Welcome to something positive for Positive People.
I'm Courtney brain. Something positive for positive
people is A5O1C3 nonprofit organization supporting people
who are navigating herpes stigma.
We're winding down to our 400th podcast episode, which If you
are located in or near Brooklyn, NY and you're a listener, I
invite you to come check out karaoke night.
We'll be celebrating our 400th podcast episode release and 8
almost nine years. It's closer to 8 1/2, if I'm
being honest. It's close to 8 1/2 years of
podcasting of interviewing people living with herpes about
their experiences from diagnosis to dating and discussing this
with their other partners. Mondays are for something
positive, for positive people. So every Monday evening, 7:30 PM
Eastern Time, until something needs to change, we have either
the women's support group or the men's support group, and these
meet virtually. The women's group meets the 1st
and 3rd Monday, 7:30 PM Eastern Time, and then the men's group
meets the 2nd and 4th of Monday, 7:30 PM Eastern Time, and these
are virtual whenever there's a fifth Monday.
I'm trying to think of something to do.
I think that for the fifth Monday what I'll do is blend the
groups. So for the 5th Monday option, I
might do some type of a integrated support group option
thingy and just bring people together in that way.
And we'll see what happens for December.
But I'm really excited to be rounding out and closing up the
podcast as it is, at least for now, because this does free up
space for me to do more community engagement, more with
the support cause and being able to bring people together in
terms of having to support groups.
And then we still have the survey, the surveys collecting
responses. We have not gotten a lot of
responses to the survey compared to previous years, and I know
that it's 100% because of how social media has been silencing
the sex education and sexual health language, so people
really just aren't seeing the content.
Whenever I post about the survey or I'm asking for people to take
it, or even if I'm sharing information about herpes and
sexual health, no one sees that. So it's been a little difficult
there. I go to my spaces, Reddit and
online and Google and things like that.
So if you are someone who has community or connection to
people who do have herpes, I invite you to please share the
survey among them so that we can have more representative and
accurate information to show for 2025 going into 2026 especially.
All right, those are all my announcements today.
We are this is my last podcast interview of 2025 and I'm
grateful to have our guest on here with us.
I'll let you introduce yourself the way that you want to be
introduced. And then the first question I
have for you is just for you to share from your perspective how
we connect it. Hi I'm John, I am herpes 2
positive and I'm also a recovering sex addict so they're
linked. Real quick, let me ask you this.
So I'm John, I have HSB 2. What made you lead with that in
your introduction, out of curiosity?
This is a kind of a podcast for that, so my meeting could take a
little back seat, but you know, they're linked together, at
least for me in. Terms of my identity.
OK, Yeah. And that makes sense.
I was just like, wait a minute, why did you say that?
Because one of the things that I think I do with this platform is
I try to give people the opportunity to see themselves
and be themselves, express themselves.
Like outside of the herpes diagnosis, which I'm glad you
followed up with the sex addiction because that'll be a
lot of what we talked about here and your experience with that.
But I, I just wanted to hear from your words, what made you
leave with that? And the fact that we're on the
podcast where I literally interviewed people, I heard this
makes sense. So I'm going to let it slide
here. So starting with the first
question, like, how'd you find me?
What made you reach out? Let's speak a little bit about.
So I found you for looking for support groups.
I was, you know, I had a bad outbreak in October, lasted
about a month kind of coming and going when got a blood test,
everything, you know. And in November I started
feeling really isolated. I started feeling really alone.
And I told a couple people from my recovery programs about it.
But you know, they're, they don't have this.
So it's that same feeling of they can't fully relate.
They were supportive, but they can't relate.
And I was talking to one person and they said you should look
for a support group. And I found this one.
And I don't know, just that day, I was feeling really, really bad
that day, like almost like panic attack levels.
And I decided to, you know, reach out.
And luckily we jumped on a call like half an hour later.
I think I was talking to you while I was on the train.
I was on the train and we were kind of in and out and it was
just enough for us to be able to get through the call for me to.
First of all, thank you for being patient with me in that
the the signal kept dropping and you weren't always able to hear
me. But yeah, I thought that you had
a very interesting experience worth sharing here.
And I want to shout out Chris Pickering from Pickering Fitness
because he spoke on Beck Antonucci's podcast about
struggling with erectile dysfunction at a young age.
So it, it made me think about different vulnerabilities and
other things that maybe we struggle with or have an
identification with. As you were sharing about your
experience with sex addiction and I was like, yo, maybe it
would be helpful to just share your experience as well and
maybe experience a little bit of freedom from that.
So can you talk to us a little bit about your experience with
sex addiction, how it was described to you, how you found
out, and then anything else that you want to share?
Yeah, I have been in sex addiction recovery for three
years now, currently 14 months sober, which I'm grateful for.
For sex addiction for me isn't just about the sex addiction.
It's about, you know, I think someone, you know, someone
mentioned it to me and it kind of my, I think it was actually
my therapist. He's like, it's not just sex
addiction, it's addiction to sexuality.
