SPFPP Episode 156: Avoidance isn't Letting Go
Avoidance isn’t letting go. The action of keeping away from or not doing something is avoidance. Letting go is a willingness to accept what is.
I want to relate this to discordant relationships where one person has herpes and the other doesn't. Far too often we hear about rejections and "successful" disclosures (and ya'll know how I feel about that). But what about post-disclosure?
In this episode we take expectation setting and tie in the conversation from episode 154 about being WITH vs BEING with someone. It's about our boundaries, expectation setting and anchoring in our values.
I'm writing this before recording with the intention of staying on topic but we will likely end up with a tangent lol. Nah I kid I kid . . . I have my notes to keep me on track.
As I hit submit and finalize these notes after having recorded, yeah I ended up making some pretty solid other points as well haha.
Adding to this after release . . . I got some good feedback on the overall episode even though I feel it could've been 2 separate episodes. Thanks for rocking with me ya'll.
Episode 156 Transcript
Mental Health Services and the Future of SPFPP
00:00:00 Courtney Brame: Welcome to Something Positive for Positive People. I'm Courtney Brame. Something positive for positive people is a 501c3 nonprofit organization that provides mental health services for people who have experienced the sexual trauma of a positive STI diagnosis. At some point I hope to be able to make that sentence “provides mental health services for people who've experienced sexual trauma” period. But right now, this is what we got to do. This is where we are. As we wrap up 2020, I'm very excited to announce that we're at a point where we've gotten 14 people enrolled in counseling services with a licensed mental health professional. And I'm doing exit interviews with everyone so that we can discuss how their progress has been made and what developments they've experienced.
Courtney Brame: And so far, I've done one exit interview wrap-up and there were a lot of good things said and there were also some areas for improvement that are definitely going to roll out into 2021. So, as of right now, we can only provide services for people who are living in Missouri, residents of Missouri, because that's the counselor that we're working with. But come 2021, I am fully ready for us to launch this bad boy. And who knows what else this is going to evolve into. It's gotten to the point where I called it into existence. I didn't know how it was going to look, but here we are. So, actually, if you are someone who is a licensed mental health care provider and you're listening to this podcast, if you are positive or if you're just a sex positive person generally, then and you feel compelled to perhaps donate some sessions to something positive for positive people, listeners, or if you even want to be a part of the network that I'm putting together of sex positive therapists to provide services to our listeners, to our community, to people who are living with not just HSV, but also other STI and struggling with having access to the tools that they need in order to support them in navigating the stigma. Please don't hesitate to reach out. My email is just courtney@spfpp.org.
Avoidance vs. Letting Go
Courtney Brame: This episode is titled Avoidance is not letting go. And I wish I could have just made the equal sign with a slash. I'll probably just do that on the cover for the podcast episode. What I mean by that is I have masked letting go with avoidance in a lot of situations that I've been in. Not just in my personal life with friends, with my potential relationships, in my career. That's what I've been doing. I mentioned from time to time my impulse to quit my job before I moved back home to St. Louis. When I lived in Houston, Texas, I think that I was avoiding conflict and there's a fear behind that that came up in therapy in one of my early sessions about me running away from something. And that's where the avoidance comes from. And I'm not running from anything.
Courtney Brame: And then over time, as you continue to process and work through the healing and sit with the emotions of certain statements and situations, you come to realize some really powerful things for yourself. And in my situation, I just realized that I have been saying I'm letting go, but it's not surrender. It's been avoidance. And just to give you an idea, avoidance is the action of keeping away from or not doing something. And then with letting go is a willingness to allow what is to be. It looks like acceptance.
00:05:00 Courtney Brame: I have been so resistant throughout all areas of my life. Being as woke as I am, as spiritually inclined, and having experienced all of the growth I have and emotionally aware and intelligent as I am in all of these areas, I've been completely oblivious to the fact that my avoidance has a much deeper root than my letting go. And I think that I'm letting go, but I'm being avoided. And I can give you an example of anger. I avoid my anger, but I say, "I'm letting go of this situation because it's going to make me angry." Letting go, to me, is a depressurization. We build tension. we build tightness. let's make a fist in front of you if you're in a position where you can. Now, you've got your fist closed.
