SPFPP 286: Use What You Got to Get What You Want

Many conversations I've been having these past two weeks have been around not sharing your positive herpes status with a partner. Summer is rapidly approaching and I want ya'll to be intentional with your interactions to ensure you get the outcomes you want. This episode covers the topic of not disclosing and is just the guidance I've consistently given to people who've reached out to me just venting about how unfair it is.

What people need to understand is that not disclosing isn't about herpes, it's about intimacy. We prioritize the illusion of intimacy at the detriment of our integrity when we don't disclose, and this has way more of a long-term impact on us than we realize when it comes to REAL intimacy and connecting. We get better at what we practice. So if we practice not being vulnerable, we get better at not being vulnerable. When we practice doing so let's say . . . during disclosure, yes we get better at that, but we also get better at vulnerable conversations that make us more emotionally available and connected.

Episode 286 Transcript

Wearing All the Hats and Navigating Non-Disclosure

00:00:00 Courtney Brame: All right, welcome to Something Positive for Positive People. I'm Courtney Brame. Something positive for Positive People is me, um the podcast host, the editor, the person who reaches out to the guests. I do the scheduling, I do the uh um what's that thing called? promotion. I do all of the um… I do everything. I do everything for the podcast. I do everything for the nonprofit. I'm the executive director, marketing director. I do the coordination between the board members, as well as the grant applications, speaking applications, the disclosure coaching calls, whatever you want to call them. I run social media accounts. Uh but I also work. So I got two part-time jobs. And I also… well I'm learning more about yin yoga so that I can start teaching that as well. So um I want to apologize for missing the release date yesterday cuz this week was just- I had to be up at 4:00 and I didn't get home till 7:00.

00:01:43 Courtney Brame: So that left me with like an hour and a half, two hours to really just get ready for the next day. So if anybody has any questions about the inconsistency here, then that's what it is. Not to make excuses, but there's literally only so many hours in the day. And I've tried to record um wherever I could, like at work, finding a spot to go and just record a podcast episode, but it was loud. I couldn't do it. So, with that said, here we are. I guess it works out because today I get to um I was able to sleep in till about 6:00 a.m., which is incredible for me. And then I decided to go ahead and pop up and make this podcast episode. And this one is really going to be centered around not disclosing your herpes status or not sharing your herpes status or initiating that conversation with partners. And before going into that part of the conversation, I want for people to know that uh you can donate uh at to Something Positive for Positive People by going to www.spfpp.org or uh Venmo's Courtney Brame.

00:02:48 Courtney Brame: PayPal is SPFPP. Patreon is SPFPP and then there's also CashApp and that's just my first and last name. So if you want to do that, please go ahead and do so. All right, having a video version of this, I recognize that my Instagram audience and the podcast audience are not always the same people. I'll talk about things on the podcast where people on Instagram will reach out and ask me about stuff that is typically done or said on the podcast, especially recent episodes. I'll talk about stuff on Instagram where people who will reach out to me who listen to the podcast will ask about. So, I'm hoping that combining at least in this case uh the video format of Instagram and the audio format of the podcast will allow for me to have something that is useful to everybody who listens to or finds Something Positive for Positive People. And I recognize this. I recognize that social media is one place, one audience, and then the podcast is a completely different one.

00:03:50 Courtney Brame: Uh there's a little bit of overlap, but I would argue that it's not even a relevant percentage of which there's that crossover between the two. Um recently, a lot of conversations have been coming up around not telling a person that you have herpes. And not to say that everybody who listens to this podcast or who will see this is someone who doesn't have it or who assuming that they have it, but I want to be sure to speak to this topic as a whole by first off just saying that if you have these thoughts, it may we have the thoughts, right? Because it's easy. It is an easy thing to do to just withhold information from a person, especially when what it is that you want is right there in front of you right now at this moment. So, it's important that you at the very least consider looking at the bigger picture of what it is that you want with this person or what you want, period. Because sprinkling deception into your desire, especially at the expense of another person's overall well-being, is not going to often produce the result that you want.

Hookup Culture and Defaulting to Condoms

00:05:01 Courtney Brame: Like that's, if anything, creating more of a degree of separation between you and this person and keeping you from being able to fully connect with one another. I recently made a post where there was a guy who reached out to me and he was coming up on his one year since he was diagnosed and we had talked a year ago and um when he reached out he talked about being in therapy and he talked about how he's been having more of these conversations with his friends around him talking about their herpes status and that uh they've not disclosed their status to people. And on one hand, it's like, okay, one, people don't generally talk about their sexual health status uh before having sex. We do, in fact, default to just wearing a condom. The Centers for Disease Control here at CDC.gov has six recommendations for preventing STDs. The first one, well, I don't know what order it is. I know there's six of them though. One of them is to get tested to know your status.

00:06:09 Courtney Brame: Uh practice mutual monogamy between partners. Get vaccinated. And they only really mention the HPV vaccine. Uh they talk about of course abstinence. And then there is also um I don't know why I'm not remembering all six, but one of them is wearing condoms. And condoms really are or were created to prevent pregnancy because they keep the fluid of the penis from getting into the vagina if worn correctly 100% of the time. What they don't prevent is STI that come from skin-to-skin contact or if the condom falls off or if it breaks and there's transmission that way. But we don't, we don't talk about that. So in the society that we live in, what happens is we often will default to wearing a condom as a means of avoiding having to have the communication that is necessary to really know the status of yourself and your person prior to going into the sex that you're going to have, whatever that relationship is going to look like.

