SPFPP 402: Herpes is the End of the WOrld
Let me come out the gate and share that my intention especially with this title is to validate the experiences of 99% of people who find SPFPP. If you’re seeking something to support you through your herpes diagnosis and you come across this first, I want you to know you’re seen, that feeling is valid, and as you interrogate it, you learn that the reality of the world ending is that there is still remnants of what was that can be contributed to what is. This is how we build a new world for ourselves to exist in no matter how bad we don’t want to or miss our old lives. The reality is that this isn’t the only ending of a world you’ve experienced, and if it is, then I envy you. We take the raw material of our past, the lessons, the skills, the confidence, and we condense it into our identity. You’ll hear me say this a lot, “nurture your nature” and to condense the raw material of lived experiences into who we are at our nature, expressing and experiencing that is how we nurture it. It’s the parts of ourselves no one sees, but everyone in proximity may experience at any moment. Listen to this episode if you are feeling like the title resonates with where you are right now in your experience and know you are free to leave that space when ready.
Episode 402 Transcript
The Danger of Saying "It's Not the End of the World"
00:00:00 Courtney Brame: All right. Green light, blue light. Welcome to Something Positive for Positive People. I'm Courtney Brame. Something Positive for Positive People is a 501c3 nonprofit organization supporting people navigating herpes stigma in a variety of ways. Um, one of those is primarily support calls. Um, there have been a lot of support calls coming in. So, I've been very very busy with those. Um, I'm grateful to the health care professionals, the mental health professionals, educators, and people who have been referring people to Something Positive for Positive People. Shout out to the AI platforms for being uh very forthcoming and having people reach out to Something Positive for Positive People cuz I've been busy like for perspective. Um, in January, I think there were 70 calls that were signed up for February … around 70 as well. So yeah, there have been days where I've had like eight in a day. Um, so I'm busy and I'm managing the support groups which meet on Mondays at 7:30 p.m.
00:03:25 Courtney Brame: Eastern time. The women's group is the first and third Monday. The men's group is the second and fourth. And if there is a fifth Monday, then we will have something uh that is blended. So both groups will meet. You still register for those the same way. you make a donation to that support group uh that you are affiliated with and then you'll get the calendar invite for it. Um if you're somebody who has not attended a support group before and you want to be a part of it, we have to just have a one-on-one support call first so that I'm able to make sure that you're getting what it is that you need from the support group. You know what it is that you're signing up for and all the stuff that people wouldn't read if I were to put on the website and I'll be able to answer some questions for you. All right.
00:04:07 Courtney Brame: I got called out for uh I got called out by a credible source, one of my board members uh for my last few podcast episodes seeming like diaries or or journal entries, which I was like, damn, you're right. I can't see that. And I don't want to say I'm running out of s*** to talk about. I think that I've been really playing it safe in terms of what I share. I'm much more comfortable with a guest and getting them to talk about their experiences and pulling that out of people and then moving forward just sharing bits and pieces of my own personal experiences within that. So, if you listen to this and you feel compelled to share your experience, your story uh living with herpes and how navigating that has been for you, please don't hesitate to reach out. Let me know and we can get you the same way we're doing this right here that I'm recording. um we can have you as a guest on the podcast because people want to hear from others.
00:05:05 Courtney Brame: People want to hear others' lived experiences and not everybody really wants to share. So I would say for every 98 people who say that they want to hear other people's experiences, there might be two um that or for every hundred people, 98 want to hear people's experiences and only two are willing to share their experiences. So, uh, and I'm going to be real like I am impacted by herpes in such a way that is completely and significantly different than a lot of other people. Um, if you're watching this or listening to this, you'll see that I'm not, you know, in my normal background, right? Uh, I have taken the opportunity to view herpes in a completely different way than what we're told to look at it as. I talk about identity fragmentation and how if we just take a circle and how a circle has 360 degrees. Think about those as different aspects of our personality, who we are, ourselves, our roles that we play in the lives of others.
