Elis de Guerre

After the breathless panting of my previous panic attack had converted over time to lust, I found myself with my new love having sex in the shower. Bent over the rim of the claw-foot bathtub, I felt the past being replaced with the new joys of the present.

I have slept with seven men: five bona fide boyfriends, one guy I was seeing for a time, and one one-night stand. According to Slate’s sex history calculator, which is based on data in the General Social Survey from 2006-2014, I have slept with more people than 53% of my female peers, which I think gives me an edge comparing the sexual performances of men.

I never wanted children. When other little girls were playing with dolls, I played with stuffed animals. Even when I played house, my home was filled with plush puppies.

In the past four months, I’ve undergone a veritable dating hurricane. I ran out on my 10-month-old marriage in August. I texted my decision and departure to my closest friends, live-tweeted my flight from upstate New York to the New Hampshire seacoast, and have written extensively and publicly about separation, my estranged husband, and the terrors of emotional pain ever since.

What if masturbation doesn’t work for you? What if you’ve tried fingers, vibrators, porn, fantasies, and even romancing yourself with glasses of wine, and you still can’t seem to get there?

The Kinsey Scale test labeled me a 2, or, "predominately heterosexual, but more than incidentally homosexual," one notch above "equally heterosexual and homosexual."

When my therapist told me in 2012 that I presented with symptoms of PTSD, I was relieved, but also in disbelief.

Many people are aware of bipolar disorder. Most know it’s a mental illness that swings the brain between depression and mania. Most understand depression to be debilitating, a condition that combines sadness, despair, exhaustion, and lack of motivation. But most people don’t understand mania (which is experienced primarily by people with bipolar I) or hypomania (which those with bipolar II tend to encounter more than full-blown mania) — at least not fully.

Let the #LGBTBabes party rage on, my fellow rainbow darlings. You're beautiful. You're supported. You're loved. And you're perfect just as you are.

I am nine months into marriage and already have regrets. I do not regret my choice of partner, or our choice to get married, but do regret who I was prior to marriage and what I did (or didn’t do) when I was single.