00:07:19 Courtney Brame: The default is very avoidant of emotional vulnerability and um and uh it's very just avoidant because we don't have to have that conversation. Why do I need to have a conversation if I'm going to wear a condom is what a lot of people are thinking. And even health care professionals are saying just wear a condom and you don't have to worry about anything. Even if you're wearing… uh using your antivirals, if you're taking antivirals, that reduces the chance. It's unlikely that you'll pass it on to a partner, but that's not that's not accurate. And for the health care providers who uh are saying this, that's inaccurate information. And this directly conflicts with their role in STD prevention because they're the initial touch point of STD stigma. When a person has any inkling of possibly having a sexually transmitted infection, they go to a health care provider, they get tested, they find out they're positive, and then they're told, "All you have to do is take your antivirals and wear a condom and you'll be fine."

00:08:25 Courtney Brame: People are in that space looking for a reason to not have to have this conversation. It's hard. And we live in a predominant hookup culture where in order to do that, in order to survive or thrive in it, whichever side of the spectrum you're on, you really do need to be able to preserve your ability to continue in these kinds of relationships if you want the I want to say it's 100% of the time the illusion of intimacy through sex or the illusion of connection through uh physical intimacy, but for a lot of people that's what it is. um for engaging in a relationship that is going to have some sort of a connected component, you have to understand that this may be shortterm. You got to be uh ready for in the event that you get your feelings hurt. And I see a lot of that. I see a lot of people who are emotionally unavailable because for so long they've had to practice being emotionally avoidant. And I've had relationships this way as well where someone was just not fully available.

00:09:29 Courtney Brame: And for me, what happened was I had the practice of getting better at being with emotionally unavailable people, therefore picking up that skill of being emotionally unavailable. I think that that same thing goes for not disclosing. If we choose not to disclose our sexual health status or our positive herpes status to a partner, we get better. We get more better. We get better at not disclosing our status. And what disclosing our status to a potential partner represents is an invitation of vulnerability. Oftentimes people who are hearing from us that we have herpes, uh especially in the context of where they're wanting to move forward sexually, this might be the first time they heard that. And so you got to really be empathetic to the fact that they're going to have whatever their response is, and that's okay. But also understand that this isn't 100% about the fact that you told them that you have herpes. What this is is that now rather than thinking, "Oh, okay, I'll just wear a condom." This is something that they actually have to picture much more

Vulnerability, Integrity, and The Real Risk of Disclosure

00:10:35 Courtney Brame: long term and ask themselves a question that they might not have had to ask themselves before. What do I want? And then what do I want with you? And then it goes further into, well, are you able to give me what I want? And is what you are able to give me uh going to be enough? Because think about it, we have to have a very hard and vulnerable conversation with people when we go into the process of disclosing our status. All right? Whatever feelings might come up, whatever um the trauma was that may have potentially brought it on, these are the kinds of things that we have to think about. So when we tell someone, they now have to consider the possibility of contracting this virus and then having to go on and tell a future partner. And the way that we present it is going to be the only baseline that they have to go off of when it comes to uh deciding whether or not that this is worth the quote risk.

00:11:38 Courtney Brame: And there is no way to just completely not transmit herpes to another person. There's no way to do it. You can't just not transmit it, right? Even if you are asymptomatic, yes, your likelihood of passing it on is significantly lower than if someone were having an outbreak, not wearing condoms, not taking antivirals. But the thing about it is that there is always a possibility. And so I will never tell people what to do, but what I am going to tell you is some experiences that I've had. If there weren't people who didn't disclose their status, there would be no Something Positive for Positive People. And there would be no positive no Something Positive for Positive People because there wouldn't have been people that I would have found who wanted to kill themselves because of their herpes diagnosis. Right now, anybody who's here, anybody who sees this, anybody who's listening to this, if you regularly follow me, you are more than likely a capable person of being able to sit down and have an adult conversation with somebody about your sexual health.

00:12:36 Courtney Brame: All right. Now, the reason that you may not want to is because perhaps that person may not be uh someone who can give you what you need. Like, we have all these physical needs. We want good sex. We want someone we're attracted to. We want a quality uh lifestyle as well. Um, but going back to the hookup culture thing, there's often the biggest struggle for people disclosing seems to be with people who feel like this wasn't fair. No, they didn't disclose it to me. It's not fair that I have to have this conversation with people. And then the other part is that emotional piece like how vulnerable you have to be with a person and how vulnerable uh you're making them have to be. And when I speak about vulnerability, I'm not talking about that performative vulnerability that we see on social media. The kind where it's for likes and comments and shares. What I'm talking about is a real person-to-person, one-on-one vulnerability.

00:13:35 Courtney Brame: Like I got I'm almost at 9,000 Instagram followers at this point. So me sharing something quite vulnerable is more than likely going to be because I know this audience. I know what they want to see. I know what they want to hear. And this is something that's coming from my personal experience, but it's packaged in a certain way. I'm going to get positive reinforcement. I'm going to get no reinforcement. I might get negative reinforcement, but there's so much of it that it doesn't really carry any significance. However, you sit me down across from somebody whose opinion I really value and I sit down with them and I share with them, hey, I don't know if I'm going to be able to pay my bills next month if I sit down with them. And I'm like, I don't know how I'm feeling sick. I'm going to have to miss work. Uh, I'm lonely. My feelings are hurt.