00:06:15 Courtney Brame: And imagine that having herpes is just one of those degrees. and the way that we dictate our life around that one degree and making that affect the other 359 aspects of our circle. That's what we can do and I think a lot of people do that unconsciously. I have done it much more consciously in that yeah when it comes to dating and navigating a conversation like I don't have a problem telling people I have herpes. I have a problem with what comes after that because then I become a m************ therapist rather than somebody that you know is on the prospect list of dating or hooking up with. So I have the problem of people more so gravitating towards me when I tell them I have herpes and I end up somehow telling them what I do and then like that's it's kind of like shut off at that point. So that is my experience and literally nobody that comes in for a support call is ready to hear that or can relate to that and it's so far away it's so far removed that if I were to you know tell these people that like it's it's unbelievable and I got to be real mindful of that.
00:07:37 Courtney Brame: Um, I try to not, you know, talk too much about my own experiences on support calls because I want for people to make that about themselves. Um, I had one that was with a young man who straight up told me he was like, I don't want to do this. And you take that the way that you would take it, but he seemed like he really didn't want to do this. And for those who don't know, when I started Something Positive for Positive People 9 years ago, um there was a woman who was in a relationship with someone, she had just tested positive for herpes, no symptoms, and she and I had become friends. We'd met on the dating app for people with herpes. And she just wanted to be ready for when or if he, her boyfriend, had any symptoms at all. And this is someone who, you know, was in a relationship, was attractive, had a good job, and over time we had become friends.
00:08:30 Courtney Brame: And I remember her telling me that she too wanted to end her life. And when she said that, I was just I was shocked. I didn't understand why you got the relationship, you don't have symptoms, you just found out about this information and now you don't want to be here. And for this person, it felt like kind of a flashback, like a reminder of why I show up to this, like why I continue to do the work that I do. Because in this young man's case, it was very similar. He didn't have the relationship necessarily, but he has a support system. He has family. He has friends. He has people around him that he feels very supported by, but there's something still there that, you know, he doesn't want to do this. And when we were having the conversation and he shared with me that he had called the suicide lifeline and that they said, you know, it's not the end of the world.
00:09:24 Courtney Brame: That gave me a feeling of anger because that's literally the equivalent of saying something to a person that is so far removed. Like you're you're they're so far removed from everything's going to be okay. Eventually, you'll be over this. You're going to find someone to love you. Don't nobody… can nobody even receive that at this point. No one can receive it at that stage of where they are in their diagnosis, right? Like if somebody's talking about they want to end their lives because of their herpes diagnosis, the last thing that they want to hear is, you know, something that's so far removed from their imagination. And I'm not a mental health professional. I'm not a doctor. I'm just somebody who actually engages with and talks to people one-on-one to understand what it is that they're feeling and how they're thinking and what their behaviors are. And I I believe that that's not helpful.
00:10:22 Courtney Brame: It's not helpful to hear it'll be all right. It's not the end of the world because it is the end of the world. It's the end of your world as you know it. Yes, things are going to change. And the reason that they're going to change is most likely because things needed to change and they haven't changed. And that's really what this comes down to. The nervous system is going to gently whisper to you when things are out of alignment. Maybe you can't hear it because your awareness isn't in your nervous system. Because your awareness is out there, it's at work. It's with your friends. It's your social life, your family, whatever else you got going on. Or maybe it's your relationships. Your awareness is in your relationships. And your relationships are generally impacted by your sexuality. Your sexuality tends to be something that revolves around your genitals.
The "Nurture Your Nature" Exercise
00:11:17 Courtney Brame: And so when the nervous system can't get your attention in the sense of, hey, we're dysregulated. Hey, this isn't normal. Hey, we need to get away from over here. Hey, can you pay attention to me? All right. What are you paying attention to? Oh, you're paying attention to your genitals. Let me see if I can get your attention there. Boom. Herpes. I know how ridiculous that can sound to somebody who's not really ready to hear that, but it's relatable. I know that it's relatable because you know I I'll ask people hey were there any red flags around the person that you think might have given it to you or what was going on in your life around that time and I give this exercise to people called nurture your nature and the idea is for you to identify what your nature is who you are and then begin to look at ways that you nurture that aspect of yourself.
