Something Positive for Positive People

I'm joined for this 2 part episode of SPFPP by 27 year old Bliss, a Black woman who shares her experience being diagnosed with trichomoniasis and herpes simplex virus type 1 while in a relationship. After being unclear about what her initial symptoms were because of her health care provider's language, she thought she only had oral herpes. Ending part 1, we touch on her own mental health struggles including battling depression and suicide ideation.

The Dildo Duchess, Zoe Ligon, AKA Thongria, author of "Carnal Knowledge Sex Education You Didn't Get in School", joins Something Positive for Positive People opening up with a complete mind boggler for ya! She found out she had herpes from her boyfriend who she gave oral sex to while she had a coldsore. Yes everyone, coldsores can in fact cause herpes outbreaks, do you know why? Because coldsores are herpes. Zoe shares how she had terrible boundaries which were just no boundaries. We discuss how asking for what you want is interconnected with one's ability to say no. We talk through how to exercise boundaries and navigating an STI that you didn't get from sexual contact. Zoe can be found on Instagram at @thongria. She is also the Founder of @shopspectrumboutique, an online educational pleasure shop based in Detroit Michigan which you can also follow on Instagram. Zoe and her partner also host a podcast called Hot Brain which I will be an upcoming guest on, so follow that too! I'm on social media at @HOnMyChest.

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