Spfpp 393: Herpes Support Groups
In this episode, I talk through what’s happening with the new format of SPFPP support groups, why I created a screening process, what I’ve learned from the women’s and men’s sessions, and how the structure supports healing. I reflect on the energy shift that comes when people commit, the role of community in stigma release, and what disclosure actually means when we stop treating it like a confession. If you’re thinking about joining, this is what you can expect.
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WEBVTT
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Courtney Brame: Hello, welcome to Something Positive for Positive People. I'm Courtney Brain. Something Positive for Positive People is a 501c3 nonprofit organization supporting people navigating herpes stigma.
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Courtney Brame: We do this in a variety of ways, from support calls, to support groups, to yoga therapy. I'm a yoga therapist in training at this time. I should complete all of my
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Courtney Brame: Certification requirements in 2026, and that'll be what we do.
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Courtney Brame: And, another thing we do is we educate medical professionals, mental health professionals, public health people, and as well as educators on.
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Courtney Brame: herpes stigma and the experiences of people living with herpes. And more recently, I'm actually getting into public speaking and sharing my experience with STIs and just
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Courtney Brame: Using some real-life examples and experiences to talk about how to navigate sexual health conversations with romantic partners.
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Courtney Brame: Today's episode is going to be just explaining to y'all what the support groups are, and giving you a little bit of what's come out of them so far. So today, I'm recording this on Saturday, November 8th, and I've been doing such a good job of not doing anything on the weekends for something positive for positive people. I think,
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Courtney Brame: My ideal world is I'll work, like, 12 hours a day, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and then Monday, get a late start. Friday, having,
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Courtney Brame: early end, and let that be what the schedule is. So, if you have not heard from me over the weekends, it's because I'm trying not to reply to stuff over the weekend, and that's a good starting point.
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Courtney Brame: But for me to remain consistent with the podcast episodes, that's something that's important to me. And this weekend, I was supposed to be at Midwest Love Fest, but I decided not to go. I was gonna go to Houston for Halloween weekend, and I had a delay, and it was weird that the delay was about to…
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Courtney Brame: Take off in worse weather than…
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Courtney Brame: what it was originally, and I just didn't have a good, like, feeling about taking that flight, so I went with my gut.
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Courtney Brame: Decided to cancel that, and now, having the understanding that, like, the government's been shut down, and people are still flying despite these,
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Courtney Brame: whatever the flight air controller people are not getting paid, that… that don't feel good to me. Like, I would… I would not feel good about
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Courtney Brame: Working, doing a job, people still patronizing the system that has me under their thumb, that hasn't paid me, and, like, now additional struggles are happening for me outside of that, that are…
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Courtney Brame: like, completely preventable if people just got their checks, so I… I don't want to take part in that. I decided to just not fly until this is resolved and people are getting paid again, and it sucks because I just got the TSA,
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Courtney Brame: the, lounge access for Chase Sapphire, and I was really looking forward to that.
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Courtney Brame: to being able to use the lounges, and now that I had to cancel my flight to Midwest Love Fest, my flight to home for Thanksgiving to visit St. Louis, because I don't see this being resolved by then, either. So, I'm just… I'm just in here. I'm chillin' in New York. Fortunately, I'm somewhere I want to be.
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Courtney Brame: And yeah, this is… this has been…
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Courtney Brame: Because now, like, I can't go see partners that don't live here, and now when I think about it, like, most of my partners don't live here, so…
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Courtney Brame: this is, kind of lighting a little bit of a fire under my ass to get out, be social, meet people, make friends, build community, and also approach that cute girl that I want to talk to. So, there's all these things that are playing a role in…
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Courtney Brame: Me not traveling, that can work out for the better as well.
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Courtney Brame: So speaking of the support groups, alright.
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Courtney Brame: October was the first month that I implemented the Something Positive for Positive People support groups in a different way.
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Courtney Brame: over the years, I've attempted to do these. I've tried to have a mental health professional, host the support groups. I've tried making people sign up for a series of support.
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Courtney Brame: sessions. I've tried to keep everything together, I've tried to make it free and accessible. Like, I've played around with so many things in order to get people to come show up consistently, or even just come get what they need and leave.
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Courtney Brame: So what I've done this time is I created a screening process.
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Courtney Brame: Now, if me and you have a support call, I've talked to you, I know what you're there for, and I know that I will be able to communicate with you, hey, here's what this is, here's what it's about, what questions do you have, and answer those, rather than just giving a general overview of what the support group is, which is already on the website, but I need to confirm your understanding of what the support group is.
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Courtney Brame: Make sure that you're somebody who wants that. Make sure you're someone who wants the community, that you want the camaraderie, and that you are looking for something beyond a place to just be able to come and be heard about your experiences. While that is part of the healing process, that's not all this is about. And…
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Courtney Brame: I find that, even with the barriers in place to…
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Courtney Brame: get people to show up, and, like, make a… you have to make a donation to the support group that you want to attend. Even that has somehow become, like.