00:14:28 Courtney Brame: I don't know if I can get out of bed. Whatever. That is vulnerability. And we've gotten so far away from that because the high quality of that interaction with the person right across from us is significantly more intense than the quantity of the people who we don't have that in-person connection with. Right? There's a screen between us. And not only is there this screen, but there's however many miles apart we are, there's also the time at which you might be watching this. Like it's 7:23 in the morning Pacific time right now. You might be watching this a day later, a week later, a month later, and we're still connected. And that same thing goes for vulnerability. Like, it's not that it's not often present, but it is presented whenever it's presented. Not to say that it's any less real, but what I'm saying is that it's much lower risk. There is a much greater risk because you are more invested in that in-person interaction than you are online.

00:15:28 Courtney Brame: And I'll be the first one to tell you like I think that I've gotten really good at the online vulnerability compared to the inversion vulnerability. But that practice online made me better at doing it online. Right? The practice that I've been trying to do lately in person, like I've been really adamant about talking to my friends more. I tell my friends I love them. And these are my platonic guy friends. These are my relations. These are my relationships with the men around me. And the more that I've been able to do that, the more real that I've been able to be uh not just uh in my day-to-day life at work uh or with my uh passion or with the podcast. And that also translates to relationships. It translates online. I'm able to be real. I'm able to say, "Hey, this is who I am. This is what I'm presenting today." And I'm okay with the consequences.

00:16:22 Courtney Brame: Because one of the things that we understand is that or we have to understand is that we risk rejection for the sake of connection. And ultimately I know for myself that the ultimate goal for me in life is to experience connection and to be connected to be able to connect with others and connect other people as well. And I'm doing that. Like I'm living it. And so for me, when I look at the idea of not disclosing my herpes status to a person, like I I'm kind of out of that at this point. Like there is no not disclosing for me. If I do, it's for scandal purposes. Like I would have to not disclose my status to a celebrity and then she finds out and then goes to the media and then that'll be probably the one time that the media outlets actually say Something Positive for Positive People. Cuz I can't tell you how many interviews I've been in where they're like Courtney Brame, this story, this experience.

00:17:12 Courtney Brame: And it's like, damn, y'all can't reference the nonprofit. I say that because I made that joke to somebody recently. I was like, the only way that this thing is going to really blow up is if there's some kind of a scandal associated with it. So, y'all know any celebrity, let me stop. I ain't going to say that. Um, the quality of that intimate in-person one-on-one connection is significantly more intense than the quantity of several online connections um or over the internet. Not to say that one can't become the other, but what we practice is what we get better at. And so as you continue to share your status, you will get better at doing that. But as you don't, you're going to get better at doing that. And is that what you really want? Do you want the kind of connections that are built on deception? You know, you're not a liar. And that's why uh one of my values in relationships is transparency.

The Consequences of Deception and Not Sharing Your Status

00:18:07 Courtney Brame: I say transparency instead of honesty because I can be honest with you and still be deceptive. I can withhold information. I cannot tell you a particular part of the story. An example that I use is if I'm in a monogamous relationship, I have a one night stand with somebody and I come home that night and my girlfriend asked me, "Hey, did you sleep with so and so?" No. I know what she's asking me. She asked me if I had sex with this person, but she specifically said verbatim, "Did you sleep with so and so?" No, I didn't sleep with so and so. Okay, go on about our business. She ain't asked me if I had sex with so and so. That's a different story, right? So, that's honesty, but that's not transparency. And contextually, you know what this person means, right? I've come to realize over the years that the most dangerous type of person is the one who can lie to themselves, not even know or maybe not even know that they're lying to themselves, but live as if that lie is their truth.

00:19:08 Courtney Brame: Because then they're consistently lying to the people around them. And don't nobody even know it's a lie. And it takes for you to really be observant and see inconsistencies with people. Like I've dated someone like this who would lie to herself and then every decision from that was just reinforcing what that lie was, but it was masked as the truth. So she was living in her truth, the truth that she told herself or that she told herself and then told other people, but the inconsistency was that the behaviors didn't match the belief. And that's essentially what this does. So, if you're not choosing to share your status or if you're choosing to just withhold it completely, you know, what values do that validate for you? Because for me, I mean, like I've I've gone through the process. I've not told partners that I have herpes before we had sex. And then what ended up happening was I was not able to. I'm trying not to curse because then these videos get removed.

00:20:12 Courtney Brame: uh I would not be able to fully maintain an erection for the duration of sex. And I was a very ego-driven person all those years ago. And so I couldn't have nobody running around here telling their friends or going to the group chat saying, "Yeah, Courtney gave me half pain." I'm going to use ping instead of the dword. Uh yeah, I couldn't, I couldn't do that. And that it's funny because that translates to how I felt when I got my herpes diagnosis all those years ago because uh it was really I didn't want to be known as that dude who was going around here giving people herpes. So when I found out I had herpes and I made those text messages, I ain't going to say I made those phone calls. I sent messages, hey, do you have herpes? Do you have herpes? When everybody said no, I was relieved. I ain't had time to be sad. I was so ego-driven that it was a matter of damn, I do not want to be known as the person who is going around here giving people herpes.

