Something Positive for Positive People

Connecting with a piece of my purpose

Give the space to feel how you feel

Sex with saran wrap

Herpes as an invitation to go deeper

Wherever we are is where we are

Polyamory was like the new herpes for me

Always come back to yourself

Expecting rejection

Disclosing via texts

The beauty of the talk in nonmonogamous communities

These are just a few of the major breakthrough conversation topics and quotes that came up for our discussion. I am excited about discussing herpes with someone who is polyamorous and gives us insight to exploring an abundance of relationships despite the limitations often placed on us after our diagnosis. We also have to give our partners what they need in order to feel safe.

We have the hosts of the "Just Keep Swinging" Podcast on to share with us their experience navigating the stigma of being swingers. Married for more than 30 years, they talk about opening up their marriage. Check out their podcast, episode 7 where they talk about having contracted an STI early on in their swinging experience. Link in the show notes. You can have your faith and the kind of relationships you choose.

Closing out the inside look of my process of doing "the work" on myself, I give you what I learned over my week off my HOnMyChest social media, an inside look at what my dating life has been and then the conclusion to it all, followed up by a discovery I made as a result of talking through everything you hear here. To top it all off, I share the best piece of advice I ever received which is to just know when to shut the f*** up. If nothing else is taken from this episode, I say keep in mind to hold intention over expectation at heart. My healing process is ongoing, as yours should be. Replace any of my experiences with what you are facing and maybe it'll be a template for you to fill in blanks.

We honor the life of Nadiya Johanna Wortham this episode.

Something Positive for Positive People began as a suicide prevention resource. Many of the conversations with our stigmatized individuals have included some trauma that has impacted their mental health to some extent leading to depression, suicide ideation and attempts in many cases.

We meet with Grief Counselor, Christine Frampus, to discuss one aspect of mental health stigma, survivors of suicide. In this, we define trauma, suicide and grief so that we're all at the same starting point as we learn to support one another through our grieving and healing processes.

Here we get a look at what healing and "doing the work" looks like from my own personal experience. I'm making a point to share more of myself as I ask a lot of podcast guests. I share what the stages of my own healing looks like post-awareness.

I really wanna shoutout Michelle Cassandra Johnson, author of the book, "Skill in Action". I attended a workshop she put together here in St. Louis at Brick City Yoga through Yoga Buzz where I won't give away much of what was shared beyond the meditation question, "Where am I from?".

Meditating on this, I found myself back in a memory as if it were the present. I was in my child body experiencing the energy of the first home I lived in. The feelings made my body heavy and I managed to pull two words out of the experience that reflected the memory I was in, controlled and emotionless. This explains my pursuit of freedom and why I'm in a space of so much emotional intensity.

Revisiting the environment we come from can provide insight to how we got to where we are now and that certainly is true in my experience. This yoga teacher training is bringing me into the depths of my being and I'm learning the importance of centering and connecting to oneself.

The Gray Rule: Others Can Only Treat You (at best) the Way They Treat Themselves. Over the weekend I got a little bit sick and had to sit down for a while. During that time, I spent a lot of time in my yoga books and reflecting on what I was learning. During a meditation, something that came up for me was my view on disappointment. An ongoing narrative in my life has been, “When I get excited, I will be disappointed”. This stems from my dad issue. I thought if I reframed the narratives individually in areas I experience disappointment, I wouldn’t get disappointed anymore. This is NOT the case.

The shift for me occurred when I realized it was excitement that brought about ongoing disappointment, it was expectations. The reality is, that I expect others to treat me the way I want to be treated simply because that’s what we were all taught about the golden rule. Turns out, the real world just simply doesn’t work that way. We all have our own internal rules we live by. We have our priorities, boundaries, values, and standards. We behave in accordance to what’s a priority to us, not what the priorities of others are. 

If we all treat others the way WE want to be treated, we are bound to be disappointed when that isn’t reciprocated. So here I present to you the SPFPP Gray Rule: “Others can only treat you (at best) the way they treat themselves. Let that sink in, and then download the latest episode of Something Positive for Positive People on your favorite podcast player and listen to me ramble through my philosophy around this.

So, as you hear the word platinum in the podcast episode, swap it out with gray because there’s a platinum rule which states to treat others the way THEY want to be treated. Looks like there’s a book on Business by Tony Alessandra, Ph.D., and Michael J. O’Connor, Ph.D. if you wanna check that out. I recorded the podcast, THEN did my research. Talk about a potential lawsuit. Dodged that bullet.

At STD Engage, a conference of public health professionals hosted by the National Coalition of STD Directors, two of the hosts, Samantha and Rebecca shared the stage with an NCSD member sharing their experiences with health care providers in relation to sexual health. Rob, another host, shared their sexual healthcare horror story via video because they were unable to attend in person. Collectively, hearing these three experiences was enough for me to KNOW these had to be shared more for the sake of creating change in the healthcare space.

Hearing the stories of Akua, Rebecca, Sam and Rob during the recording was powerful. Collectively, the pattern I noticed was that their experiences mirrored a lot of what I hear from other #WNAB stories from discomfort from the providers around sex, lack of bedside manner, bias from the provider, a couple of isms from the providers, providers not being up to date on STI testing protocol and the need for a way to identify sex positive, empathetic and queer friendly health care providers. One thing that stood out that I hadn’t heard much beforehand, is how much work they, as patients had to do on their end from discussing birth control options, getting throat swabs for chlamydia, accessibility and the lack of accountability for providers essentially knowing their shit.

Leslie concludes episode 117 of Something Positive for Positive People sharing her own experience with herpes. We open up where we left off on part 1 of this episode with her form of attachment as a mechanism to survive abuse. We talk about how this shapes her relationship with rejection, shared trauma, and how there appears to be more acceptance of one's herpes status among queer and marginalized women than other groups.

When you received your herpes diagnosis, there was probably an intensity or absence of emotion. Whatever it was, this likely wasn't the first time you felt it. I invite you to explore the most recent time you had that feeling (or absence of feeling) if you are able to name it. Once you have the emotion and know the most recent time you felt it other than your herpes diagnosis, then see if you can identify the FIRST time you felt it. This could have come from an interaction with your early caregiver(s)/parents/grandparents/foster parents. Now that you've identified those three, you have a solid base for establishing an idea of what pattern is consistently present that the emotion emerges from. I BELIEVE (I'm trying to stop using the word hope) you'll find this to be useful.