00:12:08 Courtney Brame: So, um, rather than asking people who are you, right? It's more like, well, what are you made of? And I don't mean like skin, bones, teeth, whatever. What I mean is I want you to see the parts of yourself that are not seen, that you cannot visibly see or physically touch, hear, taste, smell, right? But are to be perceived and experienced not just by others, but by you. How do you experience yourself? What is yourself? What are you made of? And I try not to lead people with my own examples, but I have these eight C's. Curiosity, choice, challenge, connection, creativity, community, uh, completion, consistency. Oh, I said them all. I usually have to stop and think about it, but those are like my eight C's of self that I believe are my nature. And there's three places that these tend to come out and that's work, rest, and play.
00:13:07 Courtney Brame: So, how am I expressing my curiosity and work? I ask questions. I interview people literally. I ask people about their experiences with their diagnosis. How am I experiencing connection and play, sex, relationships, intimacy in a shared activity where there's uh like a game being played, right? Or there's some type of a goal, right? How am I experiencing another one? Completion through rest, right? I do a lot of things. I'm yoga certified- in yoga, but I'm more so practicing for myself. Um, I'm in yoga therapy training. I teach medical students to give genital exams in order to play the… in order to pay the bills. I've been running Something Positive. I do the support calls and support groups. Um, I'm also doing events. Um, I'm also building community, right? So throughout the day, throughout the week, throughout the month, throughout the year, all of this is going on.
00:14:09 Courtney Brame: And for me to really complete the cycles of everything that I do, I have to make space to rest. And so completion to me looks like being able to rest, right? Like if you are biblically inclined on the seventh day of creation, source rested. And that to me is how I nurture my nature. I nurture my nature through those vehicles of engagement with the world. Like that's how I see myself. That's how I experience myself and express myself and that's how others experience me as well. And so that exercise helps people to begin to validate their own identity outside of how they see themselves in that sexual aspect. Because again, going back to the circle, it's 360 degrees. Imagine a little notch at every degree. And if you pick one of those and that's your herpes diagnosis, imagine if you just put it to the side and you just looked at the circle.
00:15:10 Courtney Brame: You would see 359 things about yourself that have nothing to do with herpes. And we limit ourselves so much into identifying with that piece that it makes it difficult for us to see beyond what uh the physical limitations of dating, relating and connecting with people in ways that have nothing to do with sex at all or intimacy. So I challenge people and if this is something that you know you feel compelled to do like take that you know nurture your nature because you should be able to do that for yourself. You should recognize what of those invisible aspects of yourself that need to be nurtured that are your nature. What are there and how do you go about it? Because you know we talk about self-care and it's not to take a bubble bath, it's not to go have a drink. It's not, you know, eat food, right? Like that's survival stuff. Like you should be cleaning yourself.
00:16:08 Courtney Brame: You should be eating, right? If you able to listen to this podcast, you should be able to do the bare minimum for survival. So I'm not going to give you no kudos and a pat on the back because you take care of yourself at the minimum of what you need to be doing for yourself to nurture your nature. Unfortunately, it is something that really we're away from. We're very far disconnected from being able to. We don't even recognize who we are because there are so many things that pull our awareness away from the nervous system and being able to pick up on those early signals that something in our lives needs to change. Whether that be the environments that we're in, whether it be the people we're around, whether it be the career field that we're in. So all of these different aspects of engagement can really influence and encourage… discourage what it is that's happening with our nervous system which is constantly telling us hey this is the direction that we want to go.
00:17:05 Courtney Brame: So when our nervous system is not in alignment or if something's not in alignment with our behaviors then the nervous system is going to speak and a lot of times we'll shove that down be like I don't have time to deal with that right now. And we got to not do that. We got to bring that awareness into the body. I have an exercise. I'm not going to keep giving away these exercises, but uh when we get so in our heads and in our minds about our herpes diagnosis, something as simple as observing your hand and looking at your hand and noticing how many fingers you have, notice the movement. Notice the coloration. Notice the length of your nails, the coloration of your nails, those little lines that spiral, your fingerprints, right? Notice how many lines you have in your hand. Can you count them? What do your knuckles feel like?
00:17:50 Courtney Brame: What does your hand feel like? And in that time, you've been able to disidentify away from what is happening in your thoughts between past and future. And you're able to ground your body and look at what's happening in the present moment. So, I am giving away all this free game. So, nothing else. This should encourage you to a attend an event, b attend a support group, c sign up for one of the support calls to be able to take this where it can go for you if you are somebody who is in fact looking for and seeking support. So the exercise of nurture by nature means looking at those intangible aspects of yourself and recognizing those as your nature outside of your body, outside of the things that you do. looking at what it means to be who you are, right? So, take that and do what you will with it and just remember that at any given moment you can check in with yourself and be where you are and in this moment and away from the thoughts that send you in every kind of chaotic different direction.