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Courtney Brame: not the best filter for some people. And I'm gonna say, it's for the men. Like, I hate to, you know, throw y'all under the bus, but fuck. Like, I make support groups.
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Courtney Brame: that are accessible for everybody, and nobody comes, and then I make them have a couple hoops to jump through, and now, you know, the women are showing up to the women's support groups that are making… they're following the process, they've had their support calls, they're making their donations, they're thinking about it, or whatever it is that they need, and I'll talk about how those are going. I think I want to talk about those first, because there's a lot more
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Courtney Brame: more there. And then for the men's group, like, we had a strong start with interest from, like, 70 people, because on the website now, you can just sign up if you're interested, and you'll get updates on the newsletter. I'm doing Mondays, first and third Mondays are for women, second and fourth Mondays are for the men, all starting at 7.30 p.m. Eastern Time, and we go as long as we need to. And right now, it's looking like about 8 to 12.
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Courtney Brame: 12 people, so that puts us at about 90 minutes. If it gets to more than 16, 20, I think that these will be 2-hour groups, and if we go beyond that, then we'll figure something out. But, yeah, I'm not wanting to prepare for what might not ever happen, so I'm building this out as I go.
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Courtney Brame: For the, men, yeah, like…
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Courtney Brame: now that I'm naming a men's group.
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Courtney Brame: the men are more interested, and… just, they showed up for the first one, and then we not had two since then, and ain't nobody came. So for the first one that nobody came to, which was, it was two weeks ago,
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Courtney Brame: That one was the last one in October, and people signed up.
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Courtney Brame: And then just didn't show. I had one guy show up, and that was my friend, so we just shot the shit for about 20 minutes to see if anybody else would come, and nobody showed up, and people did register for this one. The one after that, I had a conversation, and I take responsibility on my end for maybe not being so clear, but I can't… I can't keep being super-duper flexible with the boundaries. The process is you
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Courtney Brame: donate to the support group that you want to be part of. I even tell people, I don't care what you donate. This is what gets you in the, on the email list that I pull from. I have a lot of things that I am managing with the Something Positive for Positive People platform as a whole.
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Courtney Brame: And I have a part-time job outside of this, and there's a lot… I'm not gonna go into, you know, every individual thing that I got going on, but these systems that are in place, they're in place for a reason, and I need the people who want to be a part of this to respect that process. And even with the one-on-one support calls.
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Courtney Brame: Like, I've had people fill out the form, and I'll reach out to them, and an email will have a typo in it. So I'll call, this is why I ask for phone numbers. I'll text or call, hey, I'll start your form.
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Courtney Brame: this is Courtney from Something Positive, and they're like, what's that? And I'm like, oh, here we go. So I tell them what it is, and they're like, oh my god, ha ha ha, I didn't sign that, I didn't sign up for this. And it's like, dude…
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Courtney Brame: And I've had people, like, snap on me and be like, how did you get my information? It's like, literally, you filled out the form, or maybe somebody did it for you, I don't know. But I'm doing my part in following up, seeing if you want to call. That's it.
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Courtney Brame: So,
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Courtney Brame: The processes that are in place make it easier for me to just navigate this without burning out. I'm not saying I'm feeling like I'm burning out by any means, and I got more energy because these processes are in place now.
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Courtney Brame: I got more energy because more people are showing up to the support groups for the very things that, you know, I would normally maybe post about on social media and maybe get some engagement about. And that's another thing I've definitely pulled away from social media as much as I used to.
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Courtney Brame: compared to how I used to post, and how much I used to be active and involved on there, because now the website is much more functional. There were some changes that we made, not just
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Courtney Brame: I just invested in making the website a lot more functional and making it a lot easier for people to navigate, the website to find what it is that they need. So, all of that said, like, I need people to please just respect the process.
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Courtney Brame: sign up for the support call. It's donation optional, right? So you donate whatever it is that makes you feel uncomfortable about missing the call. And even then, people still miss the calls. Like, when this happens, I'm not going to mess things up for Courtney, I'm not gonna mess things up for something positive for positive people, I'm not gonna mess things up for other people that have been wanting a call. I think the most calls I've had in a day
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Courtney Brame: has been 7.