00:21:10 Courtney Brame: And that's been consistent, you know, even through now. Like me, even if I disclose it to someone and she's okay with it and we move forward, we have a good time and she doesn't have herpes, like I still don't want to pass it on to them. And I know that there would be some guilt if I were to have done that. And the way that I get around that personally is just by making sure now that they know because I've had situations where someone gave me informed consent but maybe it wasn't as fully informed as it could have been and those relationships just didn't work out, you know. And that goes back to thinking about the right thing now. So, um, if you're across from someone, you tell them you have herpes. They say, "Okay, I don't care." And then you move forward, and then later on, you know, they might be, "Hey, I wasn't too sure about that." That's a risk that we got to take. That's a risk that uh that that's a risk for the connection.

00:22:14 Courtney Brame: You know, no matter the lifespan of whatever that connection is, that's the risk that we have to take. So, it's not just the risk of rejection to be completely honest. It's the risk of rejection as well as the risk of connection temporarily. Now, the risk of that rejection coming later, I think that that is significantly worse than just having that person be like, "No, I'm not okay with this." That's my personal thoughts because I've experienced it and I recognize that, you know, that higher high of expectations just creates more of a height for you to fall from. And I'll tell you this, but once you fall from that, you come back strong. Like you you can get a little bit higher next time, but understand that there's going to be the risk of a fall. I tell people like heartbreak, man. Heartbreak is probably one of the most intense emotions for you to really get right. You experience a heartbreak and then you go and you start working, you start getting in the gym, you start reading, you start creating things and you become a person that you didn't even know was possible, right?

00:23:21 Courtney Brame: Because of the energy shift that occurred from whatever that heartbreak is. And it's the same thing with disclosure. As we continue to do that, we are building. I don't want to say resilience or resistance to the feelings. We just simply get better at it. We get better at the process of disclosing our status. We get better at uh that vulnerability muscle at becoming emotionally available and becoming a person that people don't want to be emotionally unavailable around. We want people to open up to us. We want to be connected to each other. And again, my core life goal is connection. Like that would be if I were to sum my life up in one word, it'd be a connection. And the way that I get to connect is through living my life with my three values. And one of those values is transparency. And so it's important for me to be transparent. But what does it do for you?

00:24:22 Courtney Brame: How does withholding your herpes status from a person that you want to develop a relationship with or even if you just want something from like yeah we do live in a transactional society we take from people all the time right there are people that we get certain benefits from there are people who have resources that uh they can share uh that we can utilize exchange with uh take from whatever we we have that But is it fair to not give them the option of having something taken from them while also giving them something that is going to take from them? And that's not saying that we're going to give them herpes every time. But I do believe that there's something to be said for when there is upfront transparency and we do lead with our values that allows for the relationship to develop in a different way than it would if we had to lie. Like I again like I've I've done that. I've just not said anything and use the excuse of oh well she didn't ask.

00:25:29 Courtney Brame: Okay. So you'd be mad if ain't nobody asked you. But then you ended up getting something else on top of that because you didn't ask. So it's not me. I don't want people to think I'm shaming. I had a conversation with someone yesterday and they brought that up when I made my most recent post about not disclosing your herpes status, but that really wasn't about not disclosing your herpes status. That was about uh the thoughts around it, thinking about it and just being like, "Hey, you're not the only person who thinks about this thing. So, if you're going to think about it, here are some things to think about with it. What do you really want? And what do you get out of withholding your herp status from a potential partner? How does that get you the outcome that you want? Does that get you the outcome that you want? Just something to think about because again, the more the more of whatever it is that we're doing that we do, the better we get at that.

Behavior vs. Belief and Defining Your Values

00:26:25 Courtney Brame: You know, I've been podcasting for six years and it's taken me probably five of those years to get to a point where I feel comfortable being on a video where there are no edits. I can't edit the video. I can't edit this live video. It's taken me a lot of time to get to this place and the only way that I've been able to get better at it is through consistency. Consistently being aligned with the values that are in place for me in order to continue to do what it is that I'm doing because otherwise I would just get better at not doing hard things. Get better at doing hard things and hard things become easier to do. That is not my quote. I have no idea who said that, but I've heard it enough times from different people to know that that's a real thing and also live my life by that. You know, the thing that is in fact challenging, that's going to make you the kind of person who can thrive in a challenging state.

00:27:21 Courtney Brame: So again, just going back to the hookup culture thing, like when we disclose this is not a herpes issue. This is a societal environmental issue because we don't trust that relationships are going to last. And so we get into a situation and like that's another thing like stop dehumanizing people, right? We ain't got to call people fuddies or friends with benefits or situationships. I had I talked about this already, but I had somebody who we were in I don't even want to say it was we were intimate, but we fooled around and then I just checked in with her a little while later and she was like, "Oh yeah, you know my situation dot dot dot." It's like, "Yo, that's your whole boyfriend." Like, don't call your boyfriend your situation. Like we dehumanize people in order to feel better about ourselves for getting what we want at that moment. And herpes is like one of the um examples of that. Like it's not if it wasn't herpes, it would just be something else.

00:28:25 Courtney Brame: So what I'm encouraging here is for people to take the time to consider what ways does your decision validate your identity validate who you are validate the kind of outcomes that you want out of life versus not because if you I mean if you choose not to disclose then you're validating your values, you know, that that's that's another conversation, right? So, whatever it is that needs to be adjusted, like our behaviors are always going to reflect our beliefs. Our beliefs don't always reflect our behaviors. So, whenever there's that inconsistency there, that's something to look at. That's information. We need to take that information and do something with it. So, that post again was not exclusively about herpes. Like, that was the topic of discussion that brought us in. Just like with everything else, this podcast started because people with herpes wanted to kill themselves. And the conversation would start with herpes and then it would end with why a person was suicidal and what that person's relationship to themselves was as well as their relationship to their relationships around them and the people who were in their lives, what they had going on around them, the fact that they probably just were unhappy in where they were or how they got there.

