''There is no force equal to a woman determined to rise' - W.E.B Dubois

Happy Friday everyone! I hope you have all had a lovely pain free (or manageable) week.

We are very close to being up to date with my story and its left me feeling a tad deflated to be honest. I have been trying to answer a lot of questions that I have for myself, however this is proving difficult. Where will this blog go next? Will there be a need for this blog once I have finished telling my story? What else could I possibly do to continue this conversation and continue raising awareness? I do not think it would be right to just stop posting, after all, why bother exposing my pain for nothing to come from it right? So, I wanted to discuss my future with you all for a moment, and of course hear your feedback about what you would like to read and what you are most interested in hearing about.

In the beginning, the idea of even thinking about writing this blog was terrifying and I put it off for a good year. Now that I have thrown myself into it week by week, it has slowly become one of my guilty pleasures. I always knew I enjoyed talking about myself but who knew being extremely open about your deepest, darkest secrets would feel so liberating! Sharing my story in this way was most comfortable for me at the start, as I was still able to hide a part of myself away, behind the screen and behind my words. Now that my confidence has grown and my shame and embarrassment is shrinking, I am ready to push this conversation as far as possible, even if that means diving out of my comfort zone!

For several weeks now, I have been toying with the idea of putting together a little project in which I touched upon in previous posts. This project will require the voices of other sufferers or just other women who feel as passionate about women’s health as I do. I would absolutely love to be able to put together a type of video campaign as I feel this would be most effective for what I am trying to achieve. Of course, I know that what I am asking is HUGE, gaining the confidence to speak out about such an intimate problem does not happen overnight, so whilst this idea is in the works, I thought id bite the bullet and show other women that it is okay to use your voice to advocate for your own health and happiness.

I have been wanting to move away from my keyboard and instead, use my voice to continue the rest of my story and to continue raising awareness for all those women that I know are too ashamed and too embarrassed, so that is exactly what I am going to do! I believe that now is the perfect time to put myself out there completely because I am tired of my words being disregarded and I am tired of being made to feel less of a woman.

I will be recording and sharing a small glimpse into my life with Vulvodynia, because as much as my words can tell a story, I think its super beneficial to see the effect, rather than imagine it. I would also love to do an in-depth honest Q&A as I am sure that throughout these past weeks, there are certain questions that you may have that I am yet to cover. So, if that is the case, please send them over to me either via email which is tiffanyroche@hotmail.co.uk or drop me a message on Instagram - @VulvodyniaOverload. Questions can be as open or as closed as you wish and can be about absolutely anything regarding women’s health or vulvodynia itself.

VulvodyniaOverload is my safe space and I hope it can continue to be an outlet for others who are suffering mentally or physically, long after I have finished writing my story.

Tiff x