You know, it could be any forms, you know, healthy masturbation,
it could be porn, it could be sex, anything where I'm just
using that to regulate myself. And I've probably been this way
since I was, you know, 32 now, probably been this way since I
was 18. I never was really addicted to
drugs or alcohol, never really did anything like that, probably
because I was scared to death of my mother finding out and
killing me. So this seemed like was safe
then. And I think a couple times I
started realizing that I had a problem.
But you know, I guess like in any addict, I didn't care.
I kept pushing myself, you know, getting myself into situations I
should have been in, putting my health at risk, obviously,
which, you know, could be a consequence.
But what kind of made me realize it was I got myself into kind of
a very dangerous situation in terms of seeing a sex worker
because I couldn't stop, ended up having to steal money from my
parents to pay for an extortion, which definitely kind of broke
their hearts. But it kind of woke me up.
Like that's what I needed to make me realize and finally
admit that I had a problem and I needed help.
What do you mean pay for extortion?
The person threatened to me. I was seeing them on and off and
then they had my like I was, they had my personal number.
They kept bothering me, calling me multiple times a day,
threatening me, threatening my family.
And you know, that's when I realized like, no, this is not
just something I can just do on the side.
This is something serious. And you know, I couldn't stop.
It was compulsive. So I want to, I want to, let's
take a little, let's sit here for a second, right?
Because one of the things that I want to highlight too is that
seeing a sex worker is not inherently a bad thing.
Now when you speak about it from the addiction perspective and
being extorted, like those aspects of it, like those poor
consequences, outcomes, like that's, that fucking sucks.
Now I want to ask, was this starting out as maybe a healthy
expression or relationship with you and the sex worker?
I think it was just me thinking that maybe we were friends and
honestly, you know, I had to admit to myself that they saw me
as a means to survive for money and I saw them as a means to not
myself out for emotionally. And I've been doing that before
I realized it, you know, looking back on it, if I had a bad week,
I would go and engage. If I had a good week, go and
engage. And now I'm like, looking back,
I'm like, no, that's just me relying on that.
No matter what. Bad week, something to lift me
up. Good week, something to bring me
up. That's OK, because I was looking
to at trying to figure out how do you know something's an
addiction, right? I can have sex, I can do drugs,
I can smoke cigarettes, I can drink, right?
You can do these things and it not being an addiction and then
you can do these things and they are an addiction.
So the way that you described it, it didn't matter if you had
a good week or a bad week. You just found a reason to do
it. So what's the difference I guess
between it being an addiction and just being a healthy form of
expression or connecting with the person?
Well, I have to fully admit when I was acting out, I honestly
didn't care about the person. They were a means to an end.
I got myself in some situations where the person was in their
addiction and my, you know, my conscience was screaming you
shouldn't be doing this and I didn't care.
You know, I don't really care about them.
I just, I didn't see them as a person.
That's, you know, that's the truth of it.
I didn't see them as a person, which is probably one of my
biggest regrets. But I was addicted.
I didn't care. I just wanted my means to my
end. And, you know, I had to realize
that I was seeing these people for their body, not for them,
for their body. And that's when my therapist is
like, yeah, no, this is an addiction because you're not
actually trying to develop a friendship.
You're just seeing them as an object and you know something I
have to live with. Yeah.
So was there a particular act that you were looking for?
And you don't have to go like into too much detail by any
means. Was there an act you were
looking to fulfill, or was it just a matter of achieving
orgasm? I think it was just me looking
for that double mean head to feel better.
A little bit of back story, my father had been suffering from
depression probably since I was 16.
And I think that was, you know, not, I'm not blaming him, but it
was definitely a kind of big emotional weight because I had
to push myself. I had to be there for my family.
And honestly, you know, looking back on it, 1819 years old, I
couldn't do that. And this was my way to numb
myself out, to push myself to limits that I never could have
done before. And you know, looking back on
it, that's what I needed to survive back then.
But you know it. It wasn't the right thing to do,
looking back on it. So you kind of had to become the
man of the family while you were still a kid.
Yeah. And you didn't really get to
have the play or the kid experiences.
And maybe some of that was contributing to you, I don't
want to say making up for lost time, but living out, you know,
in a way that now as someone older than 1819, you know, those
earlier years where you were kind of forced into adulthood,
where you said 16 was when your father had depression.
So you had to become the man pretty early.
And you missed out on some years of adolescence and being a
teenager and being able to have those experiences with your
hormones and being able to have the space to express that like
among your your peers. I think about like route being
in that transition around friends and then when you're
curious about sex, being able to be curious about sex in ways
where like the environment is a space for curiosity about sex.
But then you're thrown into having to become a man and you
don't really know what that looks like.
You're just thrown into having to be a man.
And you have these urges and desires, and now you have the
means of acquiring them with information that you as a child
wouldn't have gotten. So it creates this new system of
potential expressions for you to express sexually.
