Herpes is NOT a punishment.

I hear this many times from my clients recently diagnosed with Herpes……

“Herpes is a punishment.”

After that blanket statement typically comes old beliefs based in shame. I hear, “it’s my punishment from going from a not-so-great committed relationship with a guy to having fun and getting Herpes.” Or that they shouldn’t have been having casual sex and it’s their Karma. Or that they got drunk and didn’t make a good decision and as a punishment, got Herpes.

Here is the thing…. Herpes is NOT a punishment. It’s a shitty thing that happens to a whole lot of people (estimated 80%!). However, every time you have any sexual contact at all, there is the possibility of getting Herpes. Just like so many people get in cars and have accidents every day, not everyone does. So are you never going to get in a car because you might have an accident? NO. If you don’t there might be a bigger issue at play.

You are not punished with Herpes after breaking up with an asshole and having a casual or committed relationship with someone else that is not them. You could have been in the relationship with that asshole who cheated on you several times and gotten it that way too. Don’t go there. Not worth it.

If you were brought up religious and had sex and got Herpes, God didn’t punish you with Herpes. That sounds like you’ve got some old religious trauma to work out, it’s not about Herpes.

There is one place in the entire United States that tests accurately for Herpes. So on those STD panels that you do with or without your partner? They don’t include that test. So despite a person’s best efforts to make sure they engaged in sex safely, they don’t get assurance that they won’t be infected with Herpes or give it to someone else.

The truth is, people sometimes don’t get a heads-up before being given Herpes. There are so many reasons for this. Maybe the person who gave it to you did not know they had it. Many men are asymptomatic, or if they’ve had a Herpes sore, theirs are not as painful and much less noticeable than the first outbreak that most women have. Can you imagine peeing over an open sore, never mind a huge angry cluster of them? OUCH. That said, even sometimes women don’t know they have Herpes because they may not have had a painful outbreak or maybe they did and thought it was something else or didn’t get it checked out.

Also people often do not know you can get Herpes EVEN if you use a condom. Often people do not realize that if you have a cold sore, if you go down on someone with Herpes, you can give your partner Herpes in the genital area. Also, people typically can feel when they are going to get an outbreak but not everyone can. If they don’t know and you have sex with them, you could get or give Herpes.

If you are reading this and you got Herpes from someone who knew and didn’t tell you, that gives you a lot of information, right? That person knew they were putting you at risk and didn’t let you decide for yourself if you wanted to take that risk or ask questions to understand more. Do you want to be with someone who has information and doesn’t share for fear of losing you or maybe because they aren’t strong enough to deal with how you feel about it or the questions you have?

Herpes is not a curse. It’s not a punishment. It’s definitely a challenge, but it’s not the end of your life or the end of having sex, definitely not. It calls you forward to deal with the stuff that usually comes up after a Herpes diagnosis. Like lack of self compassion. If you believe you are to blame for your Herpes diagnosis, do you have self-compassion for yourself? You can have a pity party. Getting a Herpes diagnosis is devastating. I totally get why anyone would have a pity party. The key is to not have the pity party go on for too long. And not to be too hard on yourself.

Story time….

I used to be a Peace Corps volunteer in the Dominican Republic. I worked with people living with AIDS and very sick and not able to get medications to help them because they were so close to death that the public clinics did not want to “waste” any meds on them because they would “die anyway.” I took one such person to a clinic I had found in the capital who would see my clients and give them meds. The American doctor that ran the clinic was judgmental. The woman I brought one day was less than 100 lbs. She was from a poor neighborhood. After examining her, the doctor looked at me and said to me in English, “Is she a prostitute?” I looked at her, and mustered up all of the restraint I possibly could because I just wanted the woman to get meds. I said, “No. She is a young woman who happened to sleep with a person who didn’t tell her that he was HIV positive.” I also knew that this woman who I brought in was a good mother to 2 little kids who called me auntie. I lived with her family and they treated me like I was their blood. I drank coffee with them every morning and spent hours talking to them every night. I couldn’t believe that this woman, who works with only people with HIV, was so closed minded. How did she not know that HIV/AIDS could happen to anyone?

Then I realized….. AHA! This woman probably knew about HIV/AIDS from medical training, not experience. Surely, if she had learned from experience, she would know most people didn’t get HIV/AIDS from prostitution. She needed to understand how something so horrible could happen to someone. So to protect herself from the pain of being too emotionally involved or overwhelmed by how sad it is that people get infected at a rapid rate, she believed it happened outside of her immediate circle. And she thought could never happen to her or her loved ones.

Herpes touches the lives of more people than you can imagine. And now it’s touched yours. I get that you want to find a way to explain it away. The truth is, this is the cards you have been dealt and it won’t always be this devastating. It will get better. You will learn to live with it. You will learn how to deal with the desire to explain it. It isn’t explainable. The only thing explainable is that it happens very often and the testing is not accurate or optimal, so there will be so many more people diagnosed day after day. It’s not always something you can see and to avoid rejection and vulnerability, people will continue to have sex without disclosing. You get to decide if you want to be one of them.

Herpes is not your fault. It is a fact of life. And now you will learn how to live with it.

If you’ve been diagnosed with Herpes recently or if you’re simply struggling with your diagnosis, check out my Women Coping With Herpes course. It’s self-paced so you can complete it as quickly or as slowly as is needed.

If you don’t want the full 4 segments, you can buy a mini version of the course here.