#herpbler

[glittercatmomma]

Herpaversery #2

Tomorrow is my second anniversary of being diagnosed with herpes and I am honestly so comfortable in my own skin after only two years. My sex life has gotten back to normal and I’m confident enough to disclose to people I just want a one night stand with or a friends with benefits and I haven’t had anyone reject since when I was first diagnosed. I learned everything there is to know about this virus and it calmed me down and it calmed my partners down. Almost all my friends know I’m a herpes positive and I educated a lot of people on the topic. Two years ago I thought my life was over to the point where I almost ended my life, and now I’m looking back at all of this and wondering why I freaked out so much. I’m a confident bad ass bitch who just happens to have herpes. I’m thriving in law school, I just met someone who doesn’t care that I’m positive, and my friends don’t care. Whoever is just getting diagnosed, I promise, it gets better!!! ❤️

[somethingpositive4positivepeople]

SPFPP 210: Delayed Rejection - It’s Fine Til it isn’t

First thing’s first, I did end up not getting ghosted ha! Kelsy started her herpes journey on Herpbler and was inspired by Ella Dawson’s anonymous profile there.

Kelsy became loud in her personal life and on social media about her herpes status. She shares a story about having flown out to meet with a guy she had been talking to. He introduced her to 25ish of his friends. They were intimate and the sex was average. Not getting oral is NOW a boundary for her, but she made an exception because he checked the boxes. He said he just needed time to be comfy with it. He got real quiet on her after the visit was over and she wondered why. He eventually shared he wasn’t comfortable with her having herpes and he’s a nurse too so he had the information.

We discuss how to navigate people saying they’re okay with us having herpes and then later not being okay with it. Managing the emotional labor with boundaries is key. They might already have herpes, but they just don’t know because of how tricky testing is as well as all the misinformation that’s out there making it challenging. So how do we REALLY know who’s okay with us having herpes? We don’t, man. It’s unfortunate but we are always taking a chance with someone. So all we can do is measure people’s actions and the consistency of that alongside their words. People are willing to unlearn stigma for themselves. We have to trust that.

What having herpes REALLY means is the same thing for any other condition. We learn to give our body the best opportunity to operate at its natural capacity. A health condition creates a baseline for us to work with. As herpes is a highlight to an underlying trigger, we speak to Kelsy’s suicide ideation after her diagnosis. We also speak to her fear of abandonment and the narrative “What’s wrong with me?” as the topic when not being chosen given one’s weight of your value as it relates to your herpes diagnosis. Having herpes added to her security in herself only because she was willing to explore this within herself.

Accepting my status doesn’t mean you’re a good person, and rejecting my status doesn’t mean you’re a bad person. Don’t put all that weight onto someone accepting your diagnosis to the point where you overlook the red flags and other incompatibilities. Not wanting herpes is perfectly fine. Hell, I didn’t want herpes and here I am. It’s ok to not want herpes, what’s not ok is invalidating the wholeness of a person. I think this is an excellent follow up from episode 208 where I talk about '“lowering my voice” when it comes to having herpes and sharing what I do to keep those around me comfortable. It isn’t brave to be loud about our status, it’s confronting internalized stigma that is. I know I personally have some work to do around that for sure. Talking about sex is challenging and not “normal”. Filtering in people receptive to sexual health communication through sex positivity and people’s relationship to mental health leads to a higher likelihood of a positive disclosure and much more pleasant interaction. We get to a point where we have to stop caring so much about what other people think in the short term for the sake of our own bigger picture of wholeness.

We discuss how we can benefit from communicating about past challenges in relationships. Having the sexual health talk should be just as normal as speaking about past relationships. Another thing to consider is how we look at compatibilities outside just herpes status?

She also shared an experience she had disclosing her status to a health care worker who hadn’t known their herpes information. They were unaware that HSV1 can be genital story. WE ARE THE EXPERTS OF OUR EXPERIENCES! Take the opportunities to share experiences where it’s safe to do so for ya! Look at who has herpes that we’re NOT hearing from! Most people are okay with their status, don’t know or it just isn’t an issue for them. The younger folks navigating stigma correctly! They’re communicating, utilizing resources, becoming empowered far earlier than those before us. Now we have Safe Slut, Positively Positive, Shana Singleton, etc. TikTok… the list goes on.