I hope what I'm just saying makes sense, but let let me know
if you need any elaboration there.
But is that accurate? Yeah, honestly, that's what I
was trying to do. I think I got thrust into a
situation where I felt that I had to become.
And something my friends talk about in recovery, we all got
the hero syndrome. I, I felt like I needed to
become the hero. I had to become the unbreakable
person. And you know, no one, no one's
like that. No one can, no one's
unbreakable. And I realize that now, but I
pushed myself and kept telling myself that I have to be the
rock. I have to be unbreakable.
I can't show weakness. And before I knew it, something,
you know, sexual just turned into an addiction where I would
just look to it to constantly just regulate my emotions and
just navigate myself during the week.
And, you know, started off, you know, maybe innocent in
curiosity, but then eventually it came to the point where it
was just me needing it constantly.
I just couldn't stop. Yeah.
Was there anything else that you might have expressed feelings or
expressions of addiction toward outside of sex?
Like maybe before then? That I've also been a compulsive
overspender probably since I've been about 1718 gift, gift money
for high school graduation and then spending it.
And that was something I put on the back burner, something
actually recently been really focusing on and doing better on.
But I was a compulsive overspender and a sex addict.
And I think, you know, I realized lately as that the two
of them were kind of interlinked, especially when it
came to paying for sex at times, because it's like I get the head
off of paying for money and then, you know, spending on
something I wanted the physical. It was it was really struggling
to really kind of deal with early on.
I was like, why is this so bad? Why can't I stop when some
people can? And I was like, oh, wait a
minute, I'm spending over in Section 2.
No wonder why. Yeah.
So it was the spending beforehand.
So you noticed that with like graduation money that you were
having an addiction to spending. Was it the things that you got
or was it the act of spending? I think I heard you say the act
of spending gave you a dopamine hit.
Yeah, it was the act of spending and actually just getting stuck
because, you know, looking back on it, I admit I tried to buy my
happiness because I think in reality, deep down I wasn't
happy. I wasn't secure about myself.
I was insecure about love, how people, you know, people put up
with me because I'm adopted by a different nationality.
And I think that created some issues where, you know, looking
back on it, I always had this viewpoint growing up, which, you
know, I realize is not true. But I had this viewpoint, if my
birth mother can give me up, what's going to stop my adopted
parents from giving me up and what's going to stop other
people from giving me up? And it was an emotional void I
had for years. What the fuck do you do with
this emotional awareness? Me right now, go therapy and
talk to people and actually be grateful that I'm aware of these
things now because I think deep down I buried them.
I buried them for so long. I was so insecure about myself
that people were just putting up with me, were going to kick me
to the curb, and I was trying to buy happiness because I wasn't
happy. I was unsure of myself.
I was unsure of people legitimately cared about me and
this was my escape. This was my route to feel better
by buying whatever I could and having, you know, sex or you
know, in relationships, being a love addict too.
Just trying to fill that empty void and it never worked.
So what's the difference between being a sex addict and then
being a love addict? Because I, I thought they might
have been the same thing. But now that I'm saying it out
loud and sitting here with you, I'm thinking you don't see the
person as a person. You still see them as a means to
an end. On one hand, through sex and
sexual acts and through the end of love being perhaps having the
emotional connection and the intimacy, but seeing them as
that. Or, I'm sorry, not as people,
but only seeing them as a means of achieving that.
For me, I identify as a love addict because you know, for a
while I'm quick to develop feelings and get attachments to
people for relationships wise. And I remember with my ex, you
know, looking back on it, I noticed this when I first
entered recovery. You know, before I met my ex, I
could not stop compulsive sex with sex workers, friends with
benefits, you know, all that other kind of stuff.
Soon as I met my ex though, all of that stuff because I was
getting a bigger dopamine hit from her.
Oh my God, this is someone who's not a family member and she
cares about me. She likes me.
That was like the biggest dopamine in the hit.
All the sex addiction just came right to a halt, stopped.
And I was getting that addiction off her, a love addiction.
And you know, that's when I realized looking back, I'm like,
Oh yeah, no, I was getting overly attached to her because I
was have. I was expecting her to fill the
void that I couldn't fill for myself.
Yeah, So what I'm hearing here is there is and and please
describe to me how addiction feels for you.
But the way that I'm hearing it is there's this drive toward
outcome and it just needs to be an outcome.
And you've mentioned dad depressed being adopted, so
having to be the man of the house.
So there's a lot of childhood markers of events that have
occurred that can contribute to how you see the world and how
you respond to it. And as I'm I'm, I'm thinking
about what addiction maybe feels like is that compulsion towards
some form of soothing and that you can get it.
You got it from your relationship.
So you didn't need it from sex, you didn't need it from
spending, you didn't need it from any of those other places
because the addiction had. Sort of something to attach to.