Taking Action and Making Choices
00:18:55 Courtney Brame: That's where anxiety is. That's where jealousy is. That's where uh the lack of selfworth. That's where this sense of incompleteness is because realistically a lot of us when we get our diagnosis we haven't really had experiences to measure up against the beliefs that we've adopted about ourselves now that we have this diagnosis. We haven't. There are people I talked to who were diagnosed a week ago. I'm like well what's how's herpes impacted you? And then it's like, well, now that I have this, it's like, well, you probably had it longer than since you found out realistically. So, what's the difference between when you might have been exposed up to the point where you thought that you had herpes? Like, what's changed about you since then? And that's what I mean with curiosity. I just, I just ask people, I ask people questions. I challenge their belief systems because that's all we have.
00:19:51 Courtney Brame: You'll sit here and have uh tens of thousands of thoughts that if you just take an action can nullify those, you know, and my hands right here, if I sit here and I tell myself, I can never close my fist. I will never be able to close my fist. My hands are always open. The more I'm saying that, the less any action is being taken. Nothing's happening. My hands are just here open because that's what I'm thinking. That's what I'm saying. And that's what I'm doing. But at any given moment, oh, look what just happened. Any given moment, you can just close your fist, right? Take action. The action is going to deter the beliefs. It's going to disrupt the thoughts. Now, I can open my hand when I want to. I can close it.
00:20:38 Courtney Brame: But if I sit here and I just tell myself, I'll never be able to do this. I'll never be able to take that action. The thoughts have to stop because this disrupts them. Same thing goes for living with a herpes diagnosis, right? To say, "I can't do this." It's like, "No, you're, you're actually doing it." Like, "I don't want to be here anymore." Well, you're here. Like, let's let's talk about that. Like, why? What's so out of alignment for you that you don't want to experience the full spectrum of this body of your ability to engage with the world? the other 359 aspects of engagement, right? Sex is one way of engaging with this big beautiful life. If sex is all you got going for you, I'm sorry. I'm so sorry to hear that.
00:21:34 Courtney Brame: If sex is the only thing that you have going for you, I am sorry. And I also need to challenge that. I also need to challenge that because that's not the case. Right? If we look at our roles in life, like there's identities that we have. Maybe some of us are parents or siblings, we're children of someone, grandchildren of someone, we've got ancestors, right? We're descendants of someone. There's the work rest in place. So when resting who we are in play who we are. Maybe you identify as a dancer or a singer, a performer, or an artist. Maybe you are someone who's a worker, an entrepreneur, you're an employee, your coworker, right? That's probably a dozen things right there that I just spit out randomly. So, for you to no longer want to be here because of this one degree of your life not even being taken away from you, it just has to look different.
00:22:42 Courtney Brame: It just looks like now, okay, now that we know about our herpes status, let's look at the things that are coming up alongside this. Cuz for many of us, it's not just the physical symptoms. It's not just the physical pain. Take the medication and you know, we move on. Because realistically, we only need to think about this on two occasions. One, if we have physical symptoms. Two, if we need to tell someone new. So, why is this dictating our behaviors? Why is this making us decide that we don't want to be here anymore? Why is it making us, you know, take these steps, take these actions? And I'll be the first to tell you that herpes does serve as a catalyst for ending a world. So yes, your world is over. This is the end of your world as it is. And you know, if you decide that you don't want to change anything, then more power to you.
00:23:44 Courtney Brame: You got good things going for you. But that kind of person will never hear this podcast. If you genuinely, you know, don't desire to take anything from your herpes diagnosis, learn from it, integrate it into how you move forward, that person will never hear this. But if you are sitting here, listening to it, you're looking for something, and I ain't going to say I'mma be the one to help you find it, but I can perhaps point you in the direction that will support you in that. I can't do it for you. And I I've I've really f***** up in life a lot of times thinking that I can do things for people. And you can't. I can be the signpost. Like, I will do every f****** thing in my power to help you help you. If you're somebody who doesn't want to help themselves, there is nothing I can do for you.
