erinbearlina

Hey everyone. This isn't a post directly about H, but I wanted to share something and ask this wonderful, supportive, amazing group to pray - send good energy - meditate - whatever your preference is for a friend of mine. She's my age, 29, and she has an 8 year old son. A few years ago it was discovered that he had a brain tumor - a very large one. He had emergency surgery and they were able to remove most of it. Ever since then he's struggled to regain some sort of normalcy to his life. Speech therapy, trach tubes, nurses round the clock. Things were ever so slowly creeping back towards normal. Yesterday they discovered two more tumors in his brain, and one on his spine. I'm not sure yet what his prognosis is, but it's not very promising. I see her, my friend, and I love her so much and it breaks my heart to see her going through this. Our lives are so similar - young, single moms, kids around the same age - and yet this one small thing has made them SO drastically different. I see what she's going through, and I can't imagine having to deal with it. And as awful as it makes me feel to say this, it makes me SO incredibly grateful for the good things in my life. It makes my worries about H outbreaks, and my daughter passing her EOG's, and my cat puking on my bed while I was at work yesterday seem miniscule in comparison. I know how much H sucks, and I know what a rotten awful occasional really bad OB feels like, and I know how hard it is to disclose to someone you really care about. I would never want to diminish any of that, because the trials that we go through are personal, and intimate, and difficult because they're OURS. But sometimes when I'm getting overwhelmed and stressed out and OB'ing (and then more stressed out and then more OB'ing!) I stop myself and I think about my friend, and I realize that I should be grateful. Grateful that I have a healthy child, and that the only health problem I have to worry about is H. It could be a hell of a lot worse, and I guess I just wanted to share that with someone. Thank goddess we're all on an H forum, and not an aids forum, or a cancer forum. Or a brain tumor forum. I'm not saying I'm happy I have H - I guess I've just put life a little more in perspective, and it ain't so bad.

He knows. ;) He's moving closer over the summer - I'm going to try to drag (nudge?) him to come to a meeting after that happens. He has a much more negative take on the whole H thing, has had a lot more unfortunate experiences with it than I have. I know I've only been able to come once thus far, but it was SO wonderful. This website - the group - it just fills you up with light, you know? Glad to be back. :)

I've had a decent amount of success with Positive Singles as well. H_Opp is right, you shouldn't exclude the vast majority of the dating population - but it IS nice to date someone without H even being an issue (or in fact being something you can both share, relate to, joke about, etc.).

Hey Abby83! As I'm sure everybody else does, I have my own opinions on all of this. Personally, I always have preferred to tell people sooner rather than later. My ex-husband disclosed to me - which I will forever be grateful for, as it made the whole H thing my choice. But he chose to disclose to me 1) right in the middle of a heated makeout session, 2) after we had been dating a while and I had fallen pretty hard for him. Both, I felt, were mistakes. I don't regret my decision to go forth, but I've always felt like my decision was not necessarily the most rational one given the circumstances on which it was thrown on me. I can definitely see the wisdom in waiting - in letting someone get to know you better, falling in love with you, letting the H be only a small part of what they know of you when you tell them. But although I was able to take H and run with it, a lot of people can't. And if ever the boy in question was someone I really liked, wanted to have a relationship with, I NEVER wanted there to be any chance of any resentment, regret, etc later on down the road. When you disclose to someone you are absolving yourself of responsibility and putting the choice in their hands, yes. But I feel the way it's done, and the "when", plays a small role in that. That being said - if I've learned anything from being a mother it's that things are only an "issue" if you make them an "issue". Someone posted a discussion earlier about casual sex and disclosing - I loved her take on it. H is NOT a big deal. It can be, but if you give it weight and gravity it will seem like a bigger deal than it is to the person you're disclosing it to. The first few times I disclosed I had the whole gut churning, delaying, stalling, BIG SIT DOWN talk - and it never worked out the way I'd hoped it would. After that, I started telling people sooner, earlier, casually and almost nonchalantly. Like it wasn't a big deal to ME. And guess what? 9 times out of 10, it wasn't a big deal to them either. At least with those people, because it wasn't this huge elephant sitting between us, even if they chose not to continue in a sexual relationship I was able to maintain friendships with most of them. Chin up! I hope it works out for you, I really do. :)

This song is SO cheesy, but I always think of it when I'm getting down. The queen of soul sings it best.