So addiction being sort of like a force that is a, it's a
driving force towards something. It doesn't have to be 5 things
that you can get addicted to, because if you have one of those
things where the addiction is just being tended to, then the
other four don't really matter. Is that.
Yeah, that's actually, that's kind of what my therapist says.
It's like, you know, I think we say this in recovery.
You take care of the addiction that's going to kill you first,
and then you take care of other ones.
Because my therapist was like, oh, people, a lot of people are
multiply addicted. Not everyone admits it, but can
people tend to be multiply addicted?
And, you know, for me, it was soothing.
That's what it was for me. I was looking.
I guess it was a form of control for me because I felt like my
life was just spiraling out of control.
Things are, you know, stressful at home.
Things are bad, you know, my mother was under stress and
everything. And then this comes along and I
feel good afterwards or I feel good during it.
And then I was like, oh, this feels good.
Let me go back to that. And then we go back to it.
Let me go back to it. And just to the point where I
was relying on that to regulate me and keep me centered and to
keep me going. Because honestly, like, I think
if I didn't, I probably would have had a nervous breakdown
over the stress. I probably would have had to
stop college and everything. But I, you know, it was
definitely the thing that kind of kept me going because it
gutted me emotionally. I was, I was numb.
And I remember feeling that way sometimes when some relatives
would die, we'd get awake and I just sat there.
I just didn't feel anything. And, you know, looking back, I
was like, why did I feel that way?
Oh, because I was just so, I guess addicted.
And so in my high quote UN quote, I didn't feel anything.
I was numbed out. I was emotionally dead to
describe myself. Man, so the addiction also
sucked the life out of you. Is that accurate to say?
Yeah. And oh, go ahead, go.
Ahead. No.
I was emotionally numb and I even remember this when my
grandmother passed away. I didn't cry once.
I kind of just was like there sitting with it and I think
probably that urges to go indulge in my addictions.
Birth grandmother or adopted grandmother?
Adopted family? Which one?
Adopted grandmother. OK, so you don't think that
maybe it didn't have anything to do with the fact that y'all
weren't in blood adopted or how long?
What age were you adopted? I was adopted 6 months old.
OK, all right. So when you say your dad was
depressed only. My adopted family.
Got it. OK, that.
My birth mother as my birth mother otherwise, if I look for
my mom and dad, I'm going to talk about my adopted family
because they're. My thank you, thank you for
clearing that up because I, I didn't even think to inquire on
that. So was it just that maybe you
didn't have a connection to well, no, because that's all you
knew. But did being adopted shape or
form any kind of barriers, I guess when you found out you
were adopted, any barriers to your family to feel like, oh,
this isn't my family or oh, I'm not connected to them.
Did did that happen for you? Yeah, that's, I think that's
part of one of the main core reasons why I'm a sex and love
addict and codependent and seek validation.
You know, I was, you know, I definitely did love my
grandmother was close with her or I tried to be.
But I think when it came to my parents, I always had this doubt
if I screwed up, if I did bad, they would kick me to the curb.
And anonymously, I hate to say this, but I, you know, part of
my family didn't treat not my immediate, not my, you know, my
mother's immediate family, but like second cousins, 3rd
cousins, like other branches of the family.
I guess I always felt like odd, I always felt like the black
sheep of the family didn't look like them and I wasn't really
fully accepted. But then again, they don't
really accept our family as it is too because they have like, I
don't know, they have like this attitude.
But you know, it definitely felt even more worse because it's
like, oh, they don't accept us and they definitely don't accept
me because I don't look like them.
And you know, the same thing on some of my family's, you know,
my, both my parents sides of their families, you know, the
immediate family was fine. Outside the immediate family,
though, I felt excluded and I felt alone.
And I think, you know, it definitely kind of shaped me to
kind of like look for any type of attachment where I could.
And, you know, I think even growing up in school, early on
in elementary school, I was, you know, bullied at times.
Eventually, you know, stopped by middle school and I was fine for
the rest of my years. But after that, you know, still
same thing, trying to fit in, trying to find that group.
Let's talk a little bit about the word attachment.
I know we talked about herpes yet, so when you said
attachment, I had a little bit of a sensation in the body to
follow up about that. Can you speak to me about how
attachment plays a role in your experience with addiction?
Just that can be your personal experience or whatever you and
your therapist to talk about. Yeah, attachment was probably
the reason why I turned to casual sex a lot is my addiction
because I wanted the intimacy, but without the fear of
rejection. I paid for that or I just hooked
up with this person. OK, I'm getting that intimate
feeling, but I don't have to ask you out.
I don't have to be an actual relationship because I'm afraid
at my core, you're going to reject me.
You're going to toss me to the curb.
So this was a way into it without getting the emotional
attachment. And I can cut this person off
anytime I need it. And you know, that wasn't
really, that wasn't healthy. That was not healthy.
And it definitely really kind of Hanford even, you know, how I
viewed my relationship, my last relationship, because I, you
know, even though I tried without one, didn't end up
working out well, mostly because of me.
