Here's my story of how I *think* it happened.

[lovingthroughfear]

Earlier this year I separated from my husband, and I also was in the process of attending a trade school for a career change. As of June/July, I was almost done with school and had just been hired somewhere amazing, so I was feeling very hopeful about my life moving forward. I was also beginning to want to be adventurous with meeting people and dating. I met my husband when I was really young, so I'd never dated anyone, never mind hooked up. (He'd been my first and only sexual partner at that point.) I wanted to embrace my sexuality and see what I liked and disliked... responsibly.

 

I met an acquaintance of a friend at a bar while I was out dancing (something I love to do). We hit it off and had ridiculous attraction to one another right away. As I was just getting ready to move away, and he was just in town visiting, I was having feelings of wanting to have a short-term fling, and he was as well. I made sure that he had condoms, and went back to his place.

 

The condom broke, but he noticed right away and replaced it. He was respectful of my concerns when that happened... clearly he didn't think he had herpes, because he was unfazed. Other than what happened after our get-together, it was an amazing time - thankfully the positives that I took away from that experience have stayed with me also. He told me that I was unbelievably sexy and he hoped that where I was moving, I'd find someone who thought the same about me and told me so every day. (The reason I'm telling this is because it's just amazing how much of a mixed bag this experience was.)

 

Well. I did notice that I was really swollen down there for many days after it happened, and I just attributed that to 1) the rough nature of our encounter and/or 2) that I hadn't had sex in a while. It dissipated after about 2-3 days. About 1.5 weeks later, during the first week of my job, I noticed that I was feeling really raw down there, and that it felt tender to wipe after using the bathroom. At a certain point it even got uncomfortable to sit down. I have an autoimmune skin condition called Lichen sclerosis which affects the skin down there, which is ALSO affected by stress (!!!!! just my luck, right?!?) so at first I figured that the stress of moving and the new job had caused that to flare up, but once the discomfort with sitting occurred I was like "no way, this is too weird" and took a look down there. I was ASTONISHED to see those little clusters of blisters. Called PP right away, and the closest appointment they had was for 5 days away. I groaned, because I was thinking the OB might be over by then, but agreed to the appointment anyways.

 

Thankfully the doctor on staff saw the remnants of the blisters, took swabs, and told me "yeah, that really looks like it's herpes..." The swab testing came back negative, of course, because it was too late in the OB to get a good culture.

 

At first I was sure that my life as I knew it was over. I was full of self-judgement and shame. This guy had only been my 2nd sexual partner EVER. How could this be happening to me??! I was worried that I'd be judged as promiscuous by anyone who'd ever find out about this. I am still struggling with this. I also grew up in a narcissistic, personality-disordered family, so I've finally gotten to the point where I'm starting to have confidence about my innate self-worth without having to be approved by someone for everything, or without having to be error-free and perfect at every turn. And now this.

 

In my good moments I can see what I have to offer, but in my moments of doubt my flaws and baggage (fucked up family, divorce-in-process, history of depression/anxiety/perfectionism/insecurity) seem like they far outweigh my lovability. My friends tell me that I deserve someone great, but when saddled with my doubts I often tell myself that that speaks more to their kindness than to what they actually see in me. Herpes has seemed like it'll be the straw that breaks the camel's back, in terms of someone being willing to be my partner in life.

 

I have questions, and have posted another concern in the disclosures section, but for now I guess I just wanted to get my story off my chest. I admire everyone's bravery here, and hope that I can emulate the confidence that some people here seem to have achieved. Thanks for reading.

[2Legit2Quit]

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