Finding Fuel in "World-Ending" Events
00:24:52 Courtney Brame: If you come to me, you just say, "Hey, I don't want to be here. I just want to vent. I want to get this off my chest." There's nothing I can do for you. If you are looking for hope, if you are looking for actionable steps, if you are looking to get into a relationship or date, if you are looking to learn from your experience, if you are looking for community and you want to work through what it means for you now to have herpes, I'm here. I'm here because my world ended a couple times. Like, I ain't gonna lie to you. My world ended several times throughout my life. My world ended, you know, I can think back to my first breakup in seventh grade. I'm not gonna say we're still in touch, but I've, you know, connected with her recently and that was heartshattering. My world changed. Going to high school, losing all my middle school friends that I had grown so attached to.
00:26:19 Courtney Brame: The world ended getting to that point in college where I thought that I knew what the rest of my life was going to look like. When I finished high school, I applied for schools and I thought I was going to get a scholarship to this place. It was Northern Iowa, University of Northern Iowa. I was too short. They stopped calling. The world ended. And in each of these experiences, these were at the time the worst thing that could ever happen to me. Graduate college, get my first job. A year into my first job, finding out that I got herpes. Worst thing that ever happened to me again. world ending. Getting into a relationship with somebody I ain't had no business being in a relationship with. That relationship ending, world ending, getting my dream job at the time was my dream job and then knowing that I needed to leave before I got fired.
00:27:48 Courtney Brame: Leaving what became my ideal job, everything I wanted to do. I get fired. world ending. That's eight. That's like eight endings right there that I just named. Moving back home to St. Louis. Starting this podcast 2017. That's where I would say a new world for me was built. All of the things that I named previously that my world ended around those world ending life events that occurred. I'm still here. I've taken something from each of those endings like and I've taken the raw material, the essence of the lessons that I've gotten from those failed experiences and I took them and and turned them into something and they made me who the f*** I am. Every one of the world ending events that has happened throughout your life has given you the raw material that makes up the essence of who you are, that makes up your nature.
00:29:26 Courtney Brame: And for many of us, we don't take a moment to look at what our nature is so that we can nurture that. And the longer we go without nurturing our nature, we find an artificial substitute for that nurturing. And maybe that does come out in sexual relationships. Maybe it's drinking on weekends and kicking it with your friends and being away from yourself, creating noise, scrolling social media, starting businesses and activities that just keep you busy and keep you running around and all over the place. all of these worldending events would not have made me into a person capable of doing this. And I speak to, you know, it's been a couple other ones that I've had. You know, it's been a little bit over a year since the last relationship that I had ended. And I feel like it's taken me until just now, maybe a few weeks ago, to actually comprehend the ending of the relationship and the lessons from that.
00:30:40 Courtney Brame: And I've taken that raw material and compressed that into who I am. So that now there can be even further an expansion of who I am and recognizing the importance of nurturing my own nature and identifying what my nature is. So each of these worldending events, y'all, I don't tornado hit my crib. You know how unlikely that is. And while I wasn't there, you I'm. I've been susceptible to stagnancy and I've been in these few situations where that was happening and it's taken some worldending event to keep me from being stagnant. If I was stagnant, we wouldn't have Something Positive for Positive People. All of those worldending events made me into who I am today. I might not look like what I've been through, but I hold space like what I've been through. All of these micro explosions of my world's ending have given me this f****** capacity to be able to hold space. So when people tell me this is the end of the world for me, like I f****** empathize.
00:32:08 Courtney Brame: I get it. I know what it's like because it's happened to me dozens of times in my life to where I can hold that space. I can hold that container for the grief, the anger, the rage, the frustration, the not wanting to be here, the depression, the helplessness, the hopelessness, the negativity. Something Positive for Positive People wouldn't be what it is without those world ending events. It wouldn't be what it is without the people whose worlds ended deciding to come here and giving hope to those who are looking to transition into a newer world for themselves. So herpes is the end of the world. And I ain't going to sit up here and tell you it ain't. That's the reality. What I will tell you is that that doesn't mean it's the end. All of those failures, failed opportunities, all of those failed jobs, those failed relationships. None of that was a failure.