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Courtney Brame: And then, like, consistently, there's been, like, 3, and I'm… I'm…
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Courtney Brame: I'm leaning away from doing weekends. I'm leaning away from that, and…
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Courtney Brame: I don't know exactly how I'm going to, you know, figure that out, but right now it's very open-ended and flexible to work around other people's schedules, which I'm so flexible for, but I…
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Courtney Brame: I'm going to, at some point, need to be like, hey, listen, here's your windows, but I don't want to give too many instructions and be too rigid, because I recognize that, you know, things do need to be flexible, especially for other people. So,
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Courtney Brame: with that all said, like, let's stop that there. Like, alright, that's my gripes and…
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Courtney Brame: disgruntledness. Men, if y'all come into the groups, there's a process. Sign up for a support call, make your donation to the men's support group, and then you have to put it in your calendar. The second and fourth Monday, 7.30 p.m. Eastern Time, virtual. If you make your donation, I'll see the date that you made the donation, I'll see your email address, and it tells me what support group to add you to.
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Courtney Brame: And it tells me, and it tells me who to send the email to. That's it.
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Courtney Brame: Alright, from the women's support groups, I… enjoy… how
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Courtney Brame: I enjoy the transparency, I enjoy the openness, and how it… one of the things that stood out to me was I asked people to introduce themselves, just your name, where you're located, and what you, like, what do you hope to get out of today? And the first time I asked this, it seemed like nobody heard that. Everybody gave their name.
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Courtney Brame: And then they were like, I'm here, I was diagnosed this long ago, da-da-da-da-da, and I'm like, that wasn't a question. And so I let it ride, and at the end, I was just like, hey, so ain't nobody answering the question. Everybody, like… I know that this is a herpes support group, but…
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Courtney Brame: Part of what this healing process from stigma looks like is seeing yourself beyond your herpes status, seeing yourself as a person first. Like, you're a person, you have a location that you are in, you're maybe looking forward to something, excited about something. If you're in this support group, yeah, you're looking to get something out of it, but that… that… it was an interesting observation that everybody.
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Courtney Brame: either responded to the first person who said that, and that changed everything, or everybody was just so locked into the herpes stigma part of it. But after, you know, kind of addressing that, some of the things that we did was we went into…
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Courtney Brame: just sort of setting the foundation. I recognize that I'm a man, and I'm facilitating a herpes support group for women, and that's actually been something that has been expressed to me privately as appreciated, which is… that's cool, I like that. And…
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Courtney Brame: Something that I recognize, too, is that…
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Courtney Brame: All my support groups have been women's support groups, except for, you know, the… I did a…
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Courtney Brame: a thing where I had men come and just, like, talk about their experience so I could find out what it is that we need collectively. Because while I am a man, my experience is significantly different than a lot of the men that I talk to about herpes, or who do have herpes, because I'm open about it.
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Courtney Brame: And there's, what, 3 of us, I believe? There's Chris Pickering, and there was Adrie O'Dell, I don't think he's very active anymore. And then there's Rich Mancuso, who I don't know if, you know, the algorithm's just, like.
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Courtney Brame: shadow banned him, or what, but I haven't seen anything from him lately either. Only person I've seen consistently that's a man is Chris Pickering. Shout out to him as well.
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Courtney Brame: And, yeah, the women have appreciated that, and what's come up is we talk about disclosing.
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Courtney Brame: Now, I will continue to use the language of disclosing initially, for the sake of this being language that everybody has access to, and this is what people know, but I really am working to get people out of using that word, disclose, because we ain't signing legal documents.
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Courtney Brame: We're not… it is not… it's nothing like that. We're having a discussion. And… As we talk through…
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Courtney Brame: disclosing our herpes status, what we see is that this really is more than a herpes conversation. It's a conversation about sexual health, and it's not a conversation exclusively about your sexual health.
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Courtney Brame: Is this thing still on? Okay, I gotta make sure this mic was on. It's new. I got these new microphones, because I lost my other ones, and I didn't see that the light was on.
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Courtney Brame: We're not just confessing that we have herpes to somebody. We are… Discussing sexual health with somebody.
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Courtney Brame: And that can be as simple as, hey, so we get into a point where I see things moving forward, you know, sexually, and I take my sexual health very seriously, especially before, you know, I start to have too much fun with somebody. So, I want to add… just share that I got tested for these things.
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Courtney Brame: this long ago, and this is what the results are. What about you?
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Courtney Brame: what about you? That's it, right?
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Courtney Brame: you see that so quickly people are ready to start explaining or justifying, or we want to share stats, or we want to explain how we got it, so that they don't think about you just as whatever you think they might think about a person with herpes. And the reality is, everybody does have a sexual health status.
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Courtney Brame: And it's just a matter of, do you know what that is? And then you communicate that, and let them ask questions. You want to be prepared with all this information when you might not even need to. You might be ready to know the, to share the transmission rates, and what, the medications, and barrier uses, and all these preventive measures, and
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Courtney Brame: The reality is that…
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Courtney Brame: we don't want to just overload a personal information. We want to give them what they need to know, which is that, you know, we have herpes, and they might possibly be exposed to it. And at that point, you're giving them a choice. When I talk about
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Courtney Brame: the power of choice, right? Like, a lot of us, we got herpes and we don't know who gave it to us, or maybe we weren't given that option of being able to consent to exposure, but the idea is that while our power may have been taken away from us, our power of choice.
