I’m 23. I developed herpes from someone who told me they were clean. The condom fell off during sex. I thought I just had a sore vagina from the sex, but the days afterwards it got increasingly more painful and more and more blisters appeared. I cry every time I urinate. Sometimes I can’t walk properly or sit down properly because of the pain. I was only able to get to the doctors today and she confirmed my well researched suspicions. I cried the entire appointment and she ended up putting me on a mental health plan to try and deal with my emotion over it all. I didn’t eat for 24 hours because I was so upset. I just can’t help feeling so worthless and horrible and like I’ll never find someone who won’t look at me as a dirty gross person. I’m still in so much pain and I just don’t know how to stop it getting me down so much. I don’t know if everyone felt like this when they first contracted the virus but any input from people in similar situations or success stories would be appreciated
Hey, I just want to let you know that all of us feel like this when we first find out. It’s absolutely Normal to feel all of these emotions. Please don’t feel disgusted with yourself. 1 in 6 people have genital herpes, that’s a lot. I know when you’re first diagnosed you think it’s the most horrible thing in the world. I just got diagnosed myself. Almost everyone I know that has genital herpes have found someone who loves them and wants to be with them and they never break up because of this disease. One thing that has helped me a lot so far was to tell myself over and over that it’s just a skin condition. I’d start crying, and thinking of killing my self, and have to think to myself, “so you’re really gonna give a stupid skin condition this much power?” Don’t let this disease define you. I’m sure you’re still the awesome person you were before your diagnosis. You can and you will make herpes a small part of your life. And some day it may be a cure for this but that doesn’t mean you get to stop living and loving yourself until that happens. I’m 20. Going to be a nursing student. I have it too. And no it’s not fair. It’s not fair that something pleasurable like sex and something meaningful like loving and trusting someone resulted in me ending up with the disease. No, we don’t deserve it. But there are good things that come with it. You are forced into self love. You’re forced to be a more knowledgeable person and knowledge is power. You’re learn to weed out the good guys from the bad ones. You begin to take care of yourself more and be grateful that it wasn’t anything more serious, because we don’t die from this. And that doesn’t make it better because we’re still stuck with it and sometimes it can make us feel so lonely and ashamed we’d rather die, but there is medication you can take to shorten and prevent outbreaks. Personally, I haven’t taken it, but I have been taking vitamin C and l-lysine (1000mg a day, 3 when having an outbreak) and I feel as normal as I did before I was diagnosed. Everything will be okay. Heal at your own pace and get support. I’m always a message away.
I’m thankful beyond words for your reply, I know I said a lot of this on your post but I feel 20x better knowing I’m not the only girl my age dealing with this scary time. I’ve already done so much research and feel a lot more in control of things. I’ve started taking the lysine too and am hoping this pain settles soon. Thank you again, I’m so appreciative x