Herpes and suicide

[VA2121]

Been struggling with depression lately.  Not sure if it is caused by having herpes or that herpes just exacerbates it.  I know I the past, no doubt it was because I had herpes, but I've been dealing with this for way more than half my life.

It made me wonder, how many of us actually die by suicide and it never gets reported.or tracked.  Herpes has been put on a shelf, way before COVID, to HIV and cancer and nearly any other disease you can think of.  Of course curing HIV and cancer are critical, important.  But the mentality from the scientific and medical community imo has been that herpes doesn't kill you, it's just a skin infection, so it gets put on a shelf for later vaccine or cure consideration.  

Obviously COVID is a different beast, please don't misread me.  But if 10% of the COVID effort was put into finding a cure or vaccine for herpes, how many lives might that have saved from suicide?  How many years might that have prevented many of us from being in a deep spiraling depression.  

I'm glad this community exists.  I want us all to be happy and in love.  But when we say this disease is nothing to worry about, we seem to only feed into that belief that has put us at the bottom of the ladder for a cure or vaccine. 

I hope everyone is well.  I apologize for venting.  You all are great and strong, and I really mean that.  God bless.

[~Minerva~]

Just want to let you know you’re not alone in your thoughts. I think about this a lot as well- how unfair that HSV viruses aren’t included on standard STI screenings, and how dismissive HSV is as a whole. 
The thing is, HSV 1, and especially HSV 2, can turn into something more complicated- Mollaret’s Meningitis, which I am now struggling with. It’s not my experience that HSV-2 is a virus that should be shrugged off by the medical community the way it seemingly is. 

[VA2121]

So, I guess the moderators deleted links I put in my post, maybe that's a rule.  One of the links was from an Australia study that showed a LARGE percentage of suicides had googled about herpes on their computers before committing suicide.  Another article was about how there is a growing recognition in the medical community that the HSV virus which we know hides in our nervous systems may impact the mental health of people with the infection.  These stories seem to be the tip of the iceberg that obviously the main stream media wouldn't care about because of COVID and just because, but also doesn't seem to be raised in our "own" community.  Thoughts?

[~Minerva~]

My thoughts: I’m a bit surprised that the computer history of suicide victims was searched in so many cases; not sure I believe that (not saying you are incorrect or spreading false information, just questioning that as standard protocol in suicides). I am no expert on this though, so perhaps I’m the one who is incorrect.

With that being said, I do believe there are many people who contemplate/attempt/succeed suicide after a herpes diagnosis. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t one of them. It’s hard to accept you have a lifelong condition. 

I do think HSV should be standard on an STI screening, but I’m not sure how to go about fighting for that change. It would certainly save a lot of heartache if people were aware of their status. 

[VA2121]

Minerva, I sent you a direct link to the story in a DM.