The end of stigma isn’t a universal ending of stigma. It comes at an individual level to be shared as needed and within the communities of those who’ve ended it within themselves. For Kelsy, it took 6-7 years to hit up a therapist in regards to the trauma that came from the relationship/person who gave her herpes. Empowerment and taking care of yourself is asking people about their status despite being someone positive in their status. Value yourself! Having a support system, their friend, and resources helped her not end her life. @herp3tic Goddess

[glittercatmomma]

RAPE CULTURE RANT

Back in the day, I was sexually assaulted in a college dorm room while I was completely unconscious. I woke up, not even knowing that I was sexually assaulted and I did not find out until about two months later because I miscarried a child that I didn’t know I had since I thought I DID NOT HAVE SEX DURING THOSE TWO MONTHS.

I confronted him because I knew it was sexual assault, but he was so manipulative that he lead to me to believe that it was completely consensual and that we loved each other.

I did not have the chance to report the incident because I knew it wouldn’t have gone anywhere because I found out two months too late so there was no proof, and I continued to date him for another month because I was completely brainwashed.

During health class shortly after, we had a BIG lesson on sexual assault and they taught us the three main rules of consent which were voluntary, verbal, and sober. It finally hit me that you might be in love with the person, but that doesn’t matter if they RAPED you. They did not have “drunk sex” with your unconscious body. They RAPED your unconscious body.

The other night, I was with a boy I have been seeing for about a month now and he knows that I have been sexually assaulted before. Since I’m a legal studies major, I like to talk about politics a lot, and Kavanaugh is the talk of the town right now. I thought this wouldn’t be a bad topic because he knows what I’ve been though... APPARENTLY HE DIDN’T CARE.

He proceeded to say that “the woman who came forward had no right to do so since it has been so long, and if it was such a problem, she should’ve reported it then instead of ruining his life later on. Someone should not be held to their mistakes forever”.

I burst into tears damn near immediately since he knew DAMN GOOD AND WELL I didn’t report my incident. But if the boy who RAPED me was about to be in a position of power on the SUPREME FUCKING COURT OF THE UNITED STATES, you bet your ass I would be telling people right then and there! I also believe that rape is not a mistake. It is a conscious act that you make. You can absolutely regret raping someone for the rest of you life like you would any other mistake, but you should pay for the actions of sexual assault. Just because you got away with it while you were fifteen, doesn’t mean that you can avoid it for the rest of your life. You broke the person you assaulted mentally, physically, and emotionally while NOTHING happens to you. What about the victims? What about US?

We go through PTSD and clinical depression after. We can’t trust anyone for a while after and sex is not the same for a long time. I still cry in the middle of sex for no reason sometimes and it has been THREE YEARS. How come I am stuck with all these new found psychological issues while my attacker is not affected in the slightest? How is it fair that his life is fine and my life fell apart?

Kavanaugh potentially being on the Supreme Court is not easy to watch for people who have been sexually assaulted. Trump being elected president hasn’t been easy to watch for people who have been sexually assaulted. By electing this man and confirming the other, everyone is basically saying a big “fuck you” to the victims of sexual assault. We are sitting here blaming ourselves for what happened and watching our attackers live their lives like nothing happened.

The woman who was sexually grabbed by Trump? She had to watch him become president. Or how about Paula Jones? The woman who rejected Clinton’s unwanted sexual advances toward her and almost lost her job over it? She also had to watch him stay in his position of power as president. The WOMEN who have stepped forward about Kavanaugh? Might have to watch him sit on the Supreme Court. My attacker? Now has a family and a baby.

What is currently happening in politics at this moment is hard for ANYONE who has ever been sexually assaulted, both men and women. IT IS EXCRUCIATING AND MENTALLY DRAINING. My depression and anxiety has gotten worse just from seeing the Kavanaugh confirmation continue to happen.

Yes, the Kavanaugh nomination has nothing to do with me, but at the same time is has EVERYTHING to do with me. It has EVERYTHING to do with ANYONE who has ever been victimized.