And you know, my things. But you know, attachment for me
was I was too afraid to take those risks.
I was too afraid to, you know, venture out and meet new people,
which is why my therapist says I am what they call socially
anorexic, where I want to socialize, but I'm afraid of
rejection, so I don't socialize. I cut off my nose to spite my
face. What you're describing to me
sounds more like non attachment. Like you can't attach to people
because you're attached to what you get from them, and if you
can't get the thing from them then it's easy for you to
discard them. That's how it sounds to me.
Is that am I hearing that wrong or what?
No, I think it's in, I think it's in like 2 different forms.
It's in that form definitely in terms of like the sex and the
intimacy. And then the other part, it's
just like, oh, I complain that, oh, I used to feel lonely.
I don't have that many friends as I used to have.
Well, was I venturing out to meet new people?
No, because I was afraid, oh, I'm going to go out and try to
meet new people. And they're just to say, who the
heck is this guy? We don't want to talk to him,
get away from us. That's what I always say.
So like, I'm not going to go. And then my therapist finally
convinced me of just start going out and making new friends.
And I have been doing that and it's been game changing for me
lately. So the thing that you mentioned
about you mentioned fear of rejection, is that something
that you had and now go ahead. Yeah, no, I always had that,
which is why in terms of the sex addiction and and honestly, I
think This is why November. That's part of the reason why I
reached out to the support group, this support group,
because, you know, it feels like there's this weird cut.
There is a stigma, you know, not just with herpes, it's a stigma.
Anything we're talking about sexuality, you know, healthy,
unhealthy. And, you know, it's weird
because I do have a couple of friends that are like, you know,
covering Alcoholics or, you know, covering drug addicts or
whatever. And there's like, I always feel
like there's this weird kind of like feeling when you talk, when
you tell somebody where if someone tells you that, because
then usually the response is, oh, that's great, your recovery
great for you. And I made the mistake early on
telling somebody I was a recovering sex addict and that
kind of ended the friendship because there's that weird
stigma to it. They people like like, oh, what?
Like, oh, that's weird. You're weird or you know you're
a pervert or something. That's what I was thinking.
I was like, they must have heard it like, oh, you have a problem.
Not that you recognize this pattern of behavior and you're
actively doing the things and taking the steps that a healthy
person would take to alleviate the OR solve what I don't even
want to call it a problem, but to engage with whatever it is
that the condition, the pattern is for you to work through it.
And then it pisses me off that people are like that.
It pisses me off that when you are doing the right thing, how
easy it is for someone to make us feel bad for doing what we
should be doing. Yeah, that's actually, you know,
it's funny, I just thought of this.
That's why, you know, when you ask me, oh, why did you
introduce yourself as herpes too positive immunity?
Because I'm being open about myself because I think I'm
really starting to accept that I'm not just a sex addict.
I'm not just a herpes too positive.
I'm John. This is part of me, but it's not
the whole thing. And I think that's part of the
reason why, you know, I looked for that support group though,
you know, and because I needed the support, I needed people to
understand that, you know, I have this because they're like I
said, there is that stigma. And I felt like I really needed
support because, you know, I've been describing it as like, I
feel like I have a nail in the coffin already, which isn't
true. But this is just my, you know,
fear saying, oh, who's going to want to be with a sex addict?
You know, it's different than how you're being a recovering
alcohol. Like you can survive without,
you know, alcohol, whatever. We just go to a dry place.
But like sex addict, like, OK, there's sex and intimacy.
There's sex in a relationship. What does that mean for
somebody? And then oh, that I'm only my
sex addict. I'm a love addict and I'm herpes
too positive. What does that mean for me?
Is that another nail in the coffin?
And it's kind of like, you know, that's I think that's why I
reached out for worker because lately I've been feeling really,
I guess scared and nervous up until the last couple days
because my sex addiction was like, Oh my God, we're going to
die, causing me to go on a fight or flight mode.
Because, you know, it was trying to tell me that, you know, my
sex addiction was trying to tell me, Hey, this is the only thing
about us. We're just sex addicts.
And because we can't partake in this because of herpes at the
moment, you know, we're going to die.
But then, you know, lately I've been like, well, herpes right
now is not affecting me going to work.
It's not affecting me what I eat, it's not affecting me.
You know, all this other stuff, all these 95% of my life is the
same. It's only affecting the sex
addiction part. And the sex addiction part is
what's causing me to panic and freak out because right now, go
to work, hanging out with friends, still doing my hobbies,
everything's the same. I'm still me.
I'm not oh, he's herpes infected.
I don't have leprosy. I'm still the same.
If you yourself are someone who is in recovery for sex
addiction, how do you know if entering a relationship where
there's a healthy sexual relationship?
How do you know when you're in addiction versus you're in
relationship? I'll be honest, I don't know
because at least for right now, my recovery, I'm still finding
out new, I'm still working on myself.