00:29:49 Courtney Brame: So when we really begin to go through the process of looking at the inconsistencies between our behaviors and our beliefs, that's when we start to see things for what they really are. And if disclosing your herpes status does not get you the outcome you want, try and decide, well, maybe this is the outcome I need. Because as long as you're maintaining your integrity and you're making decisions from a place that aligns with your values, there is no wrong outcome. There is no wrong decision. Now, I can quote this. Um I believe that it was Dr. Robert Glover, uh the author of No More Mr. Nice Guy who said this. He said, "We don't make right or wrong decisions. We make decisions and then we make them right." If it wasn't Dr. Glover, then it would have been Dr. Maxwell Moss of Psychocybernetics who said that. So there are no wrong decisions that we can make when we're making decisions from a place of integrity.

00:30:48 Courtney Brame: We make a decision and then we make that decision right. And if it wasn't the right decision, then it wasn't right because it didn't align with our values. That's really all it is. And again, like this ain't about herpes. Like I see people always try to make, you know, a lot of the content that I make about herpes. That's not it anymore. Like it started out that way because that's what I thought it was. But the more deeper I got to dive, the more conversations that I got to have with people, a lot of this is really on our psychology, like our own self-im images, right? And the way that we view ourselves is essentially like an extension of what herpes is. Like herpes does in fact force you to have to look at how you look at yourself. And then you can decide to keep doing what you're doing. Go ahead. You're probably just not going to get the outcomes that you want.

00:31:42 Courtney Brame: But if you want a certain type of outcome, then you do have to go into that place that is uncomfortable. It's something that we've not been trained for. Perfect example, I was talking to a friend of mine who just got into a very healthy relationship. He's happy. It's a healthy one. And the thing about it is he has become so calm in the chaos of hookup culture and he's like, "All right, yeah, this is what it is." That now the calm does not translate into a calm environment. It's chaotic to him and he catches himself wanting to speak uh wanting to self-sabotage in different ways, but it's like, "Hey man, you just got to you just got to turn the knob. adjust that knob from being calm in this chaotic environment to allow yourself to be calm in this calm environment. Right? And that's what that's really what this whole thing is. If we have gotten so comfortable in just being able to survive superficial relationships, going into a healthy, emotionally available and consistent and transparent relationship where we get to just be ourselves with a person.

00:32:54 Courtney Brame: and they get to be themselves with us and we just get to be present with one another. That's uncomfortable and that's when we really that's what we really try to mess up. But when relationships end and we really are able to look and go, hm, who I was in that relationship is not aligned with the outcomes that I want. We can see this from a whole different perspective, you know. And uh I interviewed the alkaline traveler who uh made the post. I mentioned this um she made the post about how she was going to bring people on her healing journey with herpes. I forget the exact language but um one of the things that came up there was and this episode will be out in two weeks. One thing that came up that we spoke about was healing from herpes. It's not that I have a bump. I need this bump to go away and I need to be able to touch people here without them getting this bump as well.

00:34:02 Courtney Brame: That's not what it was. It was healing the emotional, the psychological, the spiritual components of that. It's going on this emotional roller coaster of selfexploration. I got a podcast called Self and I essentially was processing my therapy sessions on that podcast and now it's really just kind of thinking out loud and that's like my new journal and it keeps me accountable for being able to consistently go there and be able to put my own experiences out there out loud uh to keep myself accountable. I'm someone who has always had accountability. I played sports. I had coaches. I had teammates. I had people around me that when I said I was going to do something, I had to do that thing. If I didn't do that thing, I was going to be held accountable one way or another. Whether that was punishment from coach, whether that was uh some sort of disciplinary action or whether that was just like not being accepted by my peers and my community or my teammates, right?

00:35:03 Courtney Brame: So, I don't think that we allow ourselves to have that anymore. And there's so much more to be said about not just hookup culture and making people have to be avoidant emotionally or emotionally unavailable in order to survive to re-receive that perceived illusion of connectedness with another person through sex. Like also like that's another thing too is that there's sex uh being the desired outcome when really what we want is connection. And to have that connection that requires a level of communication and some people's communication language unfortunately is exclusively sex. I've been one of those people. You know to me it was like let's get sex out of the way so that we can communicate. And I've lived that for a very very long time until it became like, you know, understanding that having some sort of a connection there has become more important to me because not to say that sex has become less important, but sex has become less of a priority because now intimacy is the priority.

00:36:07 Courtney Brame: you know, being seen, being experienced, being able to just exist in a state of presence as you are without having to like turn on and play the game. Like the game is fun when you're able to play it as yourself if that's who you are. But understand that if you're playing a game that you don't actually subscribe to from a place of your values, you're losing and you also are just wasting your being on being in that space. like make it to where you know what kinds of outcomes you want and then make the decisions that are going to prepare you for receiving that outcome. That's been something that I had to learn over the last six years especially because I've recognized that the outcomes that I wanted were not the outcomes that I was getting. I can't say that I got the outcomes I deserved. I didn't get the outcomes that I wanted. Right? And even now, I'm very much working towards getting the outcomes that I want.