00:33:27 Courtney Brame: That was fuel. All of those failures were fuel. that further validated who I am outside of what my body is or what my body can do. It's my expression. It's how I'm experienced. And I just so happen to have this outlet for that. And it just so happens to be something that can help people. It just so happens to be something that people are looking for. And this way, this wasn't something that I planned. It wasn't something that I thought out and was like, "Oh, you know what? Here's how my life's going to look. I'm going to get herpes. I'm going to talk about it and I'm going to be successful and live happily ever after." I was f****** forced, pressured. Like, I had my ass handed to me. Like, my ass has been kicked over the years.
00:34:33 Courtney Brame: At the time, herpes was the worst thing that ever happened to me. But since getting herpes, it's been a few things that had I not been prepared based on what I've been through prior to my diagnosis and after, I wouldn't be where I'm at. I wouldn't be able to hold this space. I have f***** this up a long time ago. Carl Given, I shout out to Carl Given, owner of Given 100. Dear friend of mine, man. He always says like, "You ain't you can't if I got this earlier, I'd have f***** it up a long time ago." So, right now, where I'm at, where you're at, think about it like this. If it hadn't happened to you now, maybe you'd have f***** up in a whole different way. And I don't even like to say f***** up in the sense of like a herpes diagnosis, but what I mean for myself is had I not been through what I experienced, I wouldn't be able to hold this massive thing that people gravitate towards with reverence, with grace, with empathy, with ethics and values.
00:35:47 Courtney Brame: I would have f***** this up a long time ago because it took for my failures and what I've been through in order to nurture the nature that I had. If I was immature, I'd have probably messed this up. So, my final bit that I want to leave y'all with here is yes, herpes is the end of the world, but what kind of world do you want to create from the raw material that the old one left behind? I'm going to wrap this up here. Um, it's March 11th. On March 21st in New York City, oh actually Brooklyn, New York, we have an in-person herpes support day. It's the herpes stigma expo. It'll start at 11:00 a.m. with a support group in person for about two hours and then we'll shift into the no shame in this game documentary showing. We'll have a Q&A afterwards with some of the participants that were in the documentary.
00:36:52 Courtney Brame: This is about herpes stigma. Uh we'll have about a two-hour lunch break if people want to stay on site. We'll have a couple of foods there if people want to participate in the communication simulation that we're going to be putting together for people to just watch and see if it's something that maybe they want to participate in giving the practice of telling someone that you have herpes. Um after that, Lauren Keane, who is a uh it's a onewoman show called Dealbreaker. She's going to be presenting that for us. It's about an hour and then we'll do a Q&A afterwards. And then to close out, I'll be facilitating about a 2-hour long workshop giving people the practice of dating and disclosure and you'll have like your own little outline of what it looks like for you. So, we're going to go over our own styles of doing it, how we would do it. We're going to put together scripts and you'll be able to take that home with you and it'll just be kind of like a skeleton for you to feel confident in practicing bringing your own personality to it.
00:37:50 Courtney Brame: So, that's March 21st. If you go to spfP.orgexpo expo, then you will be able to see the details of the event. Sign up for it. And I want to be able to get more people to these things. So when y'all hear this podcast, like sign up for the newsletter. I send maybe one and a half emails per month from the newsletter, which is typically just all of the updates for Something Positive. But people want to do stuff in person, so they ask about it. And then the people who ask about it don't subscribe to the marketing. So I never hear from them again whenever I'm like, "Hey, I'm going to be in this place." And there's like all these people who are there that maybe we can get together and socialize. Um but yeah, I guess y'all think I send a lot of emails. I don't know. But I usually just send one a month and if there's an event, you might get two. So um yeah, that's it y'all. Uh thank you for listening. And I hope this didn't sound like a diary entry and that it was something useful. I threw some yoga therapy exercises in there for y'all to hopefully be able to find valuable and implement. And hopefully this encourages you to sign up for a support call, try and join a support group or maybe even work with me for yoga therapy or just attend an event, whatever it is that you need for yourself. All right, until next time, stay present. Notice I've been saying that a lot more lately instead of sex positive or saying positive because I don't want y'all to, you know, when you're positive, you also draw in and attract the negative by default. But when you are neutral or if you're present, then you can hold space for both or neither for whatever it is that you subscribe to. All right, till next time.
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