And you know, for a lot of people in, you know, are love
addicts, they decide not to date for a while.
And right now I'm like, if I go to date, I'm going to be dating
for the wrong reasons. I'm going to be reading.
I'm going to be looking for validation, not to feel alone.
And I have to be fully comfortable with myself.
And once I come to terms, because I'm still in the
transition period of accepting that I'm herpes too positive
that I have to make some lifestyle changes occasionally.
And once I come to terms with that, I'll address it because I
have had feelings of like, oh, maybe I should start to date
soon. And then this happened and now
I'm kind of like, give it time. I might feel different in a
month or two. I might feel different tomorrow.
But right now I'm not ready for that yet.
And I'll know when I'm ready for it because I feel like
something's been changing with me that I feel more confident in
myself. And I think that's why, you
know, like I said, I said I'm herpes deposit.
I'm a sex addict. I'm being more open with myself
because I think I'm getting tired of just trying to hide who
I am because I know these things don't define me.
I'm more than this. And I feel like I want to
embrace that. I'm tired of just pretending I'm
not who I think I am. I wanted to interview you like
just when I spoke to you on the phone, I, I had this moment of
being like, what the fuck can I do for you?
Like you're, you're in therapy, you're saying the things from
being in recovery as well that I would question a person about or
inquire on or challenge them on if we're having a support call.
Like you're already verbalizing the things and you're at a place
where I wonder what, what do you need?
What can I do do for you? And the only thing that I felt
in my body to ask you to do was just to share your experience
and put that out there. I know that you mentioned
feeling anxious. I can't remember the any other
words that you had mentioned on our call.
But if you can go back to that space, can you explain what you
were feeling at the time that we were having our call?
Like how are you feeling? I was feeling very scared.
I was feeling anxious. I was a lot, for a lot of
different reasons #1 because the outbreak in October was, you
know, kept coming and going, and I was on the pills.
And I think I was getting some bad side effects too, for the
pills, because I was feeling really depressed.
And I think I was starting to get to the point where it's
anxious because I was feeling everything.
I was feeling scared that the outbreak was never going to go
away. I was scared if I stopped taking
it, the outbreak's going to come back.
And one of my healthy things has been exercising on an exercise
bike, which I haven't done in over two months now because of
the outbreak. I'm giving myself time to heal
now. And you know, I, you know, I
went to a second opinion for a doctor.
I'm not taking a daily suppressant at the moment
because I'm not in a relationship.
And my doctor was like, OK, finished my last pill yesterday.
And I admit this morning I woke up really nervous because I'm
like, what if this comes back? What if this, what if I have
another outbreak immediately? And I started getting that
panicky feeling, which is, you know, I understand that.
Yeah, they come and go. But I'm like, right now, I feel
like I'm still in the trenches. I'm starting to get out,
starting to go to the back of the line to relax.
But that thought popped up. What happens?
How am I going to feel if another outbreak comes up?
Will it go away? But I have another refill.
I have some extra pills at home. Like, OK, I'll just take it if I
need to. Like, I'm starting to come to
terms with it. But I was afraid that it was
never going to go away, that I would never be able to use I
exercise bike and my sex addiction was telling me, Oh
well, we're going to be celibate in a monk.
And my sex addiction was like screaming and screaming at me
like Oh my God, we're going to die.
Which is why I was feeling scared and nervous.
So you get dysregulated, you have an intense, intense
emotional response. And to get back to your in yoga,
there's the three states of everything.
There's Rajas, which is motion, Satva, which is stillness.
And then I'm sorry, Thomas, which is stillness or slowness.
And then there's Satva, which is like a perfect state, which
would be us in regulation. So something this regulates you
and your emotions or your inside world does this.
It's constantly in motion and then to ground yourself, that's
where you seek some form of connection through your
addictive behavior. Is that an accurate
representation? Yeah, and that is honestly what
the real struggle has been lately because when I am in that
fight or flight mode, my brains telling me sex addiction is the
way to solve this. And, you know, it took me a
while to figure out what healthy sexuality for myself was, you
know, and then I figured it out. And then I'm like, OK, now this
isn't, you know, I have to be safe.
I can't, you know, endanger a partner or whatever.
But when I'm feeling this way, my body and my brains, so I
mean, Oh my God, we need some form of sex to regulate
ourselves. But when I'm having an outbreak
or I'm still healing from an outbreak, it's not a
possibility. So I'm kind of just like sitting
there, like, OK, I have all these emotions.
I feel completely overwhelmed. And my addiction is telling me
that I need this, but I can't do that.
And that was what really kind of what was making me struggle.
And it made me realize, Oh my God, I think I'm going through
sex addiction withdrawal again. It's that same feeling I had
three years ago because my sex addictions like, we're never
going to have anything again. But I don't really, you know,
it's that thing we say is like, I want it, but I don't need it.
And it was tough. All right.
Thank you for everything that you shared to this point.
I had one other question that popped up for me, which was to
be in a relationship with someone who's in recovery.
