Why do people chime in that this disease gets a lot of stigma it doesnt deserve? It definetly does, this sucks more than anything really. I hate the stupid comparisons to someone with cancer friends will make to be comforting. No one laughs if you have cancer, you didnt do anything to contract cancer, and you cant spread it to someone you care about. Id rather be a miserable sexless peice of dogshit than be out pretending this was no big deal and passing it out like candy.

10 months with absolutely no improvement. I cant even put in to words how depressed this crap makes me....especially considering all the people I know out screwing anyone thats willing.

I feel bad too...Here Iam in my last semster of high school with this crap.I hope I can get it together before I fail out. My parents or no one on earth can do anything for me thats why I feel so bad. Not to note I have been a virgin for almost 18 years and have some thing of this sort. Right now I just don't know people say you can have sex when you have herpes and not hurt your love one. But really chances are you would be better off having sex with somebody that had AIDS.(that is if you wear a condom)

also i would like to say their has to be a cure for this but since herpes is not life threaten they won't put it out

But really chances are you would be better off having sex with somebody that had AIDS.(that is if you wear a condom)




i'll take Herpes over AIDS anyday..........Thank you...........

Yeah, I know how you feel. I HATE when people say "At least you don't have cancer or AIDS!!!"....thats like telling a guy who just lost 3 limbs that he shouldn't be upset because at least he didn't lose all 4. Point is, Cancer, AIDs, Herpes...all 3 pretty much suck to have.

I've had Herpes for 2 years and I'm still pretty much as depressed as I was on Day 1...and the fact that I haven't had any sort of intimate relationship whatsoever since I found out has really started to catch up with me (both because others weren't accepting, and because I honestly am scared to death to give this to someone else because no one deserves this life-long burden, much less some poor girl who was willing to take a risk on me).

There is in fact a new girl that I have been in love with for a while that finally expressed reciprocal feelings toward me recently...but as hard as it was to do, I blew her off and pretended not to be interested because I felt that she is just "too good" to be with me, and deserves someone who doesn't have this damn disease. Its bad enough I have herpes myself, but knowing that I spread it to some girl I love would be 10 times worse for me. I'm trying to convince myself that I don't need any intimate relationships in my life...but its hard to do. I wish there was some button you could hit to turn those feelings off. :(

And its hard to do the whole "herpes dating website" thing. There just aren't any girls anywhere close to my area (on top of the websites being ridiculously expensive). :confused: :confused: :confused:

Anyway, I dont know what to tell you other than that we are in the same boat.

i'm sorry some of you guys feel like this.............but as i see it.........yes, i do have this disease.....but hell no, it does not make me any less of a person then the next......you are not less of a person because you have this virus!!!..........please dont think that you are "not good enough" because of this..........

of course, everyone has their down points.......i mean, i def. have too...........but if someone cannot accept this.......then they are not good enough for ME.......end of story........

What do you do to enjoy life then?

Considering where I have come to now a days, I feel obligated to reply to threads such as this. After my diagnosis, I spent two years without any type of relationship with a male, aside of friendships. I felt bad about myself and in some weird way tried to punish myself for my actions. Into the third year, I tried dating here and there.

For someone who already had low self esteem, the diagnosis didn't help. It almost gave me a hardcore reason to feel bad about myself. Even into the fourth year, I just carried this dark cloud around my head until I started looking around. I realized I had a skin condition, not death.

Certainly the diagnosis prevented casual dating but in many aspects it kept me from evening becoming too out there. I acquired H very young and roughly two years into my becoming sexually active. I was forced to deal with a lot of my insecurities. It made me realize that I could not settle for anyone; I had to have the right person in my life.

Had I joined groups like this earlier, I think my reccovery would have been quicker. The process was necessary to help me mature. The weight of H is dependent upon how heavily you view it, whether you are in a relationship or not. If you continue to think H is a death sentence, even in a relationship you will harbor extra pain.

You do not deserve death or lonliness because of a skin condition.

What do you do to enjoy life then?


everything i did before i got herpes!

Internet!, I think the stigma people feel is unfair is the negative judgment on one's morality or worth as a human being merely because he or she has herpes. For instance, being called a ***** or a dirty person or being ostracized because people think it can be passed on more easily than it can. You know that many people catch it the first time they have sex; and besides, "*****" is a ridiculous insult designed to put down those who enjoy having sex, so it has no true value as a word. And your worth as a human has nothing to do with whether you have herpes, whether you have enjoyed sex with many people or never at all, or whether you have any other type of disease. Yet some with herpes are made to feel that our worth has been compromised by acquiring this virus. That's the stigma people are upset about.

I don't think they mean dealing with the pain, discomfort, life changes, and inconvenience of the disease when they say "stigma." That's another category; let's call it the practical or life problems of herpes, as opposed to the social attitude toward it. By the way, many people do something to get cancer: they smoke tobacco too much for too many years, live in pollution-filled environments, eat poorly, esp too much fat and not enough fiber, etc. People laugh at herpes-sufferers because of the stigma; the life problems of most cancer victims are worse (I had a friend who died 10 months after being diagnosed, and she suffered greatly), but they do not suffer as much from the stigma as herpes victims.

unlucky guy, did you ever think that, in sacrificing the girl you love, intending it to be for her own good, you might be handing her over to someone who not only doesn't love her, but has herpes or AIDS, or both, as well? She might not be so lucky as to become involved with a perfect person--many of us don't, you know. Herpes is only one condition. I married a man who had herpes, is an alcoholic, would retreat inside of himself instead of working at communicating and at the relationship, and was a philanderer. Perhaps someone else I loved in the past, who would have treated me well, gave me up without telling me he had herpes--so that I could have a painfully failed marriage, and still get herpes. It doesn't make sense when you know that 25% of the people out there have herpes, and she might meet someone who doesn't even know he has it, and so can't even try to protect her. Or, gee, she might meet someone who eventually takes her for granted and beats the hell out of her every night. In which case, she would prefer the herpes-afflicted guy who treats her kindly. Think about it.

Backpacker, the scenarios you provided in your last paragraph about relationships, life and herpes is so true. When i sit back and look at the way my adult life unfolded and how one thing led to another, which ultimately led to herpes, i believe that there was no other way for me and in a way it was a form of destiny.

Sometimes it depends on your personality deep down, whether you are optimistic or pesimistic by nature. Some people have no problems in life at all, yet they are still very negative people. One of these types of people could feel it was the end of their world and cope badly. Yet people who have always been very optimistic and positive tend to find ways of dealing with it far easier.

Age, i believe, would have a lot to do with it too. When i read of a young teen getting herpes i often think back to myself as a teen and doubt i would cope well at all. I was a teen back in the 80's and there were no where near the resources available as there are today. None of the other kids at school had computers. Then again, if i did get herpes back then, herpes would have been preferable to what my dad would have done to me if my parents had found out i had gotten it. I had one hell of a strict dad!!!!!