Long story short, I am no longer seeing the person I’ve been dating for a month because I don’t need a man who thinks that someone doesn’t deserve to be punished for sexually assaulting someone just because they didn’t get caught.

[glittercatmomma]

I’m Over It

I am tired of disclosing. I tired of living my worst nightmare every day of my life. Most of the time I forget that I have this problem, but when it comes to relationships, it is the only thing I can think about. I am constantly thinking I am one conversation away from losing the person I had just met. 

Yeah, I have never had a bad disclosure experience, but that doesn’t mean it won’t happen. I have to disclose in the next few days and my stomach is in knots. I have this horrible feeling it won’t go well, but I am not going to freak out and cut someone off in case it does go well. 

I should be worried about graduating college and attending law school, but instead I am nervous as to how a boy will react to something that is completely out of my control. 

I get that “if they don’t accept you they’re not the one”, but it doesn’t mean that it won’t hurt to be rejected. I can practice this conversation a million times, and I will still be nervous. I can imagine getting thousands of different responses, but the thought of a negative response always kills me. 

It sucks because I think every day that my life could be entirely different if I didn’t have sex, or I could still be negative if I stayed in a relationship that I wasn’t happy in years ago, and I know i shouldn’t be thinking that way. I should be thinking that this is my life now and I have to move on, but when it comes time to tell someone what is going on, I always think unhealthy thoughts. 

I try not think of what my life could be like if I was not in the position I am in, but I think about it constantly. I have never been good at dating, and this is not exactly an added bonus. I can preach that it gets easier and that you’ll find the one, but it is hard to follow your own advice sometimes. I just have to keep thinking “if it doesn’t work out, oh well”.

[glittercatmomma]

Jokes about the Glitter

I constantly see people on social media joking about herpes not even realizing that people are going through life with herpes. They are even ignorant to the fact that they might have it!!

I admit, I used to make herpes jokes myself, but once I was diagnosed with herpes, my ENTIRE outlook changed. I stopped making fun of SO many topics that were entirely out of people’s control (and so did my friends). My horizons opened and the way I thought about things have been very different. I have learned to be way more open minded and understanding than I have been before I was diagnosed.

I just wish people on twitter and Facebook could understand what we’re going through and learn that what we’re going through is not a joke. We’re not dirty, gross, sluts, or a disease. We’re human beings with feelings that are going through something that destroys our psychological health more than it destroys our physical health and seeing it constantly being laughed at doesn’t help us cope. Herpes, and any other STD/STIs for that matter, should not be made the butt of every punch line. I just wish some people realized that every comment that they make can hurt someone.

People with herpes don’t wear an H on their foreheads to let everyone know that they have it. DAMN NEAR EVERYONE HAS HERPES. So the next time you want to be funny, don’t use our lives as the joke.

[glittercatmomma]

Disclosing... Again.

I have now disclosed to three people, and although I have not gotten any negative responses, disclosing never gets less nerve wracking.

I have recently met a boy and it’s going well, which means I have to disclose soon... very soon.

We have been on three dates and they have gone very well, but anything could happen.

He might be accepting without any questions asked, he might be thrown off guard and ask a million questions, he might just know nothing about herpes, or it might be an instant deal breaker.

I have no idea when I’m disclosing and I don’t know how long I should push it off, or how soon is too soon. My self confidence is much higher than it used to be when I was first diagnosed so I’m mentally prepared with whatever his response to me disclosing is, but I’m still petrified.

For people that are disclosing soon, yes it is scary, but it does get easier. One day someone will be fully accepting and not give a shit about our status and we will never have to disclose again.

I can’t wait for that day.

[glittercatmomma]

Hookups and herpes

Obviously hookups are still an option.. if you want to disclose and have someone you ~most likely~ barely know, know about your positive status.

I, personally, couldn’t get myself to do it... until today.

I used to have constant sex from friends with benefits until my diagnosis, and to go from consistently having sex to not having sex was very difficult for me. I have never been the relationship type so learning how to deal with not being in a relationship and still being sexually active has been rough.

