Something Positive for Positive People

Full disclaimer, this podcast was done as a result of where a conversation was heading after Mark heard me discussing Something Positive for Positive People with someone. He asked about it which lead to the conversation about his current relationship of several years with his girlfriend who has herpes and to this point, has not given it to him. This is a good episode to listen to if you are considering disclosing your condition to someone and would like the potential perspective from someone who's accepted someone and decided to move forward.,If you have recently been disclosed to and wonder what it's like to move forward, then this is also a good episode to listen to. This was being discussed and ten minutes into the convo, I asked Mark if he would be willing to continue the conversation on the podcast, he agreed and bam! Here we are. Excuse the pauses, umms and stutters as I was unable to prepare for this episode or prepare him for being on the show like I normally do. I just knew it had to be done and put our there right away. Episode 9 will still be released November 1. Follow the podcast on Instagram @CourtneyBrame. Please rate and review Something Positive for Positive People on iTunes and Stitcher! Stay Positive.

Disclosure disclosure disclosure! This is the most concerning piece of having a herpes diagnosis. With how 2020 went because of COVID, I think a lot of re-triggering occurred for majority of the population aware of their herpes status. The parallels of disclosing can be so similar between COVID and HSV, and they can be so different. We discuss this a little bit in this podcast episode with our guest, Amanda who has what I find to be the most simple, effective way of identifying whether someone is worth sharing your status with before deciding if you see things going somewhere physically that may put them at risk of contracting herpes.

You know what, sometimes we try to justify why someone won't have sex with us, or they only want to do so at their convenience or how they want to do it. It's hard to accept but sometimes their issue is in fact that we have herpes. That's okay, because that's their loss. Where it becomes an issue is when we begin to sacrifice our self-worth for the convenience of false connection.

I speak to a couple of DMs I received and just how actually rare it is that we are rejected compared to what we think in our minds. The majority of us with herpes are at an ok place with our herpes diagnosis, I just happen to only hear from various people who are currently struggling, which comes and goes, but it's most important that we understand our blueprints for navigating a herpes diagnosis won't always come from a herpes resource.

Some quick takeaways from Jess here: The most useful resource for navigating herpes comes from within the herpes community, while the worst are the health care providers diagnosing us with STIs consistently. How is stigma so prevalent that your mom can be in the doctor's office with you when you're receiving an oral herpes diagnosis only for her later to say to you don't ever get herpes and then talk about how bad it is? We talk of course about how sex ed failed us and how useful therapy is, and then we answer some questions from participants in the IG Live which was dope! Thanks everyone for being here. I'll consistently record evenings at 7:30pm central time when I have a guest lined up. right now we have one scheduled for Thursday evening as well if you wanna join the next one.

I share a healing experience that was sparked in therapy in regards to unconscious behavior I hadn't before looked at. I introduce the Something Positive FROM Positive People blog which features insights from our community that anyone can apply to their lives. I had some recent experiences where my boundaries were being chipped away at and I thought I would handle that here. I can't believe I talked for an hour. I thought I only had 30 minutes in me haha. But good thing ya'll like these solo episodes. Let me know what you think. Whenever I have schedule cancellations I think I'll just record a solo episode and upload it right away. I've had a few people miss interviews, reschedule last minute and then flat out ghost me after recording and it honestly makes me disappointed. So that time doesn't go to waste, I'll just record and upload right away talking about whatever is on my mind and has been going on.

I interview a woman I met almost 7 years ago on a dating site. She didn't know I had herpes at the time, but eventually I shared with her that I had it and not long afterward, she found out she did as well. This is actually our first time meeting even though we've grown to become very close over the years. This is someone I connect with on a soul level and she's actually a person who heavily contributed to my spirituality/emotional intelligence spark of interest. Please bear with me through my sporadic coughs in this and the next maybe 6 episodes. I had something going on at the time and did my best to conceal. We discuss her experiences developing boundaries through abusive relationships, the importance of mental health care integration into sex education, Lyme Disease and HSV, You can connect with me at www.spfpp.org and learn how you can get involved with Something Positive for Positive People's efforts of integrating post-STI diagnosis support with STD Prevention efforts, developing relationships with mental health organizations to get people therapy and the investment into the number 1 SPFPP resource, this podcast.

Hanna Dickinson SHOWED UP for us on this one. We hear a genuine experience from a comic who was newly diagnosed with genital HSV. Not only that, but she talks about her REAL experiences navigating her status like a REAL person, despite her social status. We discuss depression, suicide, abuse, herpes jokes and more on this episode. You can connect with Hanna on Instagram @HansDickie and me @honmychest

The title speaks for itself. After so many individual interactions with people living with HSV, and then attending in person social groups for people with HSV, I notice that there's a major willingness to heal from the individual, and the attendees. The only difference is the risk-reward tolerance from person who will only speak to me as someone who's already made their status known, compared to the person willing to put themselves out there into the unknown with the exclusive sense of safety they created for themselves by being part of the community. Within these communities, you find that there are many amazing stories from humans about their lived experiences as they relate to herpes and as they relate to life outside of herpes and in fact, people with herpes connect far deeper with one another based on non-herpes things in my experience. A frustrating realization is that the CDC, with all its credibility, does not recommend herpes testing even if requested by a patient. Their reasoning is that behavior doesn't change after a person tests positive for herpes. As someone who's interviewed about 200 people with herpes and had thousands of conversations with people living with it who've shared exactly how this has changed their behaviors 100% of the time, we gotta question the validity of their research here. The healing in community vs individually has shown me one thing. Separate, we seek answers from "credible" resources easily accessible and low-risk of another human knowing our status. In community, we share resources as they parallel our own experiences and they circulate among the people directly impacted who also have stake in the accuracy of information given we can challenge it with our experiences and just ask the group. So we ARE the resource. You can connect with our guest, Jen at: Facebook: Jen Lamar Instagram: jen_of_cinnarostor Snapchat: jenjenj87 and I can be found on social media @Honmychest

Dee was diagnosed with herpes 5 years ago 2 weeks after her then boyfriend now husband had his first symptoms. We don't hear stories that touch on how to navigate staying together after a positive diagnosis occurs in an exclusive/committed/monogamous (whichever you choose to call it, relationship. Herpes is extremely common. This untold story is the first of its kind shared here, but it does happen. Most people's struggles with their diagnosis initially revolves around not finding a partner. Other stories shared, the relationship ended and then someone got herpes or there wasn't a relationship to begin with. This is Dee's first time discussing this outside of sharing her experience with her partner, her Doula, her doctor, sister and mother, so I didn't go too deep into her experiences but you get a good feel for where she is with her status as this reflects the experiences of people in relationships where someone tests positive. It just doesn't have to come up. Two people who had an existing relationship prior to it being sexual were diagnosed with herpes. They got treatment, they continued the relationship and now have a family. We hear what herpes has taken away from us, we hear about the silver lining in what it gave us, but what if we understand that it just happens? Nothing was lost or gained in regards to their relationship. Dee just couldn't deliver a natural birth because of an outbreak. How has your life remained the same after your herpes diagnosis? What forced changes have you been making attempts at due to this virus?