Salt Lake City Utah H Pal

I was a virgin up until Jan. 1996. In Dec. 1995 my friend from high school had her boyfriend call me to get a phone number of one of our old classmates. He stated that he liked the way my voice sounded and asked me if I would mind if he could call me regularly. I said no and he continued to call. Over, the next few weeks we talked non stop. He eventually broke up with her and decided that he wanted to meet me (he lived out in California at the time) He had told me that he wanted to come out and "pop" my cherry and bragged that he'd been with over 30 women. Being severely young and naive, I thought he was joking. He flew out and met me and we hit it off. We ended up going back to his hotel room and that's were he proceeded to rape me. The reason I tell you this is because this is where I received the gift that keeps on giving aka Herpes.

Although at the time I didn't know it, he evidently went back to my friend. She called me a few months later and stated that she was 4 months pregnant with his child and that she has an STD. She never disclosed what STD she had, but told me that I needed to get tested. I had already done that and it came back negative. Moving forward to Jan. 2000.

6 months before I was to get married, I began to have burning and itching when I went to the bathroom. I thought it was a UTI, so I used over the counter medication to clear it up. It kept getting worse, so I finally went to the doctor and that's when my whole world fell apart. While examining me, he took a swab from one of the lesions and stated that it looked like herpes but wanted to make sure. Of course the swab came back positive. I was devastated. How could this have happened? I blamed myself for what had transgressed earlier. If I hadn't gone to the hotel or if I hadn't done this, but you can't blame yourself. I learned that from going to rape counseling. What was I going to tell my fiancé and how would he react? He actually took it pretty good. Although we are not together anymore. It's hard telling people that you like and may be come intimate with that you have herpes. How will they react? I have found it better to tell them from the beginning than not at all.

For the first few times I had sex with other men, I didn't tell that I had herpes for fear that I didn't want them not to like me or be with me. That was the wrong thing to do. I now tell everyone that expresses interest in me sexually that I have herpes and sometimes they stick around and sometimes they leave, but that's their choice.

I am lucky with my outbreaks. I usually only have one every couple of years, but still they are horrible and painful. I currently am not in a relationship. I gave birth to my daughter in October of 2007. I didn't tell her father when we first hooked up. He found out when he went to a doctor's appointment with me and the doctor shared my medical history with him. After the appointment he looked at me and I just started bawling. I apologized to him and he said that he'd forgiven me. He said that if I had only told him when we got together this wouldn't have happened. He asked me why I didn't tell him. I guess it's because I didn't know how he would react to the news. I didn't want Herpes to define who I was.

I'm here to tell all of you that even though everyone's story is different on how they got herpes, there is one thing we all have in common and that's the disease itself. That's why I agreed to join H Pals and become an advocate to people in the state of Utah to tell all of you that there are other people like you and that you're not alone. I know what you're going through and no you DON'T have to do it alone! I just recently found out about H Pals and it's the best thing ever. I'm not saying that I am an expert on having herpes and don't have all the answers, but I know what it's like and am here for you. If you need someone to vent to, I'm your gal. So please feel free to talk about what you're feeling and ask me any questions and I will try my best to help you. HERPES is the disease not YOU!! - Marci

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