Tonight, I have wanted to have sex with someone in particular for a very long time and I finally had the opportunity to do so, so I disclosed while we were making out and he was like “fuck it”.

This tiny experience made me realize that if someone really wants to have sex with you they will, no matter the circumstances. Whether it be relationships or hookups, someone will want you bad enough to do it.

[glittercatmomma]

Everyone has Herpes

I was thinking about this a lot recently and honestly, I wish the CDC recommended getting tested for herpes because SO many people have herpes. I don’t wish that everyone would get tested because I might not have herpes today, but I wish they would recommend tested so that the stigma would end. I believe if they tested for it as often as they tested for chlaymdia, people wouldn’t fall into a pit of depression as soon as they are diagnosed with herpes.

People would realize that type 1 and type 2 are the same thing damn near and everyone wouldn’t stigmatize genital over oral. You can’t even be a contestant on the Bachelor if you’ve ever had a cold sore, which just blows my mind that the stigma runs that deep.

If everyone was tested for herpes, millions upon millions of people would realize that they have herpes and many people would no longer judge others for having it.

If you are recently diagnosed, you are probably not freaked out by the physical symptoms that you will experience with the disease that you found out that you have. You know you’re not going to die or feel very much pain. You are probably WAY more worried about the stigma and what future partners will think of you. If everyone was tested for it, you wouldn’t even be worried about that.

[glittercatmomma]

Acceptance

The hardest part about finding out you have genital herpes is dealing with the stigma. The symptoms aren’t major and the health effects are non existent. It changes nothing about your life and how you live it... except for dating and having sex.

I was so scared at first to date, and still am a little, but not nearly as scared as I was originally.

I was so scared of having a life long std because of how people would view me, but now I’m realizing that it’s irrelevant.

I surrounded myself with people who cared about me and wanted to support me through everything.

My mom and my best friends educated themselves so they can understand what I’m going through and everything about this stupid little virus. They have realized how terrible the stigma was and how not scary it actually is. Having the support that I have is what got me through being diagnosed.

I have accepted myself for everything that I am and it’s making living with herpes a whole hell of a lot easier. I never thought I would get to this point of self acceptance so quickly, but I did. I am now even stronger and more confident than I was before I knew I had herpes. It has been the hardest 7 months of my life, but I knew I wanted to be happy.

Accepting you for your hair color, your skin tone, your scars, your freckles, and most importantly, your positive herpes status is the best feeling, and I hope everyone feels this way one day. If you are newly diagnosed, I can promise you that it gets better.

[glittercatmomma]

Relationships after disclosure

I’ve had now three (ish) relationships since I’ve been diagnosed.

My first after being diagnosed was a rough one. I was still learning about herpes and everything that it entailed and I wasn’t sure what was and wasn’t normal in a relationship with someone who wasn’t positive. Until I was diagnosed, I didn’t even know people who are positive and negative could be together. My boyfriend said he was okay with it, but would refuse to have sex with me, or even be within a foot of me naked. It knocked my self confidence down to an all time low.

My next was not a full blown relationship. Things were going well and I realized I could no longer pull the “period card”. He was totally okay with me having herpes and appreciated my honesty. I believe this relationship ended before it started because of something completely unrelated to herpes (that being my messed up family dynamic, which ironically, is also out of my control).

My current relationship so far is good. I didn’t think this particular person would be okay with me having herpes because of how sexually active he is and he prides himself on still being negative after never wearing a condom. He didn’t hesitate for a second to have sex with me and doesn’t care about what happens to him at all as long as he has me.

This is all great, but now that we’re past my diagnosis, real life stuff comes into play and it’s difficult because I can see so many things being a deal breaker in the future, but for now, it’s great. We laugh, have fun, have a lot of the same interests, but where we both want to end up in life is two totally different places.

It’s weird because part of me thinks that if I didn’t have herpes, I would already see all of these red flags and run. But now that I have herpes, it’s almost forcing me to stay in relationships and attempt to work things out before I immediately give up. I still don’t know which is better; gut feelings telling me this isn’t “it”, or actual real life situations causing a relationship to end after attempting to fix them?

