ForeverCelibate

@Mercyme I’ve been in this “dark place” since I had the OB and it’s getting worse; not better. The sun may shine but that doesn’t mean that I’m happy and okay with this and I never will be. STD’s are not a symptom a sex. They are a symptom of being irresponsible or amoral. I know where you got that saying and I’m honestly repulsed by that girl’s Ted Talk. She’s literally encouraging people to have a blasé view on their health and futures. That’s not okay in my book. Scientists still do not have any idea what HSV does to you neurologically over time. HSV1 causes Alzheimer’s and GHSV1 causes herpes encephalitis in infants way more than HSV2. I’ve got the infection twice- who knows what that’s going to do to me down the line? Or what it would do to anyone that I pass it to if I dated again. That’s not a risk I’m willing to take and anyone that says that they would be “okay with the risk” doesn’t actually know the risk. People say a lot of things in the heat of passion and then when they actually have to face the consequences, they regret the decision because diseases and health issues are not love. I’m not going to be someone’s cause for regret or the cause of their health and life being ruined. After the first scare I had back in 2018, I told every guy that expressed the slightest interest in me that I expected a full STD panel that included a HSV1 and HSV2 IgG. Most wouldn’t do that because you have to pay out of pocket and it’s a few hundred bucks for the tests without insurance. So I didn’t sleep with them. I thought the guy that gave it to me had lied to me about the last time he’d been with someone and that he had HSV2 and got tested before the antibodies developed. And it’s possible that he did, but I didn’t get HSV2. I got GHSV1 when I’d already had it orally for decades. If your body has the antibodies, this shouldn’t happen. My body is clearly wrong and failed me and I’m going to be the unlucky one that has the neurological problems from this horrible disease down the road.

I would do the same thing if I had HSV2. I would never be with anyone again and when I thought that I had gotten it three years ago, I mentally prepared myself for that. Then I got the negative results and was massively relieved only to end up getting it from the next guy. I’ve known people who have willingly slept with and dated people who had HSV2 and they were all incredibly sketchy too. I know a guy from work who intentionally dates girls with STD’s and other baggage because he has a superiority complex and belittles them and abuses them. He ended up getting HSV2 from one of them and lies to new girls about his status. I knew a girl in high school who cheated on her boyfriend (who she had a kid with) with a guy who had herpes, got it from him, dumped her boyfriend for the guy she cheated with, and then started doing meth with him and lost custody of her kid. There is also the plain and simple fact that if the roles were reversed and someone that I was talking to disclosed to me, I would kindly and politely end the relationship and move on. Even with everything that I know about it, I do not think it’s worth the risk and never will. If I were to be with anyone, I’d be a hypocrite and a bad person with low integrity. I refuse to be that. I can still be a good person and have an STD. I just can’t be a hypocrite and be a good person.

I’ve seen those videos by that woman on YouTube and since he doesn’t get tested regularly, I wouldn’t hang my hat on the statement that he for sure has not gotten it from her. He very likely could have and just doesn’t have outbreaks. An estimated 80% of people who have it don’t know that they have it. Which is a terrifying statistic to me that that many people don’t know their own health status but that’s a different story. I understand the nature of genital herpes pretty well and I just don’t agree that any sexual health issue is a minor condition because of all the potential complications. I will never inflict this on anyone because if I got it on my genitalia when I already had the same infection orally, very clearly I am an outlier and I’m probably likely to transmit it genitally too. I’m not willing to take that risk. I have to be true to my own values to be able to sleep at night.

