I have had an ongoing battle with depression, anxiety and insomnia since I was 10 years old. I am now weeks away from my 21st birthday, and I am still fighting that battle but with added struggles. This is going to be a lengthy post as my history is pretty deep seeded, but any advice anyone can offer me would be greatly appreciated. I'll post a summary as I wrap this up at the end.


I am a Korean-American; my parents immigrated over in the '70s. As a result, my parents raised me with my Korean culture very much intact. For those of you who aren't cued in to how Korea views mental illness - short answer is: they don't or at least they didn't until very recently. So when I was diagnosed with depression, anxiety and insomnia, my parents were quick to shut down any sort of pharmaceutical remedy, given my precocious age as well as their belief that Big Pharma is evil and more natural, homeopathic remedies were the way to go. (Eastern medicine focuses more on holistic care than preventative care). However, my parents also believed that my doctors were trying to take advantage of their ignorance about mental illness and scam them out of money.


So it was decided for me that my depression, anxiety and insomnia went untreated and wasn't even really talked about. I grew up in a very racist, small town and I definitely remember eleven years ago, people were not as educated or accepting of mental illness as they are now. People who went to therapy were labeled as crazy or psycho; and my parents no doubt wanted to shield me from these labels.


But anyways, more to the point: by the time, I reached high school, I had adopted my family's view point that pharmaceuticals were not to be trusted, so I never even bothered looking into them. I had come to accept the way I felt to be the norm and had resigned myself to the depression, the self-loathing, the constant anxiety and the sleepless nights. I didn't know there was relief. I had learned by this point to hide my mental illness from my parents, so to them, I just seemed like a normal teenager, if not a little anti-social. 


Anyways though, more to the point on the racism and why it came up: my junior year I punched a fellow peer in the face for being a racist, sexist pig, and the school deemed the altercation my fault, of course. So I was sent to anger management with a peer counselor throughout the rest of my junior year and continuing on into my senior year. I was to see one once a week, for an hour after school, or risk expulsion from the school. Not counseling for my anxiety and my depression - I was still too worried about opening up to people about it, thinking I'd be labeled crazy - but instead for anger management. My junior year peer counselor and I made lots of progress as to figuring out why I was so angry (and she let me off the hook on a lot of sessions because she was a nice person), but then she graduated. So my senior year, I was assigned a new peer counselor who was also a senior. He was nice enough, at first. We got on pretty well. But it didn't take him long to make sexual advances. He said that if I didn't have sex with him, he'd tell our principal that I'd missed a session and of course, would result in my expulsion. Terrified and horrified about this proposition, I immediately went to my principal. However, my principal didn't hear any of it. He told me that I was lying to get out of the sessions and that I was to continue meeting with my counselor as scheduled. Defeated and without anywhere to turn, and horrified of the repercussions I might endure, I agreed to my counselor's demands and allowed him to deflower me. The trauma led to my worst depressive episode in years. Yet still, I managed to hide this from my family, my friends. I didn't tell a soul until exactly a year later. All I needed was to leave the toxic place I called my home. All I needed was to go to the Ivy League college that I was sure to get into with my stellar grades, perfect ACT score and numerous extracurricular activities packed into my college applications. I was running, running far far away from my problems and leaving the place I'd called home for a long time.


I shoved the experience in the back of my mind, shoved it into a tiny box. I had to compartmentalize to survive. I just needed to get through my senior year, get into college and leave, and all my problems would be over. But in the process, I became a wreck. I brought different boys to my house on several different nights and made them pleasure me because at least I had some control over the situation. It was what I wanted and I gave nothing in return. I was spiraling; I just didn't know it. None of the experiences had progressed into sex, but I needed a way to reclaim control over my body and somehow, I thought that was answer. Needless to say, it wasn't. Then in a blur, senior year was over. 


Well, cue college, and I was more depressed than ever. Keeping my rape to myself was exhausting, acting like everything was okay when my life was falling apart at the seams was taking everything I had, I was lost. My ambition to be a lawyer sapped, my drive to do well in school only thrived because my anxiety wouldn't let me slack off; it was a miserable experience. I was tired of being alive, I wanted to die and I knew how I was going to do it. So I made a plan. Made a date. Picked the method. Even the place. Everything was going to line up.