Courtney Brame: Wrap your thumb around the index finger to where the thumb is touching the middle finger. And then just squeeze as hard as… Squeeze. And you feel that sensation in your fist. Perhaps your nails are digging into your palm. And your hands are starting to turn a little bit red. You're getting sore. There's a sensation that's rising up your wrist or your forearm to your elbow and perhaps your biceps flexing a little bit. Now release that. There's a sensation of realignment that's coming into place throughout your hand back to a neutral position. That is what letting go is. I have been having a tight clinched fist saying I'm letting go, but every time I say I'm letting go and I actually avoid, I'm tightening that fist. I'm creating more and more and more of that tension.
Courtney Brame: And she's always said to me, "You have a lot of anger. You are an angry person." And I've resisted that with all my might. And I overcompensate by just being a good person, by doing good things. And I feel like I have this demon or this shadow in me that is just like there and it expresses itself when I just lose my It's really challenging for me to get to a point of losing my s***, but I always recognize it and rather than depressurize, I allow for it to fester. It's like when you can only sweep so much under the rug before you trip over it and then that s*** comes out, the times that come up for me, I've quit my job, I've ended a relationship, and so on and so on.
Courtney Brame: I don't really have experience in expressing my anger healthily outside of being able to be aware of when I'm angry and then starting to tell people right away when I'm angry. And one of my values is intimacy. So being able to transparently communicate my anger to someone could be the thing that I need in order for me to heal in order for me to really get whatever it is that I need to get out of the experience that's being had.
[Sponsor Segment: Let's Get Checked] 00:10:00 Courtney Brame: I encourage you to visit www.trylogic.com without the vowel. So that's trylgc.com/spfpp. And when you go into checkout, there's an option for you to enter a promo code And when you enter the code spfpp, you'll save 30% off your first purchase at home STI test kit. And you can also get a COVID test there.
The Illusion of the "Successful" Disclosure
Courtney Brame: Now, going back into my notes... this avoidance versus letting go applied. Okay, something that comes up a lot is we talk about successful disclosures and I don't want to use successful disclosure anymore. Until I find a way to phrase it in a way that feels right, I'm going to have to continue to call it that. So imagine that whenever I say successful disclosure, I'm using air quotes, right, around the word successful. but let's say, you disclose to a partner, hey, this is my HSV status. I'm positive. Here's the information around it. We often anticipate a person saying no. We hear more about rejections in social media, even on this podcast... And we expect the negative to happen. And when the positive does it, it just takes us away from this space.
Courtney Brame: We don't need this anymore because we've received the acceptance that we came here to equip ourselves with the tools and resources to be able to understand. But what happens post successful disclosure right now? check-ins. Think about revisiting boundaries. Think about setting expectations beyond the precautions to reduce the risk such as taking daily suppressive medication, using barriers whenever you are intimate, avoiding sex during outbreaks, basic hygiene of showering or just making sure that you're taking care of your body in the way that you should.
Courtney Brame: But what happens when a partner does in fact ruin the discordancy by eventually testing positive? no, that's the worst. How could you ruin us like this by being positive? People who tend to have this huge burden of responsibility that we are exclusively responsible for our partner's sexual health. Even if they have all of the information that they need about this status, this virus in itself. And we often beat ourselves up about being cautious and everything. And we want to be mindful we would even talk ourselves out of a relationship as a result by harassing partners and being like, Are you sure? Are you sure?"
00:15:00 Courtney Brame: And it's not even sure you're okay with having sex with me because I have herpes. It's more so are you sure I'm worth it. I think that that's what the question really is and what that stems from is a seeking of validation for our value as human beings. Because if you're someone who's lived with herpes for me, I've had it for eight years now. And I've only recently become accepting of my status through the advocacy and everything that I've done. And I've been met with so much love. And I've also been met with so many opportunities to receive the intimacy that I deprived myself of early on in my diagnosis.