I always want to encourage myself and others to never stay in a relationship that isn’t making you happy, but it sucks when I, myself, don’t know if I’m happy, or just settling.

[glittercatmomma]

The Disclosure Jitters

Disclosing is the worst part about herpes. It’s not the outbreaks or the disease itself, it’s dealing with the stigma behind the virus that the unfortunate few of us got stuck with.

Before I tell my partners, I feel millions of emotions all at once; emotions that I didn’t even know existed before I was diagnosed. I feel stressed, anxious, nervous, sad, hopeful, and more. After the first time I disclosed and it went well, I never wanted to go through that again.. unfortunately, that’s not my reality.

I practiced disclosing for months. I practiced with my mom, my closest friends, my therapist, the mirror, in the shower, and even my cat. No amount of times I practiced could calm the nerves or to prepare myself well enough for the actual conversation.

The thought of having to go through all of that again is physically draining me. I should be excited to meet someone that I’m interested in, but instead, I feel like I’m disappointed that I met someone because I have to have the “talk”.

Knowing that I will most likely have to disclose to yet another potential partner is not ideal. My disclosures have all went well so far, but the relationships haven’t lasted much longer after the disclosure conversation and plus,there is always the potential that this disclosure won’t go over well, which is why disclosing is so stressful to begin with.

I have to keep telling myself that if they truly care about me, they will stick around no matter what, but for some people, no matter how much they care about you, it could still be a deal breaker. But I continue to tell myself that if they leave, they aren’t the one. The one will stick around through something as minor as a skin condition and everything will be okay in the end.

All of this is easier said than done, but I refuse to give up on finding a loving relationship because of this minor inconvenience. One day it’ll happen with someone. The problem is I don’t know when, or who, but one day, I hope it’ll happen for me, and everyone else going through this exact situation.

[glittercatmomma]

Herpes Humor

I was at breakfast with my mom this morning and the couple next to us had the LOUDEST baby and I looked at my mom and said “my problem might be permanent, but atleast it doesn’t cry”

[glittercatmomma]

HE ALREADY KNEW I HAD HERPES

I’ve been seeing this guy for a little under a month now and he hasn’t made a move which I thought was sweet, but also odd. We’ve been going on dates and just seeing where it goes (which it hopefully does end up going somewhere).

We were on a date the other night and he mentioned that he knows some stuff about me and he wouldn’t tell me what.. so in that moment I kind of knew he knew that I was positive. “I heard you had an STD.” And then he IMMEDIATELY followed up that sentence with “you should not be embarrassed or ashamed and it’s also not a deal breaker”. That was comforting, but also it’s wild that someone I didn’t know until a month ago already knew about my status.

Apparently, he knew before we even went on our first date. He figured that I was cool and everyone has baggage, and what makes his baggage any worse than mine?

So I didn’t even have to disclose since he knew the entire time, but I’m going to count that as a positive reaction to a disclosure in my book!!

[glittercatmomma]

Dating

When I was first diagnosed, getting rejected within the dating process was my absolute worst fear. I thought that I would NEVER be able to over come that fear. Meeting someone new should be exciting, but for positives, it’s almost a worst nightmare come to life.

Recently, I have gotten over that fear. My thought process on dating has completely changed. I’ve now had situations such as relationships, hookups, and just friendships that haven’t been totally scared away and it’s opened my eyes to really understand how LITTLE and IRRELEVANT herpes really is.

Obviously I will still get a little nervous the next time I disclose, but if they think that it’s a deal breaker, then they wouldn’t be able to handle much harder things that come along in the future. It’s a nice little weed out tool to see who actually wants to stick around and wants to be with me.

I have a feeling I’m about to disclose to someone soon, and although I’m nervous, it’s a different kind of nervous compared to the first time. It’s more of a “rejection could happen” compared to “if he rejects me my entire life is over” sort of feeling.

I’m learning that dating gets easier as time goes on just like every aspect of life. It’s kind of just a part of me at this point. I don’t really even think about it and I forget that it’s a problem sometimes.

One day hopefully I will find someone that fully accepts me, but for now, I fully accept me and that’s truly all that matters.