My story began about 12 years ago or approximately the
summer of 1995. This is only an estimate, because at the time I never
really paid much attention to what was happening and I didn’t have a
primary outbreak at that time for some reason. I analyzed a series of
events and believe I figured out the source of my genital herpes.
Shortly before the incident I was having a lot of unsafe, careless and
casual sex with a lot of people, but it wasn’t until after this one
particular incident that I remember anything happening.
It was a warm summer night and me and a friend of mine
were drinking beer and relaxing at his apartment. I was about 29 at the
time, and my friend was about 41, and he had this idea that he was going
to invite a female friend that he knew over to his apartment that same
night. When the 40 year old woman arrived, we drank more alcoholic
beverages. Finally my friend wanted all of us to go in his bedroom and
have a threesome. I was so plastered that I didn’t think twice about it.
About a week or so later I remember getting this
recurring itching that would be unbearable and later lead to raw painful
sores. This went on about once a month for a long time.
A year later I was dating this new woman, and we decided
to enter into a steady relationship. When we were intimate one time I
remember that she happened to notice some warts on my privates that I
was even unaware of. I thought it was a mole, but she insisted that I go
to a doctor. I did and the doctor told me I had genital warts (HPV). I
didn’t even think to mention about the recurring itching that was going
on for a year and kind of put it out of my thoughts. Then about 6 months
later the same girlfriend who I was seeing told me that she was
developing a strange condition. I asked her what it was and she told me
it was recurring itching that would lead to painful sores. I told her I
had the same thing also and never really knew what it was, or thought it
was anything to worry about. She didn’t seem too concerned, but
unknowingly I had given her herpes.
It wasn’t until years later that I sought medical
attention for my herpes problem. The reason I finally decided to get
attention is because in the late winter of 2005 I had a very horrible
and very long outbreak. I believe the outbreak was due to some high
levels of stress from a corporate merger where I worked and fearing that
I was facing a layoff. This was probably my primary outbreak coming out
at a very later date. This time the sores had migrated to a different
area than they were previously. I had tremendous genital aching,
shooting pain down the legs, tingling that felt like there was Ben Gay
or similar on the genitals, itching and burning. I even had flu like
symptoms to make matters worse. It was worse that anyone can imagine and
it went on for 6 weeks! I went to a clinic and was tested for genital
herpes and found out I had it. During this time I started talking to a
lot of other people with herpes in online newsgroups and websites. I
started admitting it to myself and my closest family and friends.
I went back and told the girl from a long time ago that I
had infected (as we were still good friends) she didn't want to hear
that I had herpes and denied that she had it also. Herpes has been a
crutch in my dating life, and made it difficult to find women that would
accept me for having it. I did however meet two women with genital
herpes afterward, and they didn’t have a problem with my condition.
I have recently met someone about 6 months ago who
doesn’t have herpes, but she is willing to deal with it even if she does
get it from me. She told me that when people really love each other,
they should be willing to deal with life together, and a virus like
herpes shouldn’t get in the way.