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Courtney Brame: The way that we get that power back is by continuing to give people the option.
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Courtney Brame: When you give other people the option to make a choice, they now have the ability to choose. Whereas, if you hadn't done that, they wouldn't have had the ability to choose. So we reclaim our power by allowing for other people to have the power of choice.
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Courtney Brame: And that also empowers us, because now we choose who we want to share this information with, right?
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Courtney Brame: And so this is something that has come up, not just in, the support groups, but also in yoga therapy, conversations that I've had with, clients, you know, initially. Like, everybody comes in for herpes, but then eventually we get to, right, like,
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Courtney Brame: we'll get into something about relationships, we'll start talking about sex, we'll start talking about, even relationships with family and friends, and, you know, it gets to a point where I'm like, I need to do a little bit more reading, because… and I'm glad I'm still in yoga therapy training, because it's not like I'm just given all the tools, and now I gotta, like, orchestrate them. I'm still learning, and so I'll be in a class.
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Courtney Brame: And I'm like, this applies, let me ask about this. So I'm able to bring that into my yoga therapy sessions as well, which has been super helpful for me.
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Courtney Brame: Another thing that we talked about in the women's support groups was,
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Courtney Brame: They wanted to hear from someone who had had success disclosing their status.
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Courtney Brame: And so I reached out to somebody, a friend of mine, like, a real good friend of mine. We met in 2020, and shortly after,
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Courtney Brame: she had gotten her diagnosis, she found me, and we had become friends. She's from St. Louis as well, and she eventually ended up disclosing to her now partner of 4 years. And so I reached out to her, I was like, hey, would you be willing to? And she was like, yes. And she showed up. Like, this was at the request of one of the group members who just so happened to not show up to this meeting.
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Courtney Brame: After making the request for it. But yeah, I brought her in, and the ladies had access to her for about 30-40 minutes of the support group to be able to ask questions and hear about her experience, and to have these questions answered that they had.
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Courtney Brame: one of the big things that… there were, like, 3 big takeaways, if I can remember. I know one was defining what a successful disclosure is. A successful disclosure
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Courtney Brame: Is not one that ends in a sexual relationship, it doesn't end in having sex, it doesn't end with the other person saying that they're okay with you having herpes.
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Courtney Brame: The success is more internally…
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Courtney Brame: motivated. It is a successful disclosure because you made the decision to be vulnerable and extend that piece of information about yourself to someone. You found someone who you deem to be someone worth giving that information to.
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Courtney Brame: That's what makes a disclosure successful. And so, you got to see the wheels turning for a lot of the ladies who were there, and they were like, oh, okay. And then, you know, this was some of the feedback that we had talked about, too, at the end, about how much of a perspective shift that was for some
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Courtney Brame: For some of the ladies. Another thing was, sharing statistics. So we'd be so ready to share statistics in order to increase our chances of not being told no.
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Courtney Brame: or reject it.
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Courtney Brame: And what our guest said was, I don't do that, because I don't want to be reduced to a statistic. If the… if the… your choice comes down
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Courtney Brame: to the risk factor, or a number on a sheet of paper, then that's not the kind of relationship that I want to have, and I commended the hell out of her for that one, because I don't talk about statistics, I don't talk about transmission rates.
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Courtney Brame: I just need to know that you like me or want to have sex with me more than you do not want to get herpes.
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Courtney Brame: That's all I need to know.
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Courtney Brame: And, I mean…
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Courtney Brame: That's really what it comes down to, because any of the information that's out there, if someone's asking for statistics.
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Courtney Brame: the main thing that they want to know is, how do I prevent myself from getting herpes? That's really what this comes down to. People want to know, what can I do to prevent myself from getting herpes? And the word prevention does not apply here.
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Courtney Brame: We're minimizing the possibility, we're minimizing the risk by communicating.
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Courtney Brame: You know, some people choose to wear condoms, some people don't wear condoms, some people… and these are things that, you know, partners can mutually agree on, and still not pass it on. You can be with somebody with herpes and not get herpes. And that's a statistic that, if there was one at all that was highlighted and supported, we have that on something positive for positive people. I think there were 72% of people who said that
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Courtney Brame: they've not passed herpes on to a partner, at least to their knowledge. So…
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Courtney Brame: that's something that I think really needs to be studied more. But yeah, to be reduced down to a statistic, that's not something that we should be striving for. So yeah, if you… if it helps you to have that information, alright, cool, have it. But if you…
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Courtney Brame: I don't want to keep giving all this shit away. Come to a support group. Yeah, come to a support group. But yeah, this is how they go. Like, I… we come in, and…
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Courtney Brame: I like to ask people, what do you need today?
