Hello everyone!
Long-time lurker and first-time poster. I’ve had these thoughts swimming around in my head for a while, and I want to get them down.
My story: I’m in my early 30s and female. I contracted oral HSV-1 about a decade ago, possibly during study abroad in college. I freaked out and thought my world was ending, so much so that my pediatrician told my mother to take me to an infectious-disease specialist. The doctor prescribed me Acyclovir since I was in tears the whole visit and “it was obviously a big deal” for me. I couldn’t understand how it wasn’t a big deal for him. No one I had ever known had cold sores.
I was in a long-term relationship at the time with someone who had immigrated to America as a teenager. He said cold sores were nothing in his home country, and he made me feel better. We broke up after three years and a decent amount of unprotected sex because I found out he was cheating on me with at least one of my friends.
Fast-forward to two years ago, and I’m at my annual gyno checkup. I tell her to run the full STD panel (even though I haven’t had sex in years at that point), and why not include the IgG blood test for herpes? I mean, I already know I have it, right?
A week later, the receptionist very dryly informed me I’d tested positive for both HSV-1 and HSV-2…excuse me? That day, my world stopped. I cried at work, I cried at home, and I continued crying for many, many weeks afterward. How the hell did I have genital herpes when I’d never even had an outbreak? Did my ex-boyfriend—my first and only boyfriend—get it from one of the girls he cheated on me with? Did he have it all along, and did he know if he did?
In all of this, I learned a surprising fact: While crying on the phone to my parents after that recent diagnosis, my mom told me she has GHSV-2, and my dad said as far as he knows, he’s never contracted it. My mom didn’t tell my dad she had it until after they were married (!!!), but I think that’s a product of a different time—the 1970s—and people not viewing it with the enormous stigma they do now.
This year, after not dating anyone for 10 years, I decided to take the plunge with a friend of a friend. He seemed sweet and told our mutual friends he really liked me, but I was wracked with anxiety because it was my first time disclosing to a partner (only a few close girlfriends know). He took it decently well except for a few ignorant comments like “Well, I’m clean” and “I guess I can’t go down on you,” even though I explained I’d never had an outbreak, I’m on Valtrex, and that’s not the site GHSV-2 prefers. I encouraged him to do his research; I doubt he ever did.
I broke things off with him after three months because he became cold and distant. He’d turn his head away from me in bed after we’d have sex, he’d freak out if the condom slipped off or broke, and he responded to my gentle verbal guidance of what worked for me with a frustrated “Do it yourself, then.” In short, he turned out to be a jerk, and I know I deserve better than that. If herpes was the reason he didn’t want a relationship, I wanted to tell him that sleeping with me was just about the stupidest thing he could do. (I didn’t.)
This brings me back to single again, which I’m OK with—it’s how I’ve been for the past decade. My problem is what happens when I start dating someone. I feel like disclosure needs to happen so early in the process, no one will ever see me as anything but herpes. I will never get to find out if I have physical or even emotional chemistry with someone before I have to disclose. I also feel like I’m trapping or tricking someone by getting them interested in me and then dropping this on them.
I’ve tried mindfulness techniques where you acknowledge those thoughts and let them go, but mine don’t seem to go away. I know I should consider myself lucky—minimal cold sores, zero genital outbreaks—but I can’t help returning to that dark place again and again. I believe that if the situation were reversed and someone disclosed to me, I don’t think I would take the risk. So how can I possibly expect someone to accept me?
For those of you who have regrets of asking for the blood test and finding out something like me, do those ever fade? And for those who’ve dealt with this longer than I have, how do you come out on the other side? When I get a cold sore once or twice a year, my life is ruined all over again, as if it was the very first time. It's a visible reminder that I have this disease for life.
In a way, I should be grateful: I already know my status. Herpes will never pop up and surprise me. I also get to give future partners the choice I didn’t get to make. I’ve been able to educate the friends I’ve told, and there’s quite a bit of misinformation out there. There are good days where I have positive thoughts and I truly like myself. But on bad days, my brain tells me that no matter how smart, accomplished, strong, pretty, or good of a person I am, I will never be more than herpes.
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