Something Positive for Positive People

This episode comes with a trigger warning for childhood sexual assault. I interview my therapist I'd been working with throughout 2020 and a few months into 2021. It's amazing how when I put myself out there as a black man with herpes I was able to find someone with shared life experiences in a way we could support one another's healing. Rollon is a member of the LGBT+ community, disabled, HIV/HSV positive and is still out here wheelin and dealin! Like me, her turned his traumas into turning points for the healing of others.

I keep getting positive feedback from our group therapy sessions. Today's episode comes with a trigger warning as it references the 'villain' of a person. Our guest shares in her journey how she cheated, brought home herpes, and endured a relationship she should've left LONG ago out of guilt. We discuss how connection to the others in group therapy made her feel different than the social media support groups as they perpetuate venting and negativity, whereas therapy's emphasis on healing being the connecting point made her feel like she wasn't alone. Best described, she felt alone, but together.

Can you imagine not knowing if you have a condition that needs to be disclosed to those you may expose to it because your test won't tell you whether you're positive or negative? How do you navigate this!? Well, Rita describes her own experiences.

The intersection of overlapping identities intensifies the impacts of traumatic events. The impact of stigma on a white cis-gendered male has a significantly DIFFERENT impact than it would say an intersex black trans woman. You put one member of these overlapping identities in the same situation, and you have completely different possibilities for outcomes with minimal overlap. Mental health impacts COULD be the same, but statistics show the risk of violence for existing is something the former has minimal chances of experiencing. Today we can an inside look of the intersex, trans experience with my primary health care provider, simply because she’s given me my STI & HIV tests since 2019, Leigh.

We wrapped up our first cohort of SPFPP Group Therapy and Mya joins us to share how it helped her. When we look at support groups for people who've experienced a sexual trauma like an STI diagnosis, we aren't ever fully prepared for what can come up in those spaces in regard to other things not exclusively related to herpes. This episode comes with a trigger warning for sexual assault, as our guest felt comfortable sharing the details of healing from her own sexual trauma.

Jordan joins us following her 1 year anniversary of podcasting to reverse the script . She's interviewed me on her podcast to discuss my experience and work living with genital HSV2. What she didn't tell me, was everything she shares on this podcast! As a health care professional, she was able to validate the gap of experiences between patient and provider when it comes to HSV.

Connect with Jordan by checking out her podcast, "Vaginas Vulvas, and Vibratiors" Or follow her on Instagram @Jordandnelle

This was supposed to be a quick update on the survey and overlooking herpes in relationships but it turned into an hour long celebration of our success with this 2021 HSV survey!

If you've seen the movie 300, you'll know what I mean when I say I'm feeling like King Leonidas of Sparta in the mofo right now! We got MORE than 1,000 people to rise against the Trojan Empire... Stigma! We have declared war on stigma and this survey creation was the initial kicking in the chest of the Trojan messenger that came up in our house, Sparta for peace! You ain't gettin that up in here SON!

Okay I am getting carried away lol but you get the point by now.

Anyways, the podcast stresses the importance of identifying what's important in your relationships. For me, I learned from my last relationship the importance of communicating with emotion vs communicating. Emotions can be the undercurrent of language/words being communicated and aren't something to be avoided through repression or ignored altogether.

Ask yourself are you supported, challenged AND celebrated in all your expression/identities by your partners/communities/relationships. Are you communicating what you need when you need it? As much as I try to downplay my experience with herpes, it's a major part of my life and identity, but by choice. I understand this to be valid now, and the validation of this in my expression is important as it is part of my self expression.

Survey results are being cleaned up and I'll post them to the website as soon as I can! Thanks for your support and patience!

I interview 35 year old Lauren. A bisexual polyamorous woman who shares how she began to reconnect with her body after some unethical decisions that revealed to her who she was NOT. We discuss dating out of convenience, and then transitioning out of the space you no longer wish to reside in. We speak to a few ways she was able to obtain her own self-validation through masturbation and self-exploration. An interesting exchange of dialogue around people disclosing one partners' HSV status to another, and what would it be like if people had to disclose that they had been intimate with someone with HSV in the past to potential partners.

Link to the 2021 data collection survey is in the show notes or can be found here: https://www.spfpp.org/take-the-2021-spfpp-survey

The journey from resistance to receiving is tough. Think about how we look at what a herpes diagnosis has taken away from us without ever looking to see what it has given us. There's a natural rejection to what is undesired, followed by an inevitable need for acceptance to it. I interview a fellow Yogi who shares how he began to heal by accepting that his herpes diagnosis was a good thing for him.

Bek Antonucci joins SPFPP sharing everything we stand for here. The interconnectedness of mental health and sexual health that becomes inflated by herpes stigma is something we explore without herpes even taking up more than 10% of the conversation.

This episode is about avoidance and what it looks like in action. We also dive deeply into what it looks like to break patterns of avoidance and Bek does it so smooth.

We talk about blaming people as a form of avoidance, staying in a relationship with someone we resent as a form of avoidance, use of substances as a form of avoidance, sex, and being around people who aren't in alignment as a form of avoidance as well.

I consider this to reflect the direction of where SPFPP is now, where a lot of what we're talking here is about recognizing patterns in behavior and changing what we don't like, accepting what we do like. This is an episode of self-discovery, exploration, and healing through the lessons of avoidance.

Follow Bek on Instagram @bekantonucci