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Courtney Brame: Not only that, but…
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Courtney Brame: it's just, what do you want to get out of today's support group? And then, what do you have to give to today's support group? Because sometimes you might just want to listen in. You might be having a rough time, you could have not had a conversation go well with a potential partner, but it's a discussion, not a disclosure. It's a conversation, it's not a confession.
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Courtney Brame: Like, let these things replay in your mind.
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Courtney Brame: Because this, this is not nearly as…
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Courtney Brame: negatively impactful is what we think. And I'm using negative incorrectly. When I speak about the word negative, I mean infinite potential.
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Courtney Brame: When I talk about positive, I mean presence.
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Courtney Brame: Just by one of the definitions of Google. Like, positive means presence, negative means absence. It's as simple as that.
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Courtney Brame: And with the absence, right, there's the possibility of potential. And speaking of potential, so I was gonna talk about this today,
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Courtney Brame: about the raw… the raw material of potential. I ended up making that a self-podcast episode, because it felt too, like, spiritual, but I think that I should go and talk about the raw material that makes up the rejection, that makes up, the… that… that fear, that fear of being rejected, and…
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Courtney Brame: Yeah, speak more to that.
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Courtney Brame: But… There's… the support groups.
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Courtney Brame: I… can't give you… One-on-one, what is to be received from the support groups.
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Courtney Brame: I can't give you community. I can tell you it's out there, I can tell you it exists.
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Courtney Brame: But, I mean, I'm really just facilitating the space.
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Courtney Brame: And I might, you know, answer a question or ask a question, but I'm giving people what they ask for.
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Courtney Brame: In these settings and environments, and, you know, what you put into a thing, that thing takes form.
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Courtney Brame: Like, what you pour into, you know, if you're pouring, you want to get something out of this, but there's always an exchange, there's always a trade-off. Your money, your energy, your time, your awareness, right? Whatever it is that you give to this platform.
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Courtney Brame: is going to help mold what it is that you are able to become in terms of your identity, in order to be able to, you know, let go of that. And as you begin to change and
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Courtney Brame: evolve and grow, what happens is you let go of that
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Courtney Brame: Fear, that intense emotion that you maybe have here, because a lot of people come here because they're scared.
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Courtney Brame: A lot of people get scared, shitless, and they think they're gonna be alone forever, and then you have those feelings, those intense emotions that are fear-based. You're scared of rejection, you're scared you're never gonna have a relationship, you're scared you might not have kids, you're scared that you're so young that it's gonna mess up dating for you, and you're gonna have to date somebody that's old and already has herpes, right? Like, all of these fear and shame-based
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Courtney Brame: Beliefs are the raw material of what it is that
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Courtney Brame: we believe to be true about ourselves now that we have herpes. And as soon as you come into these spaces and you hear from other people, you get a little hope and inspiration, you start to release the container
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Courtney Brame: of what that raw material is that makes up the label of rejection, or fear, or shame, or what your life has to look like now. And that identity can be released so that the energy of all that accumulated raw material can now take form into something that is more aligned.
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Courtney Brame: Because as you get hope, and as you show up, and as you repeat that pattern of behavior of consistently being here, you're demonstrating to yourself, like, hey, this is who I am now.
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Courtney Brame: This is what my nervous system, my body, my mind, my emotions, my spirit, this is what aligns for them.
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Courtney Brame: And therefore, what you have to give.
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Courtney Brame: begins to accumulate and take form, perhaps in the form of healing, maybe in the form of a partner, maybe in the form of situations where you got people coming at you who… out the woodworks, right? Just wanting to be in a relationship with you, wanting to date you, wanting to take you out.
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Courtney Brame: I believe in shit because I'm living it.
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Courtney Brame: And I'm being a lot more conscious and mindful of it now to examine with a lot more intentionality.
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Courtney Brame: what it is that I'm letting go of.
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Courtney Brame: what it is I'm attaching to.
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Courtney Brame: Because you can unconsciously be attaching the raw materials that make up your surrounding, environment.
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Courtney Brame: And form an identity around that.
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Courtney Brame: But you can always consciously let go. I'm ready for the time where I unconsciously let go. I think that's happening in my dreams now, because things happen in my dreams. I wake up, and I'm like, what was that? But that's my own thing. Keeping this tied to the support group, right? Like, I think that we…
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Courtney Brame: Coming together, we cumulatively invest our money, our energy, our time, And our attention, awareness, into healing.
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Courtney Brame: And that mutual investment, Napoleon Hill talks about this in Outwitting the Devil, how two minds are greater than one, and there's a statement in the Bible that's like, should any…
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Courtney Brame: minds, two or more, come together and gather in my name, then whatever it is they ask for will be given.