But then I met my (now) boyfriend, and everything changed. He was this happy go lucky, sweet, goofy boy, and we became fast friends (rare for me, as I had generally stayed away from guy friends after the incident; only boy toys). He was kind, understanding and incredibly accepting of me from the beginning. When I began to have problems with my roommate, he let me stay in his room as he had a triple (but his third roommate never showed up) so he let me stay in the third bedroom that had a door. It made me comfortable with the situation because as a light sleeper, any sound of the door opening would have alerted me to his presence, if at all. It wasn't long, however, until the two of us were having Netflix binging marathons on his bed and we would just fall asleep watching the show. It was the one year anniversary of my assault when we fell asleep in each other's arms for the first time. And while I slept deeply and restfully for the first time in what felt like years, I had a nightmare of the incident that resulted in me slapping his chest as I jolted awake. He was bleary and just waking up so he didn't realize what had really happened, but I immediately began to sob, a year's worth of crying having caught up to me. When he asked me what was wrong, I realized that I probably looked insane to him. I stifled my sobs and got out of his bed and practically ran away from him, because I still didn't want to tell anyone. But at the same time, I felt like I owed him some sort of explanation. We met up later that day after his classes finished up. It took hours of silence before I finally opened up about what had happened to me. The first person I'd told and it felt like a weight had been lifted off my shoulders. He was quick to hug me and hold me and tell me everything was going to be okay. I was so confused. I thought he was going to run away, both feet out the door. After all, I was damaged, why would he want anything more to do with me? At this point, our relationship was still platonic and though I could tell he wanted more, I was still reluctant as I wanted to focus on my studies. But his persistence and unwavering support for me finally allowed me to let my guard down and let him into my life. We acted like we were dating long before I made it official, but I was confused as to whether a relationship was the right thing for me.


We started dating and my plans of suicide were long put behind me. I was always looking over my shoulder waiting on my depression to return, but at the time, I was in love for the first time and free of my depression for the first time in what seemed like forever. He was also the first person I opened up to about my depression and anxiety, though he had long since assumed these things about me (since we were practically living together). The rest of freshman year went by in a blur and I felt on top of the world. It felt like my depression was defeated. It was liberating and beautiful. I even managed to start a sexual relationship with my boyfriend. I felt comfortable with him, loved and cared for.


Then summer vacation came around, and I was excited to catch up with friends and family from home, and have them meet the amazing boy I had come to love and care about so much. Everything was going great. Then an old high school friend hit me up via Facebook asking to grab a coffee. It didn't seem odd to me as he and I were best friends in our freshman year but had simply grown apart throughout the rest of high school. So I agreed to meet with him. He was doing well, going to a state college but enjoying his time there, studying to be a doctor. I got up to go to the bathroom and (stupidly) left my drink there, thinking it'd be safe. Having come to terms with my assault of the previous year, I had relaxed my hyper-vigilance around guys. The coffee shop we were at was beginning to get crowded but we still had lots of catching up to do, so he suggested we go to his house or mine as we had frequently done in our high school years. I offered my place as a free place, finding nothing remiss in his suggestion. These wounds are still somewhat fresh so talking about it is hard, but he ended up assaulting me also. My first reaction was to hide it once again. To shove it deep down and not tell a soul. But one of my friends called me as I was trying to calm down and when I answered, I just ended up crying unable to form coherent words, let alone sentences. She ended up calming me down and asking me what had happened. I couldn't explain to her properly what had happened, though. I was in shock. I hadn't processed. All I could think was "Not again, not again, not again. Not now, not now." By this point, I had found enough courage to share with my friends about my previous experience so I managed to eke out "It happened again," and my friend went silent on the other line. Then I heard her try to stifle her tears. She asked me where I was, if I was safe, and to go to the hospital and the police. I blurted out a terrified "No!" in response to the second half. I wanted to bury it. I didn't want to go to the police. All that could race through my mind was going through with a trial and my rapist getting away with it. Wasted effort. Wasted time. And more importantly, I felt like dying. I wanted to die. I couldn't even think about pursuing it. As I was hysterical, when my boyfriend called me after getting off work, I freaked out and asked my friend to commandeer the call. I thought for sure he was going to leave this time. He was hysterical as well, worried about my well being. He called me later that night to urge me to go to the hospital, at the very least, to make sure that I had sustained no major injuries. My parents were out of town at the time so I was reluctant to go on my own and my friend was in New York and my boyfriend in St. Louis. Far far away from me. I managed to find the strength to go to the hospital and get the rape kit performed. The police soon followed. 