Because you said this to me on the phone, I believe that you're
in recovery for the rest of your life.
Maybe you didn't say that, Maybe I heard that, but like you're
always in recovery. So what does it look like to be
in a relationship, let's say with you or with a person who is
in recovery? What can the relationship
dynamic look like? Because like we said, there's a
stigma to everything. So someone might go, oh, I'd
never date someone who's had a sex addiction or who's had an
addiction before, who has a diagnosis, right?
And I've been looking at this for myself, just looking at
different mental health conditions and looking at what
it's like to date someone who has a mental health diagnosis
and what you need to know and what you need to do as a
partner. Unless you have a diagnosis
yourself, you don't really understand.
So do you feel like your options are only limited to people who
maybe also are in recovery? Or do you what, what can we
speak to as as far as you can, being in a relationship with
someone who is not in recovery for sex addiction, but who can
understand what your needs are in a relationship?
I think for me, I mean, I'm not in a relationship, but I think
for me, I, this is saying what I think I need, I will number one,
I need to be, I need to communicate with this person
openly and I need this person to communicate with them.
I need them to communicate with me.
Not, you know, trying to, I guess, play it safe, dance
around certain subjects. Like if there's a subject we
have to talk about, then I want to talk about it.
And that's something, you know, I've been doing lately.
Ironically, after your call, I told my parents about my
diagnosis because I felt like I was constructing a mental prison
for myself, you know? And I think that's like a weird
thing because like, you know, I was trying to look for advice
for some people, something like, oh, we're not in a sexual
relationship. Why do you tell your parents?
It's like, well, if you trust and your parents support you,
why wouldn't you tell them? And I did.
And I was really worried like, Oh my God, because they know of
our covering sex addicts, obviously, because you know, the
extortion thing, I was worried, Oh my God, they're going to
think badly of me. And my mom's like, OK, I had
shingles, remember? And it was nice and supportive.
But like, communication is what's really what I need.
I think that's what's honestly, I'm going to say this and maybe
I don't fully believe it, but I'm trying to believe it.
Herpes 2 diagnosis is starting to become a little bit of a
blessing in disguise. It's affected me, but I'm
getting better at communicating. I'm really being open with
people about how I feel. I'm not.
I think what I realized, like I was slowly sipping back into my
old habits of smiling, pretending that I was feeling
OK. In reality, I wasn't.
I was scared, I was nervous. I felt like crying.
I did cry at times. Come to terms with this.
And now I'm kind of being open. I'm just saying, yeah, no, I'm
not feeling too great today. I feel like crap and just being
honest about it. I think it's helping me more
with my honesty, probably the last three years the recovery
has, it's really helping me be honest with myself and with
other people and communicating, hey, I'm not doing good right
now. I need a little space.
I need a little help. I need you to be gentle with me
because right now my brain is spinning and I feel like my
whole world's flipped upside down and I just need some time
to just sit or be by myself or be around people.
And it's been helpful. It's been really helpful just
communicating how I feel because I've gotten so used to not
communicating how I feel. So what I hear is as a an
emotionally aware person, self aware person, you are taking the
onus of communicating. So you need to feel the safety
in the relationship to be able to communicate or you're going
to communicate well. All you need is to be understood
in that communication and it can be a healthy relationship
dynamic as far as we know or can speculate.
I love the accountability. That's honestly, yeah, you
summed it up. That's that's what I've been
needing from other people. And instead of waiting for them
to initiate it, I'm starting to initiate it because I've always
been like, I'll talk about when I get confronted about it
because that's the attic secret behavior.
And, you know, lately I haven't been doing that lately.
I've been really open with people actually told one of my
meetings that I was herpes too positive.
And I did it not just to feel better, but I also kind of
wanted to remind other sex addicts that like, you know,
because some, because you know, some of us do struggle.
Some of us, you know, haven't, don't have sobriety.
I'm just like I remember telling one person, like it's just not
worth it. It's not worth it.
Considering how awful and painful October was, how I still
have nerve pain, tingling leftover and still healing.
It's not worth it. It's worth it to get the help
for it. It's not worth it to, you know,
hurt myself physically. I can't wait to come to your Ted
Talk, man. I, I can't wait.
This is just like an interview. Whenever you get a chance to
listen to this and see how you feel about it, and maybe you
want to proactively orchestrate your story and be able to tell
it with the beginning, middle, and end your own way outside of
just the herpes context, unless you want to include that.
Let me know where it is so I can make myself available to come to
that. That, that, that, that talk that
you're going to do. Man, I see really big things for
you. I appreciate your willingness to
especially so freshly into this, be here to share your experience
because I think that this is how we heal.
We heal through not only having our stories witnessed by other
people and being able to share them, but through what's
possible on the other side of knowing it's it's out there,
right? So we're having this moment
right now. It's 5:13 PM Eastern Time on
Wednesday, December 3rd, 2025. S Michael, listen to this in 10
years and be like, damn, that's me.