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Courtney Brame: You show up in these communities, I'm not gonna say you're gonna, like, meet Prince Charming, or Princess Charming, and, you know, you're gonna walk out of here, and go outside, and somebody's tire gonna be popping, it's gonna be, like, somebody attractive that you can help, and…
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Courtney Brame: You had the love story, am I saying that?
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Courtney Brame: I'm saying that you may feel a little bit more inspired.
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Courtney Brame: For that to happen.
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Courtney Brame: You might be a little bit more capable of removing that, again, that raw material from the labels that we now subscribe to because of our diagnosis.
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Courtney Brame: And to do that with other people, to see it done, to have them see it done by you.
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Courtney Brame: I think that expedites the process. That's why I always say, community is the cure for stigma.
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Courtney Brame: Herpes stigma is a byproduct of the stigma that people in general, that society has about sex.
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Courtney Brame: Everybody having it, but don't nobody want to talk about it.
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Courtney Brame: Don't nobody know how to communicate about it.
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Courtney Brame: How strange is it that…
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Courtney Brame: You want to talk about your health when it comes to something that's supposed to feel good. You know what else feel good? Adrenaline.
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Courtney Brame: Jumping out of a plane for some people, skydiving.
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Courtney Brame: Mountain biking down a steep hill, almost dying.
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Courtney Brame: Right?
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Courtney Brame: And… those are pleasurable things for people.
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Courtney Brame: Sex is a pleasurable thing for people, so we should be able to talk about what we need in order to
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Courtney Brame: Have positive health outcomes.
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Courtney Brame: Or set ourselves up to have as positive of a health outcome as possible.
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Courtney Brame: So…
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Courtney Brame: Yeah, I think that that's what people are getting out of it. I had a couple of people write to me, especially after that last support group. Unexpectedly, I didn't ask for anything, so I was very blessed to be able to read that, but…
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Courtney Brame: Yeah, I feel like I'm locked in, I'm aligned to…
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Courtney Brame: Giving people what they're asking for.
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Courtney Brame: the yoga therapy clients, things are going great there.
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Courtney Brame: I got people who are doing what I'm asking them to do, and I'll be able to put together some case studies about their progression and, like, how useful things have been, or have not been, even. Like, I ain't got no problem being transparent. I know it's people that, you know, we might talk just because they like talking.
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Courtney Brame: And who have no intention… they might have no intention of doing what I'm asking them to do when we get off these calls in between, but yeah, I find that…
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Courtney Brame: that community support is the kind of support that I wish that I had when I was diagnosed, so I believe that people are getting through this a lot quicker and easier than they would if
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Courtney Brame: This resource wasn't available to them.
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Courtney Brame: And there's still support groups, there's still people living with herpes who are…
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Courtney Brame: Facilitating and organizing, the spaces for people to… to just convene. And, those, those are good.
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Courtney Brame: for where a person might be at that time, but I know that this one is different in the sense of, one, there's a bigger cause behind this, right? While I'm not in politics, I'm damn sure in the medical field, I'm at these conferences, like, I'm invested in this.
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Courtney Brame: And this year, I have not been able to pay myself this year. And I'm not saying that to complain, I'm saying that to speak to how invested I am. I'm very fortunate to have been able to, you know, have my insurance money from when I lost my home in the tornado. I'm very fortunate to have a part-time job where I get paid very well for working, like.
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Courtney Brame: two to three days a month, and I'm able to support myself off of that, because a lot of the shit that I do has not been paid, and I've been throwing some opportunities, too, for public speaking, and that's been a new avenue as well, so…
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Courtney Brame: the money that comes in really been going to me traveling to these things and being able to do a lot of the free things that I've been able to do.
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Courtney Brame: And I love the book, Outwaiting the Devil by Napoleon Hill, because, in the book, another thing he talks about is one of the laws of the universe, is the law of compensation, right? So he says, be ready to give
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Courtney Brame: Render a service?
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Courtney Brame: before getting anything in return. And I think that over the last 8 years.
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Courtney Brame: there's been a lot of… I used to make an identity around giving away free shit. I really was. I really had an identity around that.
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Courtney Brame: And it took me until this year. It took me until this year to come out with the clarity of.
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Courtney Brame: People don't value that.
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Courtney Brame: people just don't value free shit. And… yeah, like, this last 60 days, the last 30 to 60 days, you know, people have been registering for support calls, they've been showing up to the support calls, people have been coming to the support groups.
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Courtney Brame: And… yeah, like, all that shit that I've been trying to do before, I think maybe I was just doing too much.
