After a sexual assault, I started experiencing pudendal nerve pain

Hi everyone, I have pudendal nerve neuralgia — could it be TMS? I’d like to share my story.

Five and a half months ago, this pain started after someone I deeply despised sexually assaulted me through coercion, using many manipulative tactics to get me into his car. The truth is that while it was happening, I remained calm because I believed he wouldn’t hurt me — he just wanted to fulfill his whim of having sex with me. I thought it would be over soon and I’d walk away as if nothing had happened.

So I stayed calm until he penetrated me, and the pain was very intense — it lasted about a minute and it wasn’t like “nerve pain,” it was a different kind of pain. After it ended, I acted normal, but a few minutes later, pain started in my anus (which was strange because the assault happened vaginally). It was a throbbing, stretching kind of pain. I went into a crisis of extreme rage toward this man, and an intense fear that my vagina had been “damaged forever” and would never be the same.

During the assault I was calm, but when I felt that pain, I was filled with rage that this repulsive man had damaged something inside me. When I walked, I felt a pulling sensation in my vagina, and the next day I had intermittent anal pain (it would come and go), and it caused me a lot of anxiety and distress.

The gynecologist found microtears in my vagina, and I kept feeling this stretching sensation and like my legs were being held apart. Honestly, I believe he physically hurt me — he had an extremely thick, wide penis, and I have a small body, a narrow vagina, not much sexual activity, and there was no arousal or lubrication because it was assault.

That’s when my neuropathic pain began. I was prescribed pregabalin (an anticonvulsant) — I take 150 mg in the morning and 150 mg at night.

A month later, I had massages on my lower back, sacrum, and coccyx. After the massages, the vaginal and anal pain disappeared, but then numbness started in my lower back, and the next day I developed a very strong neuropathic pain in the lower back, sacrum, and coccyx, along with visible swelling in the lower back.

Then the nerve pain and sensations started spreading to my legs, feet, arms, hands, and even my face. When I touch my lower back, I have hypersensitivity — touching it causes nerve sensations in other parts of my body. It felt like a nerve was pinched in the sacrum, blocking the pain from reaching the genitals, like the connection had been cut off.

Then a month later, I stretched my leg backward and it seemed like the nerve was released — and the vaginal and anal pain returned. So now I’m dealing with pain in the vagina, anus, lower back, and nerve sensations in my legs and arms.

It’s been five months like this without real improvement. The only relief comes from rest. I can only walk a little each day without pain. When I walk too much, the pain increases and it feels like something moves or cracks in the sacrum. The inflammation in the lower back is still present.

I’ve already learned a lot about TMS and neuroplastic pain. I’ve talked to people who recovered from pudendal nerve issues with TMS, and I’ve read many success stories here on this wiki.

So my question is: do you think I have TMS? It seems like I had a real injury, but maybe the pain stayed because of the intense fear I had toward the symptoms?

I’m doing therapy and trying to recognize my emotions. I feel very aware of them, but the rage and disgust toward this man are always present, along with the belief that he ruined my perfect body and changed it forever..