Protecting Your Energy and Holding Fast to Values

00:37:10 Courtney Brame: And that required me to have some behavior shifts. I have to say no to things that I normally was indifferent to. But after realizing that those things I was indifferent to were more so making me unconsciously say no to the things that I'm actually a yes to. Um, I can't, I can't go into that example. Uh, but I have examples. I have experiences that I've had where I made a decision against my better judgment. I made decisions that went against my intuition. I've chosen to do things that I wasn't a yes to, but because other people were a yes to, those have had outcomes and consequences that have affected me not in terms of herpes, but financially they've affected me timewise. You know, um there's uh coach Greg Adams on YouTube. He says, "Protect your meat. Protect your money, your energy, attention, and your time." And the things that I say yes to that I'm actually a no

00:38:11 Courtney Brame: to defy like it if it disrupts those things. It feels like a waste of money, a waste of energy, a waste of attention, a waste of time. And so now, like my meat is guided in a more clear direction of the outcomes that I want. But the only way for me to really do that is to like And I don't have a non cheesy Instagrammy way of saying this, but you really do got to put your meat onto those values. There it is. It's better than saying focus on yourself. When people say focus on yourself, nobody knows what that means, right? And it seems like you got to be selfish. No, that's not what it is. The whole self-care thing and prioritize you and do you. Like people learn best from other people in life experiences and with other people in community relationships. Like if you have me sit down to read a book, I'm going to fall asleep three lines in. I'm going to start dozing off.

00:39:09 Courtney Brame: But if you put me around people who are practicing and living the things that are in that book, I'm going to absorb so much more from them in a short period of time. And there's also going to be that accountability and then that course correction along the way of, hey man, you said you wanted to do this, you're not doing that thing like you're you're doing something different. And I even noticed that I like video games. I play video games with my friends and it translates so well to playing Call of Duty. If you play Call of Duty and the game modes where when your teammates die out, you have the opportunity to bring them back. Okay. There have been so many times where I will be the person who, oh, you know, I'll sacrifice myself so I can buy someone else back and put more trust in them to win the game in the end. And there were a couple times where I couldn't do that.

00:40:01 Courtney Brame: But in those instances where I couldn't do that, what would end up happening was I had to fight. I had it was me and whoever else was left and I won those games. Winning those games was so much more rewarding because that does in fact uh it validates my identity as a winner, right? I'm a competitive person. I like to win. And for so long, I think that I've repressed that. I was reminded yesterday of talking to my friends because the draft happened yesterday. He made the funniest joke. They're so funny. My friend Chris, he was like, uh, he said, "Man, Cory don't even watch football any more. I think he played just so we could have friends. Yo, because I played through high school and college, right, at the time of my life. But a lot of what I picked up from playing sports is what I use in Something Positive for Positive People. It's what I use in my career.

00:40:57 Courtney Brame: It's what I use in yoga. All of these things really translate and they come together in a way that people wouldn't want to look at. And it's the same thing for your life. When we look at when you don't want to disclose your herpes status or you think about that, you know, all right, where's the inconsistency or is there a consistency? Are you genuinely the type of person who wouldn't want to tell the person that you're wanting a relationship with and sex with that you have something that can possibly influence them, not just physically, but also mentally and affect whatever future relationships they may have if y'all don't work out. Are you really that type of person? If you are, then you figured it out. But if you're not that kind of person and you know that the decision is easy. The decision is an easy one. So ask yourself, what are you getting better at? What are you practicing when you either do share your status with somebody or if you don't share your status with somebody?

00:42:02 Courtney Brame: These are the things that you have to think about because it translates, you know, what other information do you withhold from people? What opportunities do you have to get the outcomes that you want, but you actively choose or you unconsciously choose not to pursue them out of fear of not getting them because these are real things. These are real things that we can think about, that we should think about, that we have to think about. But again, just going back to the whole defaulting to hookup culture where people have to be emotionally avoidant or unavailable in order to survive this. That's we we can't we can't have that. We can't do that. It's not conducive to what our overall goals are, the things that we want. And if you know you keep getting things that you don't want, if you want something different, you have to do something different. If you want something different, you have to do something different. And again, just so many conversations that I've been having have been around people like thinking that having to disclose is unfair.

00:43:15 Courtney Brame: That's not really what's unfair. What's unfair is that you have to be the initiator of this vulnerability and you have to be the one to initiate the conversation around somebody. uh being able to demonstrate whether or not they're emotionally available. And the reason that we don't want to disclose is because we know a lot of people are emotionally avoidant or unavailable. And so the likelihood of them becoming emotionally available to us seems like it's not something that can happen. I tell you what, I've had more disclosure conversations with people over the last year and a half that I've lived in Portland now, and more of those conversations have been uh the other person also has herpes. And what that led to is more often a vulnerable conversation about what they were going through at that time, what outcomes they got through that process of having to figure out what the connecting piece was. Um, why did their herpes diagnosis influence them so much? What did they learn from their rejections?

00:44:15 Courtney Brame: What did they learn from the relationships that they pursued after that? And I tell you what, man, it really made me feel much more validated as a kind of person who wants to connect because I'm connecting with people. And so, yes, it might be through something as tragic as a herpes diagnosis, but it's a connection. It's connected. You know, connection has no good or bad. It's just connecting. It just is. And I want other people to experience that. I want for you to be able to have that for yourself. And I want for you to be able to decide like this is what I want to go for. This is what I want. And for you to be able to pursue the outcomes that are best for you that also line up with whatever your core values are. And those values, man, those are the most significant aspects of our identity. Like that becomes who we are because we begin to live and express ourselves through those values.