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Courtney Brame: And not giving people the opportunity to decide for themselves how much value a thing has, because I'm inherently telling y'all, hey, this ain't got no value. I'm showing up, I'm doing this thing, and if you…
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Courtney Brame: want to give, you can, but if you don't, you don't have to. So now, I mean, there's recommended amounts, but it's like, if you want something, like, come on, you gotta donate. And there are still people who give $0,
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Courtney Brame: For things, not a problem, but that's not the process for getting into the support groups. And then for the support calls, what I'm seeing is that the people who… who have given no money, these are the people who miss the calls, more often.
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Courtney Brame: Like, let me see if I can pull up real quick. I want to see how many support calls I've had, because it's been a lot.
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Courtney Brame: Here we go. Support calls, sign-ups.
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Courtney Brame: for perspective.
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Courtney Brame: Okay, so this year, before I moved from New Jersey, I had 14. When I was living in New Jersey, I had 14 support calls, alright?
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Courtney Brame: When I moved to St. Louis, I had…
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Courtney Brame: 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20 support calls. After the tornado.
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Courtney Brame: I had, between then and then I found a place. Alright, I had 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 support calls before I found my home, in New York, okay?
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Courtney Brame: So… Since then, there have been… What's… 3… 40… I've had… 90…
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Courtney Brame: 7… 97 support calls since moving to New York City.
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Courtney Brame: And… I know I said 97, but…
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Courtney Brame: Between… between September…
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Courtney Brame: Yeah, there were 97, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13.
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Courtney Brame: 84 of those were between September and now.
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Courtney Brame: So, that's… that's about an average of 2… 2 30-minute support calls a day.
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Courtney Brame: of people who sign up, right? And of those, like, 1, 2, 3… For… somebody gave $1, $5.
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Courtney Brame: 6, 7, 8…
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Courtney Brame: 9, 10… yeah, there's been maybe, like, 10 people… wait… yeah, 10 people who just didn't, who didn't donate, and I don't know how many came. Next year, I think I want to keep up with,
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Courtney Brame: I wish I could find a way to know who did what, or who signed up, and like…
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Courtney Brame: I want to be able to check in with people later down the road and see if they use the guidance, but I always suspect that, you know, I hear from a person once, and I really don't need to hear from them again, because I give them the answers to the question that they would spend a lot of time on the internet looking for.
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Courtney Brame: So… The support, y'all. Just, just…
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Courtney Brame: Check it out. If you don't like it, you ain't gotta keep coming.
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Courtney Brame: you know, I want people to continue to show up, I want people to get value from being in the space, but that may not always be the case. It might not. I might not be the best support option for you, but on the website, you'll see that there are other options that I am aware of that exist, and yeah, please check those out.
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Courtney Brame: Now, closing out…
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Courtney Brame: this conversation about support groups for the men. The men's group, we started out so strong. I love that, you know, people came in, they were real open about what it is that they needed, and what they were hoping to get out of it. There was a little bit of the oversharing dumping, but I allowed that because oftentimes we don't have the opportunity or the space to really be able to speak as freely as we do. In the men's group, we defined what support looks like.
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Courtney Brame: We defined what community looks like, and we decided what, we co-created a definition of what stigma was.
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Courtney Brame: And I was so ready for the second and third support groups to be able to just add on and build from that, but now it just feels like… I gotta start over again.
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Courtney Brame: Or, you know, just keep the momentum going from what the ladies are showing.
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Courtney Brame: And I really don't want to make this into any kind of a competition, but the women are showing up and, like, even asking, where are the men at? People asking me about, like, matchmaking services and dating and stuff like that, and it's like, y'all, I can't… I can't endorse anybody that's not consistent. That's one thing I've learned, not just in…
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Courtney Brame: you know, my personal life, but also in my work life. I don't work with people who have not proven to be consistent in some capacity. Like, even, you know, people who
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Courtney Brame: open up about having herpes, they might make a post or something, and I look to see what they do. Like, I'll watch you on social media for a bit and see how consistent you are before I invite you into this space, because I've had people…
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Courtney Brame: show up, be real enthusiastic and passionate about, you know, what this is, and then just disappear. And now these links on my website that I gotta go back and get off the website. It's messing up my SEO rankings. And I had to do that. I had to go through and do a lot of cleanup, and I think that that's why people are so much more easily able to find us, so…
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Courtney Brame: That consistency is key.
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Courtney Brame: And I think that maybe that needs to be one of the screening questions for the men's group, especially. Because, like, the women have already signed up for the next support group on November 17th?
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Courtney Brame: And, like, we a week out, we a little bit more than a week out. But the process is simple. I outlined it, I put it in screenshots, in the newsletter, everybody got the email who signed up for the email, or who has signed up for a support call. They got it.
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Courtney Brame: You got it. All I ask is that you put this in your calendar yourself. Just don't… don't make me do more work. I cannot… I do not want to burn out. I have a really solid flow going right now. Everything is… is smooth.