This is a complicated and depressing story, so I apologize in advance for the length and how emotional I am. I am a 29 year old American woman. I had my first cold sore OB when I was 9 or 10 years old and have had multiple oral HSV1 outbreaks over the last couple of decades. I have always been very careful when it comes to my sexual health and in 2018, I became even more neurotic about it. My last serious relationship ended 3 1/2 years ago. The guy cheated on me, contracted HSV2, dumped me for the girl he got it from, and then lied to me so he could sleep with me again to try and pass it to me so that he could cast doubt on who he got it from (she confessed everything to me and was almost gloating about it). I’ve gotten the IgG multiple times in the years since and I’ve never had a positive HSV2 result, though I have had a positive HSV1 results. Since I’ve had cold sores since I was a kid, that was not at all surprising nor concerning. After the experience with my ex, I did not date, have sex, or even kiss anyone for over 2 1/2 years. Last year, I had a guy who is a superior at work start to pursue me (I work in concert production so the typical HR rules do not apply) and after 6 months, he wore me down and I gave him a chance and slept with him. About 5 days afterwards, I started to feel flu-like symptoms with a sore throat, swollen lymph nodes in the neck and groin, body aches, and chills. Three days after that, I developed what was clearly a herpes lesion on my labia. As soon as I noticed the sore, I went to an urgent care clinic that visually diagnosed me with HSV2. The doctor who owns and runs that particular clinic does not run actual STD panels or swab tests and I told the doctor that I have had cold sores most of my life. I told the guy (and flipped out on him as anyone would in that situation), he insisted he doesn’t have HSV2, and ghosted me until I had to see him again at work (the pandemic pretty much shut down our line of work until this past June/ July). (Unrelated to my HSV diagnosis but still relevant to the story): the guy in question is a production manager/ lighting designer and video tech. I’m a sound engineer/ tech. We were both working for one company, he left that company earlier this past July, and I left that company not too long after. I contracted genital herpes in April. At the end of August, I ended up being offered a job at the company he left our old company for and initially wasn’t going to take the job (even though it was with my dream company) because of him. I ended up having to work with him as a freelancer on a gig at the beginning of September and he cornered me to tell me that he had put in a good word with the company owner for me. I was still not going to to take the offer, but the freelancing deal wasn’t working out and the company owner called me the following week telling me to be in the warehouse the next day. I don’t regret taking the job because I love the company and I’m making more money than I ever have before with some really big clients. But having to see the guy and work with him is really hard because most of the time he gives me the silent treatment. Fast forward to the end of October and I went and got another IgG test for confirmation (that allotted enough time for the antibodies to develop) and I have a negative HSV2 result but a very positive HSV1 result that the doctor said looked like a relatively recent infection based on the viral count. I am not majorly immunocompromised and I do not have any autoimmune issues. I was always told that if you have had HSV for over a year (let alone 20 years), the antibodies will protect a different part of your body from contracting the infection. I know for a fact that the guy in question is positive for HSV1- we talked about it prior to being intimate and he did perform oral sex on me that night. When I got the results, I sent them to him and apologized for flipping out on him. He did not reply and is still giving me the silent treatment at work for the most part. When we do talk, it’s short and not about anything that I feel needs to be talked about. I have been struggling with this diagnosis ever since I had the genital OB in April. I have seen all the posts from various sites online from people who have GHSV and say it’s a minor skin condition and does not reflect on your character, but I have to be honest- I strongly disagree. I know a lot of people who have GHSV and every single person I have met who has it contracted it by cheating on or with someone. I was once friends with a girl who told her boyfriend at the time that she contracted it when her ex had cheated on her but then confided in me that she actually got it from cheating on the guy she was seeing at the time and that she didn’t know which guy that she was cheating with that she contracted it from. She was flat out proud of it. Obviously, I did not continue the friendship because to me, that behavior is disgusting. I also once worked with a girl who contracted herpes from her boyfriend and then turned around and intentionally gave it to the next guy she was with because in her mind, that was “taking (her) power back”. Again, I think that’s very sick and messed up. After the relief of finding out that my ex was not successful in his attempt to give me an incurable STD, I vowed that this would never happen to me again because I would be even more crazy vigilant going forward. Contracting genital herpes, even if it’s HSV1, has psychologically destroyed me and my faith in anything worthwhile happening in my life- especially since it happened the one time I let my guard down and gave someone a chance after 2 1/2 years of being completely single and celibate. And I’m a closet freak- I LOVE sex. Now I will never get involved with anyone again because I would NEVER forgive myself if I passed it on to someone else. There is absolutely no sure way of knowing when you are or are not asymptomatically shedding and condoms don’t completely protect because it’s passed via skin to skin contact. I shouldn’t have even been able to get HSV1 on my genitalia when he did not have a cold sore outbreak and I’ve had cold sores myself since I was a young child and I do not have an autoimmune disorder or any other issue like that. The only thing I can think of that could have messed with my immune system to let myself get re-infected with something I’ve had for decades is that I got the COVID vaccine 8 days before I was exposed and contracted it. I’ve heard some anecdotal stories of people being vaccinated against chickenpox, getting the COVID vaccine, and then getting a nasty shingles outbreak. Since chickenpox/ shingles are types of herpes viruses, that’s the only logical explanation I can come up with, though I can’t even ask questions about the COVID vaccines regarding this without having people shriek at me that I’m a crazy anti-vaxxer and that I’m trying to kill people. I’ve struggled with self-image, self esteem, and self worth throughout my life due to a lot of trauma and abuse. However, I really turned a corner on those issues towards the end of 2019 and I actually started liking myself and feeling good about myself for the first time ever in my entire life. I was able to maintain that until I saw the lesion on my labia this past April. Now all the work that I did on myself was for nothing because I know myself and I’ll never be able to feel good about myself again with this diagnosis. My own mother won’t even give me a hug anymore because the virus can asymptomatically shed on your lower back and upper legs- not just your genitals and buttocks. I get where she’s coming from and I don’t resent her for it but it’s just the icing on this awful cake that life has served me. I apologize for how long, rambling, emotional, and depressing this post is but I needed to tell my story somewhere. I tried to kill myself over all this back in August and obviously failed. I most likely won’t try again because I’m so bad at trying to end my own life that it’s embarrassing, but I still don’t know what I did to deserve this happening to me or how it’s even medically possible when I had oral HSV1 for 20 years prior to getting the GHSV1 infection.