Finding Support and Outro

00:45:15 Courtney Brame: So if you're someone who's consistent, like I said, I've been doing this podcast for six years. It's been six years. It's been a nonprofit for four, and I'm finally at a place where I am getting the kinds of outcomes I want. Fortunately, people have trusted me enough to donate, to give me grants and funding and give me all types of stuff just to do what I do. And as I mentioned earlier, there's a lot I do. There's so much that I do. And I also still need to be able to support myself. So, I also have to do other things. But all of the things that I'm doing, uh, they're coming from a place that aligns with my values. So, the outcomes that I get, again, we don't make wrong decisions or right decisions. We make decisions and then we make them right. And that's where I'm in the process of uh you'll see the suitcases behind me.

00:46:01 Courtney Brame: I'm packed up because uh on Tuesday I'm gonna leave and head back to St. Louis. I'm dropping off some stuff, going to a friend's wedding. I'm filling out some paperwork at the university that I'll be working at and getting some of my training for when I move back at the end of May. So, I'm dropping off stuff and I'm making this big move. Did I mention this on the podcast? I know I posted it on Instagram that I was moving back home, but it's actually happening now. So, I got bags packed and it's been really difficult to stay consistent with um everything on social media especially. But recording the podcast, that's never really been an issue for me. I can do that pretty quickly and any time of day. Like now it's 8:00 uh here at Pacific time and I got some stuff that I need to take care of. I got to get ready for work.

00:46:49 Courtney Brame: I got to hit the gym. I got to eat. Um, but it was very important to me that regardless of the audio quality or what that may look like that I stay consistent. Um, I've somehow managed to produce a weekly podcast every day for the last six years despite everything that would be going on. Um, we had the pandemic of course and I moved. I moved to Portland, ended up getting jobs, having to apply for jobs, updating different things, resumes, paperwork, uh, websites, all of that. And all of these decisions, all of these skills that have been developed have come from me making a decision that aligned with my values. Like I'm this will be another podcast episode, but I hate suicide. I hate the idea that a person feels like they are so insignificant in life that they're better off not here. Do you know the odds, the probability of you not being here? You know how many sperm cells are in a penis's orgasm. Of all those cells, the one that met the egg at the timing at which it had to have been right was it that brought you here.

00:48:04 Courtney Brame: and regardless of what your circumstances are. Again, we don't make wrong decisions. We make decisions and then we make them right. So, I believe that it's important here for me to hopefully empower people to recognize that they have a choice in the decisions that they make that influence the outcomes that they get. But it really starts from a place of whatever your values are and whatever environment you might have been born in, whatever area or whatever your family has been, uh your friends, whatever it is that's around you is probably conditioning you to be a certain way. But there's nothing stopping you from looking at the way you are and then making conscious decisions that align with the thought processes and the beliefs that have had to happen to shape the habits and patterns that you express and live in your day-to-day life because that's going to be how you are more likely to get the outcomes that you want when you look at what you got. Diamond from the players club, Lisa Ray's character said you got to use what you got to get what you want.

00:49:09 Courtney Brame: And if you ain't got it and you trying to use something you ain't got, you ain't going to get what you want. So, it's as simple as that. And I hope that this video is able to do what I know the podcast does on a weekly basis, which is really support people uh who are navigating herpes stigma. Uh I have to make some changes with Something Positive for Positive People. Um, by episode by the numerical episode 300, uh, I'll do like a reintroduction podcast episode speaking about what Something Positive is, what it does, what I do. I don't even know why I keep doing that. Uh, I was talking to someone who works in public health. Um, this was two nights ago and she was like, Courtney, you got to stop being overly humble. That's not a good look. I was like, oh, but uh, this this is I She was like, stop doing that s***. I was like, "All right." Oh,

00:50:03 Courtney Brame: I said the sword. Oh, well. You know, this shouldn't get taken down for that. So, um, yeah, I'm going through the process. I'm not going to be able to offer therapy anymore. I'll just say that now. Like, I've had in 2020, 2021, I basically had to take people hostage to get them in therapy and go to sessions. And I did the math uh to give you an idea of what was happening. Especially now that I'm paying myself, I don't want to go to jail. So, when the IRS starts doing edits, when enough money starts coming in to where I have to um file taxes in a different way than I do now, because we don't spend $50,000, we ain't got $50,000 to spend over the course of a year. But now, paying myself, more money is going to be coming in, more money is going to be coming out. So, I had to look at the business plan and the business plan was not an efficient one.

00:50:56 Courtney Brame: Um to give you an idea, uh donation-based therapy. So, if a therapist charges $90 a session or $80 a session and that's negotiated, a person donating who happens to be able to afford therapy is able to pay that and a little bit more so to say $90. So, $90 a session a person comes in, they're doing weekly sessions, Something Positive gets $9187 $360 a month for that person's 4 uh for that person's Hold on, that's too many numbers. 9180 270 360. No, that was right. $360 a month comes into Something Positive. If the sessions are $80 each, then over the course of a month, I'm paying out $320. So, that leaves us with a $40 uh profit. And based on the math, 65% of what goes into a nonprofit in the state of Missouri is uh supposed to go to employees and salaries and things like that. So I would be bringing in $90 and then taking out 90 and 50, you know, so 140. So more money is actually going out for the sake of being able to say Something Positive for Positive People pays for people to get therapy on a donation basis.