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Courtney Brame: the process is understood by people, and I'm able to now integrate a few more things. One of the things that I'm gonna be working on here now is I'm looking for people who
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Courtney Brame: Want to have, like, a play date.
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Courtney Brame: And a role play of disclosing and talking about our sexual health status with one another, so that people have, like, a real example of what this can look like. Me sitting across with somebody, we just finished dinner, and, you know, we might be touching each other's leg under the table or whatever, a little eye contact, and then, hey, you know, let's go upstairs.
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Courtney Brame: Oh, alright, well, wait, wait, wait, before, you know, we gonna talk about condoms? Like, oh, that's what you wanted to do.
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Courtney Brame: Alright, yeah, let's do that, let's do that, right? I'm looking forward to that. I'm most excited about that, because I think that that's gonna be really valuable and fun.
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Courtney Brame: I'm watching One Piece right now, and I don't see myself being able to do anything extra,
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Courtney Brame: Until I get to, like… I gotta get through this. I'm watching the anime One Piece, I've never seen it before, and… it's really fucking good. I'm at episode, like, 70 right now, I just started season 2.
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Courtney Brame: And, I'm on episode 63.
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Courtney Brame: I'm trying to get through 10 a day, and over the weekends, I want to get through 20. So… yeah, my days are packed. My days are packed now. But the reason that I'm,
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Courtney Brame: the reason that I'm so, like, hype about that… that demo, that roleplay.
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Courtney Brame: is because we don't have that. We don't… we don't see the role plays of disclosure and discussing our health… our sexual health status without it looking like a fucking confession. So we can do some do's and don'ts. Maybe I just need to rent out, like, a studio space, and that'll be the content that I make.
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Courtney Brame: for TikTok and, Instagram, and I just gotta find some people that are comfortable with that, because that's the hardest part, right? Like, people ain't even gotta say they got herpes. I think they just make the connection of.
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Courtney Brame: knowing me, or being connected to me, or whatever, and then, like, that's… that's that. So, I'm gonna ask around and see if there's people around me who would be down to do that. I could set the rain camera up.
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Courtney Brame: Ring camera. I don't have a ring camera. The ring light up, throw these little bitty microphones on them. You can barely see this… no, you can see it. You can see it very well.
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Courtney Brame: And yeah, that's gonna be one of the next things coming up, so if you're somebody who wants to support this, if you want to get involved, if you want to donate to this particular thing, you can just donate to the general fund, because I think I'm gonna have to rent out a space, and…
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Courtney Brame: Shit. People buying tickets to the New York City event, December 12th from 5pm to 9pm, the karaoke event. I just revised it to where now it's karaoke. That's what we're doing. We're doing karaoke, $20 entry minimum, and if you want to help support at a higher level, you got the options to be able to do that. But yeah, people buying tickets, so we finna have fun a little bit over a month from now.
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Courtney Brame: It's a Friday night, 5 p.m. to 9pm in Brooklyn. Zip code is 11206.
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Courtney Brame: if you're listening to this, like, I'm not gonna tell you where it is, because I don't think I can, but when you register, you'll see where it is, and I'll send out the newsletter to explain that to the people who registered. So, I'm looking forward to it. I know we got people coming in from out of town for this. People coming in from out of town…
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Courtney Brame: For this 400-episode party, so… I look forward to it.
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Courtney Brame: And, yeah, that concludes this episode of Something Positive for Positive People. Again, I just wanted to share the… what the support groups have been so far, what they've been about. The process is you make a donation-based support call, we talk about what you need to talk about. I've had people come in and say, I'm just doing this to get into the support group.
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Courtney Brame: That's cool.
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Courtney Brame: But if you're wanting a support group because you need support, what is the thing that you need support with?
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Courtney Brame: Like, let's be ready to talk about that, alright? This ain't just, like, I'm asking you questions to find out, if I can send you the link or not, and you're not finding out if you qualify to get into the Cool Kids Club. That's not what this is. It's giving you the support that you need initially, and so now, when we come into here, you aren't…
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Courtney Brame: exclusively here for that, to get that out of the group. Like, now you're here because you want to be, and you want the community, and that's part of your story, and you're able to say this out loud in another way without saying it for the first time, and maybe not breaking down crying and everything. Okay?
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Courtney Brame: Alright, y'all. Oh, my birthday Monday, so… yeah, if y'all want to make some donations to something positive for positive people, to help me make that little dream come true, that'd be cool. I'm gonna go see Kate Trinata, tomorrow night. Well, tomorrow night being November 9th, and
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Courtney Brame: on November 10th, I'mma probably just be answering my phone calls all day from family and friends, and getting caught up with people, so I look forward to that. Till next time…
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Courtney Brame: Stay present.