Hey everyone! I've been incommunicado for the last little bit - life's been a bit hectic. But I love what's going on here, I love what A is doing, and I wanted to contribute (finally!). I got herpes by choice, which I realize puts me in a category of a select privileged few. I mean - I wouldn't have CHOSEN to get it if I had my druthers, but I was with a man who I loved and who made the responsible choice of disclosing to me. Thought we would be together forever (*dreamy stars in my eyes*). We're now divorced, have been for over a year. When I first contracted herpes, my doc was very nonchalant about it - I appreciated that, actually. He gave me stats on how many people actually have it, said it wasn't life threatening, wouldn't affect potential future babies (I already had one child at that point), etc, etc. I'm sure it didn't occur to him - and it certainly didn't occur to me - the emotional ramifications I would suffer should my husband and I ever split. So let's talk about the emotional ramifications. Initially, being single with herpes, I'm not going to lie - it sucked. My stats were stacked against me - single mother, twice divorced, mortgage payment, and now herpes. How would I EVER find a man who would be willing to put up with all that?? I dated a decent amount - did have some sex. ALWAYS disclosed. (Side note - let me stress how important this is. ALWAYS disclose. As much as it hurt when people opted to back out, having had someone give ME that choice, I knew how important it was. Yes, I have herpes. Yes, my ex-husband gave it to me. But I've never felt any resentment or regret. It was my choice. I'll never take that away from someone else.) Still I felt like I would never really be able to get close to someone. But when I really stopped to think about it, the herpes was only a small part of that. It's just like anything else - we put up barriers, make assumptions, wall ourselves in with our baggage and use it as an excuse to not take chances. Before I had herpes, I used my child in the same way. How would I EVER find a man who would be willing to take in a child that wasn't his own? What 20-something dude wants to be responsible for a kid? But I overcame that, I thought, and I'll overcome this too. And I did. I met a guy on PS who's awesome, and wonderful. Sex with no condoms! Conversations and jokes about outbreaks! Sharing vials of Valtrex! It's all very romantic. Will we be together forever? Who knows. At some point, I may be back in the dating pool - and next time, it'll be with two divorces, a kid, a mortgage payment, herpes, AND I'll be into my 30s. Let's get real people - time does not do ANYBODY any favors. The longer you go, the more baggage you have. I hate that word - "baggage". I'm going to say "life experience" instead. Our life experiences can shape us into who we are, but we ALWAYS have a choice. We can choose to let it consume us, alienate us, depress us. Or we can choose to suck the marrow out of each experience, learn from it, grow. Move on. Ten years ago I was in school studying molecular genetics in California, on track for a very lucrative career, the world at my fingertips. Now I'm twice divorced, a single mother with herpes, living in North Carolina and working as an office manager. That could sound horribly depressing, like my life went completely awry. To be sure, it did not go in the direction I thought it would. But it's made me who I am today, and I LIKE who I am today. As stressful as it is being a mom, my life is so much richer for it. And if I hadn't contracted herpes, I wouldn't have met the awesome guy I'm dating. I also wouldn't have been able to be a support system for my friend's sister (19, just contracted it from her *she thought* monogamous boyfriend). Life has a funny way of working out. You just have to open your eyes and see what it's trying to show you, where it's trying to take you. Embrace it. I know, in my heart of hearts, that all of us WILL find someone to share joys and sorrows with - maybe not even "in spite" of the herpes, but "because" of it! In order for that to happen, though, you have to open yourself up to some hurt. You cannot appreciate the miracle of a sunrise until you have waited in darkness. That doesn't mean you have to muddle through the dark alone, though. I reached out, found support with local groups, with people like A and this website. We can all muddle through together. Just imagine how sweet it will be at the end when the going was so tough. :)

Such a great night! I think it was agreed pretty universally that the herp really isn't a big deal, that the social stigma is the worst aspect of having what is really a glorified rash. Changing the stigma has to start with us! That's partially why I'm so open about it. If I can change just one or two people's minds about "people who have STD's" than I will consider my journey with it a success.