Courtney Brame: So from this perspective, I see how if you've gone without being accepted for a really long time and then you receive acceptance from someone about your status, you want to take care of them. You really want to be there for them. You're going to put everything you can into protecting your partner. But we realistically just can't. There's always going to be a possibility of us passing the virus on. And one of the things that I've done is with my partners who are not HSV positive, I make sure that they're aware of that. And that's really all that we think we can do because we're not taught anything beyond that. We're not even taught that much. So, the rest of it is self-education, right?
Courtney Brame: Considering the background that I just shared from myself, I know that I can do whatever I can to prevent or to minimize the risk of passing HSV on to my partners, but what happens if they get it? What do we do? Do we beat ourselves up about it? Are we traumatized about our own experience after having come so far through the suffering of rejection… after rejection? And here you are. You get this person that sees past that and they like you… They love you for you.
Courtney Brame: They see past your status and they're negative. They don't have to deal with this. They don't have to put themselves at risk. But they place more value on you as a whole human than you place on your HSV as something that dwells on or in the human. What happens when you hurt this person in the same way that you were hurt when you received your diagnosis when you didn't have any support at all? How do we navigate that part of the stigma as someone who passed herpes on to someone that cares about us that we in turn care about?
Courtney Brame: That's a hard question to answer. From the experiences that I have, I think that this is one that you empathize with because it's easy to forget where we came from, especially when you want to forget where you came from. That moment of my diagnosis when that doctor told me this looks like herpes. I remember that heart drop sensation in my chest. I remember the embarrassment that I felt of possibly having been the dude that gave somebody an STD. That's what I remember. For some people, they remember wanting to kill themselves.
00:20:00 Courtney Brame: It's not set up for us to have open dialogue around real things that happen through having sex. Nor does it equip us with what we need in order to navigate relationships, boundaries, what-if scenarios, because things can go wrong, but also things can go right. So why can't we plan for things going right? in the event that both partners now are positive for HSV, what can we with our past experience prepare our next partner for in the event that they do get herpes from us or if they get it from somewhere else. Let's say we're in a non- monogamous relationship, you're seeing multiple people.
Courtney Brame: if you're in a discordant relationship, I believe that it's important to let whatever other partners know that you are in fact sexually active with someone who carries the herpes virus, but I'm getting off track there, but taking it back to just setting the expectations. Okay, when I was diagnosed, here's what I went through. Here's what I know for a fact I experienced mentally and emotionally and physically. So this is what experience how the doctor responded was either a way that was positively reinforcing or negatively reinforcing.
Courtney Brame: So perhaps you want to support your partner in going to a place where they're going to be treated with respect and not shamed for seeking a medical diagnosis. Perhaps you want to talk about the fact that hey the first thing you do is you want to Google it. Please don't do that. give them a heads up that if they Google herpes, they're going to be in for a rude awakening. And the majority of what they show on that first page of the Google results of what herpes is and looks like is not what people experience in any way, shape, or form. What can you expect mentally? You can expect shame. You can expect potentially embarrassment. You can expect anger, rage, frustration, sadness, grief.
Courtney Brame: You can expect a whole range of thoughts and emotions to just completely overwhelm More commonly than anything, you can expect a complete shattering of your sexual identity. That happens who you are as a sexual being based on what you have believed about STI in the past. that no matter how sex positive you are, no matter how many people who got this virus until when you get that s*** yourself, you can't tell me you take this on and you're like, " okay, great. I got it now. So now we just don't have to worry about using condoms." Because that's not how this one works at all.
Owning Your Value and Setting Relationship Boundaries
00:25:00 Courtney Brame: Are you going to stay with somebody out of sympathy or empathy because now they have herpes? Or are you going to be with this person because you genuinely care for them, you love them, you like them, or you've been with them just because it's easy? That is one thing I will say that really bothers me in dating is that I like to think that I have a really good radar for when someone is interested in me for who I am and when they are interested in me because it's easy and we both have herpes.
