 Happy National Herpes Awareness Day! We're so proud to introduce to you episode two of the podcast which is called Did You Hear That She Has Herpes where a friend of mine comes out publicly for the first time about her herpes diagnosis and then another friend of mine who is an expert in herpes sheds light in a way that I needed. This episode was really impactful for me to produce because a few years back somebody who was close to me came out and told me about their herpes diagnosis and I wish with all my wishes that I could have been able to send them this episode. That to be said I highly encourage you to not only listen to this for yourself but be very mindful of who else could hear this message. It's one of my favorite episodes actually. Let's talk about herpes, baby! Yes! We're going there! I didn't know how else to start this because I know that this is nerve-wracking for you so I thought you would burst into song. No, I appreciate that and you make it much less nerve-wracking because you're so calm about it you're like you got this but it is because this is not something that people talk about right and it's why this had it was something that I had so much shame around and was a deep dark secret for so long for me because it felt like no one else had it even though we know that's not true so at the time it was a very lonely experience I didn't tell my you know my mom even girlfriends like I did not tell anyone and I kept that to myself and you could see how that's a heavy burden to carry of something that you feel is wrong that is not not going to go away even though it is manageable and it does go away you don't live without breaks it's just like anything yes but it was so uncomfortable the first time it happened and I remember going to bath afterwards they tell you to put epsom salt and all that and I just remember just crying to myself just crying why me you know getting into that mode and then it went away and then it was almost like oh okay I went into a bit of a denial and I almost thought I had cured myself I did all these things like I don't have it like affirmations it's not there and because it didn't really come back again in my mind I thought okay I'm not someone with herpes anymore and that continued for a long time and I am not proud of that and I think finally it came to a point where I had to take a deep look at myself and my relationships did you have another outbreak since I had a here and there and I it's and even while I'd been in monogamous relationships I I would hide it not proud of that like and it was as crazy as in some of those relationships I would say well they're not showing up for me they're not fully you know there yeah and yet I started asking myself well I'm I fully there am I fully showing up the way I want to be like look everything's a mirror for what you're putting out there that's such a great point right and so it was easier kind of as I was younger and going through that but as I got older and it became clear okay I want to find that person I want to start a family with get married to a partner for life I finally confronted the fact that I needed to deal with this and and really understand the trauma because it is a trauma a physical mental and emotional trauma and I never dealt with it not once in therapy had I brought it up and even tell your therapist I didn't even tell my therapist that's how much in denial I was in that like and that's how much shame is around this it was my deep dark secret I said I was taking it to the grave like I was like but then it became more obvious as I was learning about these spaces and working on myself my personal growth really taking accountability for my life I realized this is the a major thing that I had not processed properly or confronted properly and I had to understand why what did this diagnosis really mean to me as a person because as a diagnosis once again which is what the surprising thing it's not a big deal it's manageable there's preventatives there's like yeah when you get an outbreak you take a pill it goes away in five days it's like anything it's not ideal but it's not going to kill you but you know what will kill you is your mentality around it your emotional health around it and then I finally reconciled that of what I was feeding myself the the hurt and pain I was keeping inside of me did you think about it every day a lot of times when it was it was amazing and sometimes I didn't think about it and it was just like oh I haven't thought about in a while that's the thing I have okay and then what I what I noticed is every time I would think about it or get anxious or stressful just like a canker pops up where you get pimples it would pop up and so for me a big part of coming to peace with with it was also really being able to understand myself and my nervous system and like what actually brings me peace so you could see how that's a huge beautiful evolution so there's a lot of beauty in this when I was ready to confront it and my hope is it doesn't take people as long as it took me but everyone has their own journeys but in more people speaking out they could realize okay I got this and yes I get to talk about it and feel it it's not about keeping those feelings inside and process what this means to me because it could mean different things to different people depending on your socioeconomic backgrounds your race your gender privilege access to healthcare I mean it can mean so many different things to so many different people and so my hope is that the other side of this and this experience for me has really forced me to look at myself and to understand my needs understand what intimacy really means to me consent and also understand that it's okay to be rejected wow I think that that is such a powerful sentiment that is unique and a fresh take I want you to unpack that more what does that mean okay to be rejected yeah a big fear or in approaching this and sharing with people specifically because I'm I'm as this hetero woman men my relationship with men was I won't be accepted and they're not going to want to be with me let's let's step back betrayal in this case that happens when you don't disclose or you're not having these more intimate conversations it's not just a betrayal to the person you're with it's a betrayal to yourself because you are also assuming that someone's not going to love you for all of you you're rejecting yourself yeah you're basically so then yeah let's get to the next layer of that how much is it someone else's rejection versus what you've already done to yourself and that's that's heavy to carry that and also to acknowledge that that you've basically also been punishing yourself in the process and I was doing that for years and while I appear confident and like I love myself I preach self-love I don't know like that it does not feel like self-love chapter one of your book let me hold it up because you know I'm obsessed strange bedfellows it's a book that I just literally reference all the time um chapter one actually is about herpes is that on purpose it's called killing the scarlet H it is completely on purpose was totally intentional because that is the STI for which I get the most questions for which my patients are most concerned when they get the diagnosis they you know feel devastated and I just think like let's put that in perspective I mean I completely understand that people when they come out with an STI diagnosis they get slut shamed like they're out there trying to be sex positive trying to advocate trying to normalize STIs and they get slut shamed by people saying you know I've even had folks who are out on social media having people say like you deserve to die you know you don't deserve to you know have a sex life because now you're unclean whatever infected contaminated and so yes people are hesitant the more people we have like Shira the more people we have out there who are saying yes I had an STI and I'm fine you know what I mean I'm living with it or I cured it and I'm fine the more people we have like that the better we're gonna you know get in terms of cracking the nut around stigma and you know so I tell people all the time like I've had at least one STI that I know of I had HPV for a couple years and and that's a super common STI that everybody gets and herpes is right up there in terms of how many people have it and you know in fact as you know Shan more than half of us in this country have at least one type of herpes so why are we going to go around slut-shaming people for something that most of us have it doesn't make any sense the first couple of years that somebody gets a herpes after someone gets a herpes diagnosis they are more likely to be shedding more likely to have outbreaks so those are the years where transmission risk is the strongest and so taking suppression every day during those years can actually you know greatly reduce like it can reduce by 50% or more the risk of transmitting to another partner after that time period if you're not having any outbreaks then the choice to go on suppression is kind of like an optional thing so if you do want to prevent transmission to partners we do know that you will be shedding even though you have no outbreaks you'll probably be shedding you know for about three days a month for the rest of your life and so you can take you know antivirals to just reduce that risk even a little bit more of transmission but it's not something you have to do with HIV prep as you mentioned which is kind of like a birth control pill for HIV once you stop taking it that's it you're you know just as vulnerable as you were prior it's not like when you're actually living with a herpes or hsv where it starts you know it's really kind of prolific in the beginning and then it starts to burn out you know over time but again someone who's living with hsv is going to be shedding a little bit for the rest of their lives and they should expect that i had no idea that there was actually down to the number of days so do you know for the first two years what percentage of the time somebody might be shedding love is in friends i'm gonna take you on a trip baby i don't pretend i said love is in friends i'm gonna hold you down down to the end i said