00:52:11 Courtney Brame: So um I got to revise my mission statement again. Um but a good thing is that I know what I'm doing now. I know that I do a lot of different things and I don't have to say there's any one specific thing I do because this is essentially a hub of various um health communication resources and the the actions the the things that are done are through the podcast the social media the coaching the speaking engagements uh the community and the support that's offered all of those things are functions of nonprofit I just got to say it in the way that the IRS will be able to say, "Oh, okay. This is what they raise money for. This is what they spend money on." So, even if the money is going to be spent on just maintaining Courtney's ability to continue to do this by running the website and the podcast and things like that. So, it'll be a combination of things that uh Something Positive for Positive People does.

00:53:11 Courtney Brame: Uh, and y'all have been really helpful with filling out the evaluation forms whenever you get support. Um, and the donations too because those really help. Um, but the evaluation forms from the Love and Action Fund by Dr. Evelin Molina Dacker has really helped me understand what it is that I'm doing for you all so that I can best communicate that to people moving forward who might have opportunities for me as well. Um, that all said, um, I look forward to connecting with y'all. If you like this podcast episode, like, talk to me. I'll be interviewing someone in the next couple of weeks about non-disclosure or just not disclosing at all. Um, and that'll be a useful conversation because we don't ever have these conversations from a judgmental way or perspective at all. Uh it's just going to be a matter of seeing what the thought process is and being able to have a conversation in this in a safe space to be able to understand where that person's thoughts are coming from and what might have uh shaped what their values might have shaped as far as the outcomes that they want.

00:54:20 Courtney Brame: And of course I'll ask them like well are you getting what you want out of this and things like that. But again, so much of this thought process has so little to do with herpes itself. And it's more about whatever the connection is between a person's uh behaviors and beliefs. And in between that is just going to be what your values are. So living from that place is going to get you the outcomes that you deserve, the outcomes that hopefully do align with your values, your intentions, and um yeah, that that that's it. I think I can stop there before I get to the point of rambling. This is a really good place to wrap up. Um again, you can like, rate, review, subscribe to the podcast. Of course, donate as well. Vinmo is Courtney Brame. Cash App is Courtney Brame. All one word. Don't be fooled by anybody who got them letters or numbers afterwards.

00:55:14 Courtney Brame: You might f*** you might mess around and Vimmo my dad. We got the same name. But uh yeah, Courtney Brame on those platforms. And then PayPal, Patreon, uh Something Positive for Positive People. The slash will be how you find those. Um yeah, that concludes this episode. Thank y'all for being here. If you're watching, thanks for watching. Um, you are more than welcome to, if you want, you can stitch clips from here and share it because I ain't got it in me. I don't. Um, I got the live video. It's gonna be on the Instagram feed. I'll share it with my stories. I got the podcast episode. I'mma put that on the feed here now. But yeah, if y'all want to do that, if y'all want to support, y'all can stitch parts of this, even if it ain't got nothing to do with herpes, and circulate that across whatever social media platforms y'all have.

00:56:05 Courtney Brame: All right, that's what Andrew Tate did. And so, yeah, if that worked for him, maybe it will work for me if I just stop talking about herpes for so long to where we can get enough of it stitched. Maybe I need to say something controversial like that part where I said if I had sex with a celebrity and didn't tell her I had herpes and it'd be a scandal. Just use that part where I said I had sex with a celebrity but didn't disclose and then let that be what circulates and goes viral and then people can find the Something Positive for Positive People platform and then maybe I'll get some funding. Maybe the CDC will check me out. Who knows? All right, y'all. Thank you. Oh, wait. I guess it's the people here. Does anybody have any questions at all? I got like three and a half minutes before I need to turn this off. So, if you are in here and you have a question, go ahead and ask that question.

00:56:55 Courtney Brame: Now, I see some comments here. Uh, thank you. I hope you have a great day, too. Uh, somebody said, "I hate it when Courtney's right." And then they said, "Lol." Someone said, "It sucks that it's not on a regular STD panel and you got to ask for it. I wish doctors would stop saying you don't have to disclose." Yep, we'll get there. Uh, someone said, "Agreed. The more you do it, the better you get at it. Start telling people and eventually you'll be able to disclose or mention herpes the same way folks talk about food." Hey, that's a really good point cuz I love talking about food. Uh, someone said the illusion of intimacy or connection by way of sex. Paraphrase a MF word. Yeah, I am saying stuff I don't even know. I don't be knowing that it will hit like that. So, it feels good to know that a lot of what I'm saying is registering for people and that they're able to reg resonate with it. Um, all right. Next week I'll be in St. Louis. Um, I got a couple podcast episodes scheduled to release automatically. I'm going to be interviewing well. The podcast will be released next Thursday uh from the oh my goodness the Lost Labia Chronicles where we talk about Lichensclerosis which is sometimes mistaken for herpes as well. Um but yeah, I interviewed her. We talked about Lichensclerosis and then after that I interviewed the alkaline traveler um about healing from herpes. And then I don't know what's after that. I think after that will be the episode with the lady who um I'll be interviewing who had gone without disclosing her status. But all right, thank y'all for listening and yeah, I'll see y'all soon.

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