Courtney Brame: I want to say that again though, I don't want to be chosen out of convenience because we both got herpes. That's not how I want to do relationships. But let's say I'm with someone who doesn't have herpes and I give it to them. I've already set the expectation up in my mind that this is someone that I like and want to be with. This isn't going to be a pity party. And I'm choosing people who like me for me. So herpes aside, whether it's there or not, we have a connection. We have a foundation for a relationship. And even in that relationship, we find our support in another person through that acceptance.
Courtney Brame: And we tend to find ourselves not just our sexual identity, but we disconnect from just exclusively being our sexual identity to finding our self identity and who we are as a whole human. And it's often at the expense of another person because they show us who we are. And we don't believe it at first, but then when we start to come into it, there's an energetic shift in us. We begin to get our confidence. We know that we probably could do better is often something that happens.
00:30:00 Courtney Brame: And I know people that like it all across the board, but I think that this particular situation may even be an uncommon story just because just with people with herpes, the majority of us who have it are living our lives. What reason do we have to talk about it? Why would you know someone who works a 9 to5, has a family at home, is happy, and makes good income and does things on weekends, travels with their family, and has vacation days and sick days and stuff like that. What reason do they have to seek out resources for something positive for positive people? That's the most common person really. So, if they don't need help disclosing because they're in their relationship, if they don't need help processing the diagnosis because there's no need to deal with it, if they have an outbreak, they take the medication on with their business.
Courtney Brame: It's important for us to have that plan in place of what we can do in the event that a partner does in fact test positive. It's a long-term partner, so those expectations that outline or whatever the structure there or even the boundaries I feel like I think boundaries is a better word. It's going to come from your identification with yourself. So now you've developed into who you are. Perhaps in support of your loved ones through your diagnosis, You didn't have a partner that was there for you to guide you through this or hold your hand or support you. So you got to figure it out on your own and you got the support that you needed from people around you. Now you got to do that for somebody else.
Courtney Brame: Of course, you're not obligated to do it, but it's just kind of like having this in place ahead of time is super supportive and it just looks like taking care of you first. So, having your boundaries, think about it as having an anchor for those Values that anchor your boundaries in relationships or connections. For me, the thing that I value most in life, if I were to say I had a life goal, is connection would be it. My goal in life is to experience connection. I want to be connected to it. That's how I feel about that.
Courtney Brame: My three values in terms of making me feel connected are consistency, transparency, and maturity. Those are my three values. I can have two of those three with someone in order to pursue them, to have interactions with them, to work with them, to be around them, to share space. You give me two of those, You give me all three, I'mma give you the world. That's the sweet spot right there. If you show me consistency, maturity, and transparency, we go together. Or, it's a platonic relationship that has more of a long-term effect, right?
00:35:00 Courtney Brame: and what these all tie into. Again, communication and then trust and then intimacy. So, I got a little chart right here and it's really cool. Maybe I'll see what I can do in Canva to make it the episode title, but as I was writing it, it really stuck with me here because to me, transparency is not. Everyone says they want honesty in a relationship. No, I think we all want transparency in a relationship. We want that in our communication and how others relate to us. That's what we really want. We really want transparent communication because you can ask me, "Hey, did you hook up with that girl?" And in my mind, I can hear, "Did you hook up with that girl?" No, I didn't hook throw a left hook or right hook or fish put a fish hook in her and pull her up. No, I didn't hook up with that girl. Okay. That's me being honest.
Courtney Brame: But in the back of my mind, I know, I had sex with her, but you didn't ask me if I had sex with her, right? So, am I really being honest? Yeah. But am I being transparent? No. So, I value honesty. And that's a really extreme example. But I do value that transparency because what it is that I give to other people is what my standard is of receiving. And again, if you can give me two of those three, we're good.
Courtney Brame: But not giving me two of those three, I think that I gotta keep you at arms length because you're constantly emitting and absorbing the energy that you surround yourself with. And these things being my relational values or boundaries, it's really important for me to share space with people who honor these boundaries because I'm showing them how I'd like to be loved and I'm showing them how I can love them in the same breath. And then inconsistency is a trigger for me. When people are inconsistent in their thoughts, in their behaviors, in what their words are, in their actions, in how they show up. I can't trust that. I can't trust you if I can't rely on you to be where you say you're going to be when you're going to be there. Do the thing that I ask you to do.
