’s say, I don’t listen to porn, I don’t use toys…”), then meeting her husband, somewhere in his mid-twenties.
In bed ? “Great, she replies, he was gentle, he didn’t ask me things that I didn’t want to do, again, I’m pretty classic, she repeats, and he was respectful. »
With the children, it obviously became “more complicated”: “It’s upside down”, she sums up, with a knowing air. But that’s not exactly the point. In fact, it is rather with yet another pregnancy that the worries began. Three years ago, to be exact.
The cancer
She still remembers it. She had just had a routine exam and a doctor called. We wanted to see her. Quickly. As soon as possible, in fact. “I understood: it is obvious. And I cried for two days. »
She knew it: it was cancer. And not just any stage. Relatively advanced. Catherine, two-thirds into her pregnancy, had to start chemo. And experience several bereavements along the way. “I had hair on my buttocks, she slips, with a touch of nostalgia. I wanted to give birth at home, and I ended up with cancer and a caesarean…”
That’s not all. On the intimacy side, the oncologist was also categorical: “No more relationships. Another dirty trick for the couple, who took it as best they could. “The two of us on our side closed up…” Anyway, for Catherine, that went without saying.
I didn’t want to be touched either. We don’t touch the bottom. Because. No.
Katherine
It lasted like that for a year. Surprisingly, Catherine went through this pregnancy coupled with chemo and a sexual dearth quite calmly. ” It was summer. I was always arranged with scarves, in a summer dress, with my belly. I was fine, she said. Without necessarily knowing it, I think the pregnancy hormones helped me to be zen. »
And her spouse? “My spouse is an alpha male,” she replies soberly. Feelings don’t come out often. I don’t think he had the emotional tools to help me with that…”
Basically, we will eventually understand, if he was certainly “very respectful” in bed, he did not accompany her once in chemo. “He’s working,” she says, shrugging. But I never went alone. I have a very good circle. »
Menopause
Still, in his eyes, the worst is not there. “Cancer was easy, unlike what I’m going through now…” she drops here, her eyes watering, at different times from now.
It’s because since the birth of the baby (an otherwise “super” delivery, “he had more hair than me! The magic of the placenta!”), Catherine hasn’t been the same. But not at all. She searches for her words. Hard to explain. And then it comes out: “I feel like an old woman. »
Old woman ? The chemo “killed” her ovaries, as she puts it, which, in addition to making her sterile, de facto triggered her menopause. “And it’s radical. […] For self-esteem, it was very difficult. I was 32 years old. And I was postmenopausal. […] An old woman,” she repeats.
During my cancer, not once did I say to myself: why me? But menopause? There, I experienced frustrations…
Katherine
Because who says menopause also says “vaginal dryness, loss of libido, heat, aged skin, changing body, all that stuff,” she continues. “And in your head, you associate menopause with an old woman…”
So when they finally got the “OK” from the oncologist (a year later, so) to start having relationships again, it wasn’t exactly easy. In addition to all these worries, Catherine is experiencing a form of “post-traumatic shock”, she believes, again with misty eyes. “I just think about that. » To what? ” I’m afraid. A morbid fear of a recurrence, in a way. Afraid of hurting, too. And she is unable to change her mind. Nor really to talk about it… “If I express it, he finds it heavy: get over it, from your cancer…”
But she does not come back, precisely. Or hardly. “If I drink wine, she says, I am able to disconnect, to cut my thoughts, it happened. I was able to have a relationship, I was in it, I participated. ” But not often. “I have three children, the next day I have to get up. […] And on an empty stomach, I am invaded by my thoughts…”
And as a bonus, she feels guilty…
Yes, she would like to see a psychologist. And her oncologist suggested a sex therapist. She is on various waiting lists, with all the delays that we know.
“So I wrote to you because I really have a problem here,” she said. Seems like I associate sexuality with cancer. Is it because I have been examined there too often? Because he is there, does she point to his crotch, in the same place? […] I want to get out of this. It’s not normal. I am too young. […] It’s a nasty big problem…”
* Fictitious first name, to protect his anonymity