hey everyone. I’m here to talk a little bit about my story and use this discussion as a relief. I am a 20 year old college student who was just recently diagnosed with herpes. I definitely didn’t take the news well, I screamed at the top of my lungs and threw eggs at the kids house, all I could think is I just ended my teenage years and my dating life is over before it even started, I’m not even legally able to go out and grab a drink with a guy and thought now I never will. I cried for two weeks straight. The absolute first thing I thought about was I am never finding a husband or kids. I don’t know about these other posts but my first outbreak was NOT cute. sores up and down my entire labia, I couldn’t pee, I couldn’t wear pants, I couldn’t shower or walk. I’m an extremely social person so another thing that was killing me was not being able to go out with friends and being forced to stay in my room forever. It was so bad my mom had to drive 7 hours to my school and pick me up to take me home because I just couldn’t even take care of myself. I was really scared to tell my mom, we aren’t that close I never even told her if I had my first kiss or when I lost my virginity or anything. She only found out because the pharmacy called her phone number instead of mine when my prescription was ready. Overall, I was feeling really really s****y, scared to tell my friends I just felt alone. The sad part was that I didn’t even want to have sex with this guy, he knew I said no but he put it in anyway, we didn’t have sex for long he stopped when he saw I was bawling my eyes out but a few minutes was enough to do the damage. And just when I thought I could block him on everything because that experience was bad enough, I had to unblock him and see if he had herpes(which he didn’t know because he was never tested, dick.) After these last few weeks I am starting to learn to love myself. I felt dirty, I felt alone, I felt undesirable and like no one could ever love me again. I have never been so sad in my entire life. I’m still healing from my first outbreak, its been weeks. right now I’m most scared about is if my outbreaks are gonna be as bad as my first one and how frequent they will be, I can’t live in that much pain. After doing some research though I learned that allll this stigma, this scarlet letter is just a f*****g skin condition??? people are the saddest they’ve ever been in their life because of a SKIN CONDITION! its absurd! Herpes is so so frowned upon and I’m looking into ways to bring as much attention to normalize it as much as possible. I want to use this discussion posts for people to share their stories and help worried recently diagnosed people that it gets better! (also some tips to help). Millions of people have this condition you are not alone and you will find the right person. As scary as it is I suggest not bottling up your emotions (I’m the queen of doing this), but it only makes it worse, just find at least one perosn you can trust
Hey! I love your post and wanted to remind you that you will be okay!
I’m in my mid-20s and got it last january. I am also going through a breakup and dealing with Covid anxiety, so I DO get outbreaks at least once a month…but honestly it’s really no big deal!!!
The outbreaks occur with my period and are certainly no worse than having to deal with periods in the first place!
Please keep up your positivity! I like to joke and think - “at least guys won’t just use me for sex.” It may sound silly, but I’m probably better off now that I’m sorta forced to take things slower with guys - it’s much healthier!