Courtney Brame: Support, that consistency and just communication can I count on you is what that says to me. And this is a need of mine. The other two are tangible or I'm sorry, you can adapt them a little bit, fold them or whatever. They're Flexible is the word I was looking for. But consistency, that's the one for me. And then maturity. Do you communicate maturely? I mentioned that mixed signals to me that's a red flag. That's a sign of uninterest of not being interested.
Courtney Brame: Remember the gray rule. It's not the platinum rule, silver rule, or the bronze rule. It's the gray rule. I made this s*** up myself. I probably need to get the statement patented. But others can only treat you at best the way that they treat themselves. So that's at best. So, if you see someone that treats themselves poorly, that doesn't exercise boundaries, that doesn't have values, what makes you think they're going to honor and respect yours? Do you know what they are? Do others recognize them? How can we set a foundation for communication here?
The Core Root of the Anger: Facing the Shadows
00:40:00 Courtney Brame: So, I don't want to take it there, but I share all of this trying to bring it full circle, which I feel like I did, just to say that we have to be able to let go of the expectation that we can not pass HSV on to someone. That's one piece of it. If we're going to do takeaways or something like it's possible. There's always a risk. Not everyone's aware of that. It's unfortunate for us that we carry the burden of being responsible and having to inform people about what they may get. We got to take the medication. We got to wear the condoms. We got to have the condoms. We got to initiate the sexual health conversation.
00:45:00 Courtney Brame: And when people use phrases like partner and significant other, we treat them as equals. So if we treat them s*****, how do we treat ourselves? if we're unwilling to take the time to, just be there for them. If we're unwilling to just kind of empathize or share resources or do what we need for ourselves for them, that's a direct reflection of how we treat ourselves. And I would hope that people go into whatever their relationships are, even if it's not at a conscious level.
Courtney Brame: Let's say you have three relationship core values or green flags and you move forward with them and they only have one. You've already proven how you really treat yourself based on your lowering of expectations of that other person. You're like, I'll take what I can get." That's not fair to them. It's not fair to you. It's not fair to us. We** deserve bomb ass sex. We deserve commitment. We deserve to have safer interactions with our partners. We also deserve to respect ourselves enough to have the anchors of our values for our boundaries.
Courtney Brame: I can say that I've let go of the idea that I need to be so protective of my partners, but in fact, I've just avoided it by dismissing it with, "All right, I told you. All right, I'm doing my precautions." That's not fair to anybody. So, it's important to just really lay it out there for people. And yeah, I think that's really all I got. Otherwise, I'm going to start to ramble again. But yeah, y'all, avoidance isn't letting go. And this can be applied to all areas of life. The thing that I've been running from for myself has been something that I really thought that I let go of. And perhaps I need a part two to talk about all of that, but just squeezing it in here.
Courtney Brame: Tonight is the last night of voting. It's November 3rd. My birthday is on November 10th. I'm about to be 32. And I have avoided for the longest letting go of my feelings around my birthday. And perhaps, if it's a good time, maybe I'll talk about it next week. But I've discussed it before that around my birthday, I get really** weird. I get emotional. And the reason is because on my 13th birthday I believe it was my grandmother's funeral. And the significance of that is that when my mom was pregnant with me, she was 17 and she told me the story about how her parents were embarrassed that their 17-year-old unmarried daughter was pregnant and they wanted her to get an abortion.
Courtney Brame: And so my mom ran away and lived with my father's mother who had such an impact on my life even before I was this woman who was a business owner. She was smart. She had mental health stuff that was going on. I will never forget those episodes. But she loved me. That was the embodiment of selflessness and love, even to the point where my grandmother told my mom, she was like, "Hey, I know my son. Here's how you're going to need to handle him." Right? And I've avoided this anger that I have, not towards my grandmother, but I don't know where to really direct it, but around this time of year, this is actually where I break up with people. I quit my job. I ran away.