My rapist was arrested shortly thereafter. My parents returned home, I informed them of the situation. They were livid that this happened to me. Due to my family's well-connected status, we were able to get a judge to review our case as quickly as possible as I still had college to return to in the fall, and we didn't want a lengthy trial. Luckily, my rapist confessed which made it much easier to get a conviction. But my home didn't feel like home, I felt unsafe and constantly on edge. I jumped at the slightest of noises, I couldn't sleep, I was always nervous. So my dad, seeing this, asked my boyfriend's parents if I could stay with them for the rest of the summer as being home was too painful for me. My boyfriend's parents were accepting of the idea and I soon made the journey to my boyfriend where I stayed until fall semester came around.


It was this semester where I began to actively fight my mental illness. I began seeing a psychologist and a psychiatrist, my depression becoming too much for me to handle, and again, at the urging of my boyfriend, sought out professional help, despite my parents' fear that Big Pharma was evil. I was re-diagnosed with major depressive disorder and generalized anxiety disorder, as well as a few others: post traumatic stress disorder, panic disorder and obsessive compulsive disorder, all due to the trauma I had endured. I was put on antidepressants and found relief from my depression symptoms, but experienced sexual dysfunction (a complete lack of libido), which put a strain on my relationship with my boyfriend. He wasn't pressuring me into sex or anything, but he did have needs also and I was ignoring them because my drive for sex was completely killed by the antidepressants. So I switched to a promising, new antidepressant, Viibryd, with less than 5% of patients reporting sexual dysfunction. I adjusted to the meds and slowly began to feel like myself again. I was also given anti-anxiety meds for my panic attacks. I felt better. I was in a much better place mentally. I had finally found some type of reprieve from my depression and anxiety. Something I thought not possible through the use of pill popping.


Anyways cut to a couple months ago (I'm off my Viibryd because the cost ended up being too much month to month) and my boyfriend and I are trying to have sex and it hurts me. Really really badly. Sex had always hurt, but in the beginning I kind of put up with it just expecting it since my boyfriend was the only guy I'd willingly allowed there. But we were at the two and a half year mark and we'd been sexually active for at least a year and a half by that point. So it still hurting was just unacceptable for me. I went to a gynecologist to seek help who pinpointed the problem as vaginismus (involuntary muscle spasms that lead to painful intercourse) and vulvodynia, which essentially is chronic pain in the vulvar area. She suspected the problem had been around since first being sexually active given the trauma I'd endured, and prescribed a lidocaine gel for me to apply to find relief. I was relieved there was a treatment but disdained at the fact that there was no cure. I was extremely frustrated with myself - it just wasn't enough that my mind rebelled against me, now my body was too. I didn't understand what was happening or why it was happening. Sex was already extremely difficult for me to go through with. Now adding this twist of the knife was a huge set back in my progress. I fell into a deep depressive, almost vegetative state. Got back on Viibryd as a result. I no longer wanted sex period. The pain reminded me of both assaults and only made me want sex less each time I had it. This, understandably, puts a strain on my relationship with my partner. I do not know how to overcome this obstacle. It makes me extremely anxious that my boyfriend will leave if our relationship continues to be sexless, but it makes me more anxious even thinking about having sex again. I'm trying to get in with a sex therapist, but she's booked to the brim and the waiting game makes it even tougher. I have already asked my partner to put up with so much. Is it even fair of me to ask him to put up with a sexless relationship for the rest of his life when he could find somebody who could possibly make him happier? Am I just being ridiculous? Any sort of guidance would be much appreciated. Sorry for the length and thanks if you made it through all of this. I'm just really freaking out.

TLDR; Dealt with depression, anxiety and insomnia since the age of 10. Weeks from turning 21. Parents don't accept Big Pharma, passed that value to me, so my depression and anxiety remained untreated until the age of 19. Senior year of high school was assaulted by peer counselor at my school, didn't tell anyone. Resigned myself to a life of depression and self-loathing and anxiety. Went to college, made a plan to kill myself until I met my boyfriend and love of my life. Opened up to him about my assault, eventually started a sexual relationship. Summer after freshman year, I was assaulted yet again by someone I thought was my friend. Went to the police, got the fucker convicted. Following semester got into counseling as well as psychiatric help. Prescribed anti-depressants and anti-anxiety meds. Cut to present: intercourse is painful; was kind of always painful but dealt with it because I expected it to be in the beginning. But a year and a half of sexual activity and I'm still experiencing pain like it's the first time. Went to gynecologist, diagnosed with vaginismus and vulvodynia. Torn about what to do - painful intercourse only reminds me of my assaults, but don't want to lose boyfriend in process. Any advice on what to do would be much appreciated. Sorry for the length of post....