00:50:00 Courtney Brame: I shut off. I do all of that s* in the fourth quarter of the year. And last year I said that if you listen to the episode that I published around November 10th, I realized something that this is the year that my grandma died and I get emotional about it. But now I've gone a lot deeper because 2020 this whole entire year has been I feel a little bit guilty for saying but it's been a good year for me.
Courtney Brame: I had to let that go because for me what was happening was I was just avoiding it and even, tightening my fists, hurting myself in the process. So, releasing the belief about myself that I'm so much better than other people because I do what I do and I don't charge anyone. I don't ask for money exclusively from my pocket. I had to let that go because how many people am I not helping by not being able to take care of myself for the time and energy that I put in here?
Courtney Brame: But not wanting to be seen a certain way as a means of overcompensating for this inner anger and rage. I want to be seen as a good person. And this was another thing that I wanted to touch on. I have upper back tightness. It's not necessarily stiff. My mobility isn't super hindered. But I Googled the spiritual significance of emotions stored in the upper back and not belonging the feeling of inadequacy came up and s I'm getting emotional saying this s*** out loud but as I move through my yoga practice and through the back motions like those feelings often do come up.
Courtney Brame: in my life now and parallel to what I do how amazing this work is that I do for people through something positive for positive people how amazing I am like this is complete overcompensation for the fact that I am angry as f*** and this is perhaps like some transgenerational anger that isn't necessarily mine but like I am so Perhaps I am so anti-shame and embarrassment because I almost wasn't here as a result of embarrassment and shame that was experienced by the parents of my mother, So, this is something that I'm going to talk to him about. I haven't even talked about this s*** in therapy. I called my mom and I told her, I was like, "Hey, so I'm angry and I think this is why." And that was the first time that I had said it out loud and it felt so, my grandparents are here so I can talk to them and I'm grown and I can just get their feedback on that.
Courtney Brame: But I think that that's something that I have to do in order to really let go of the anger that I experience and perhaps balance out this overcompensation of kindness and niceness and everything that people see on the surface because at the core of it it avoidance avoiding talking to my grandparents I know that I do that. I know I do. avoiding feeling angry. All it's doing is building this s*** up and making me even more angry. So, it's very healthy to find outlets to let go rather than run from and avoid.
00:55:00 Courtney Brame: And luckily I did all of those things. Otherwise I have anxiety about it. But I hate that I just dropped that huge ball on y'all and I got to go. Yoga teacher training is about to start for me. I hope that people were able to take care of themselves on election night. The next few weeks are probably going to be difficult for people. I feel a huge sense of relief after having voted because just leading up to voting there was a lot of anxiety like is my vote going to count? where do I vote? Are things changing? But no, I went into my place of voting, walked in. I went there early 20 minutes before they opened and I got in and out within an hour. So hopefully we begin to see changes that benefit humanity. I'm hopeful, but it is what it is. The way of life is just something else.
Courtney Brame: It's like I'm used to disappointment. I'm used to failed expectations. And as unhealthy as that is, I'm really allowing myself to feel hopeful and inspired for things to begin to change. I thank y'all for listening to me ramble. This podcast should have been over 16 minutes ago, but if you're still here, I am here. Thank you for supporting me through listening to the podcast. Thank you.
Courtney Brame: Thank you again to Let's Get Checked. trylgc.com/spfpp. Pick your STI test kit. There are ones that even include HSV. So if you want to know what type you have, just make sure that you're feeling an outbreak coming on or you have an outbreak because it's a PCR test to test for whether or not you're reactive at that point. So, you can potentially figure out what type you have based on whether or not you're showing any symptoms. Don't hesitate to check out something positive for positive people at www.spfpp.org and you can leave us a donation if you've benefited from any other resource. Again, if you're a counselor, if you want to get involved with us, please reach out.
Courtney Brame: If you're in media, if you have access to donors or people with a f*** ton of money who just want to give to a good cause, we are raising money to continue to provide mental health resources for people who have experienced a positive STI diagnosis, which is a sexual trauma. Till next time, stay sex positive.
Episode Ended after 00:58:26