I want to do something different for myself.
And you fucking did that by showing up here and being
willing to share your experience that that sounded like I was
ending the podcast. But I actually, because you
mentioned having told your parents and you, you spoke a
little bit about this, but I want to just ask, like, how do
you feel now after having told your parents, right?
Has anything changed for you? Do you regret it?
Was this what you needed? It definitely lightened the load
because I think what for me, because I still live with my
parents, because I was a caretaker for a while for them
and trust still trying to figure out what an adult means for
myself. But I felt like I was sneak.
I felt like I was back in my old addictive habits, keeping
secrets, sneaking off to the doctor, sneaking my medication
in and it was eating away at me because I'm like, I want to live
this way anymore. I want to be open and honest
with other people. And that finally after our
conversation and actually another recovery call
afterwards, I was like, no, I'm going to be honest about this
because I don't want to live in secrets anymore.
And we say recovery, at least our meetings, you're only a
secrets, you're only as sick as your secrets.
And I was keeping it a sick secret.
I was feeling sick about it. And like someone said, I was
constructing a mental prison for myself and I wasn't aware of
that. I was and it's been great
because I was getting tired of coming home after work, smiling
and saying, yeah, my day was good.
And I would go to bed, listen to music, try to calm down mid
panic attack. And now I'm like, I would go
home and be like, yeah, no, I kind of barely got through the
day. And then just stay like, OK, all
right, leave me alone. Because sometimes I feel
overstimulated, like I was doing too much being overwhelmed.
And because they're, because I had communication, I was like,
hey, I'm not doing too well today.
Hey, I'm really nervous today. I'm really scared right now.
And we would take it easy. They would kind of like be there
if I needed to talk to them. But then they'd be kind of like,
OK, we'll take care of some of our own stuff.
We'll kind of let you be for a little bit.
If you need to lay down, listen some music or relax or a little
bit try to calm yourself down. Go ahead.
We're not going to force anything from you because you're
communicating this to us. And that same thing that applies
in relationships applies with your family, friends, people
close to you. Hey, I need to just be able to
say this is how I'm feeling. I know what I need.
Like if you're going to be supportive, just support me and
meeting my own needs. You're not keeping the secret
and something to them to meet your needs without them even
knowing what your needs are. God damn, that's deep.
That's deep. And like I can admit to
something that I've struggled with as well is asking for what
I need. Not only is it asking for what I
need, but even taking making space to acknowledge that I do
have a need because for so long I've tried to appear needless.
And this was a conversation I had with my dad a few years ago
about this. I would be like, you didn't get,
you didn't do anything for me. He was like, son, you never
asked me for anything. And I realized, wow, I didn't.
I would always say, hey, my mom said I need or my mom told me to
tell you dot dot dot. And I'm witnessing that even now
how difficult it is even to ask for things like sexually, like
if I just want some head or if I want to have sex right.
Just being able to ask for that is something that is a challenge
also because there's even a stigma around like asking
directly for sex, right? Like you're supposed to be
smooth or be cool or like you got to do it in such an artful
way. That is also manipulative.
So there's this line to that. You got to navigate even in
that. So while I may not identify
someone who has an addiction, I think that there are these
tendencies that you've spoken about throughout the podcast
interview that we've done, the secrecy, the ongoing Dr. and
force for an outcome, the attachment or even non
attachment of the objectification.
There are all these things that have maybe one or two might not
indicate a need for treatment necessarily, but the combination
of things and the consequences and the the harm that can be
done to self or another person being where we can look at what
the line is for addiction. So I, I just thank you for
bringing all of this into my awareness and it's something
that I can take immediately and start to self reflect on for
myself and my own personal behavior.
So I thank you for that. Yeah, I think part of the reason
why I came, you know, I decided to do this was, you know, I was
thinking about this a lot, you know, like I said, for, you
know, I can only imagine, you know, because obviously I've
experienced it. You get this diagnosis.
It is emotional toll. It does, like, feel like your
whole world's upside down. You do feel like, oh, my God,
I'm never going to have a life. No one's ever going to love me.
But I feel like, you know, like I said, when you're a sex addict
and your sex is the wait for you to numb your pain out or, you
know, you get those urges to numb your pain out and then you
can't because this interferes with that.
If you're having an outbreak, if you're in pain, you have
blisters. Whatever's going on, I realize
I'm like, oh, well, I'm not the first sex addict with herpes.
I certainly won't be the last, but I still like, I don't really
find people talking about that who are sex addicts and have
herpes too, because it's something like, how do I
navigate this? How do I navigate when myself
soothing method or you know, well, obviously I'm trying not
to do that. So being sober from it, but it's
like, what do you do when my body is in so much emotional
pain? It's saying I need to escape
from this pain. Let me get sexually triggered.
Let's get the urges to act out because we want to numb ourself
out. And then you realize, well,
that's what got me into trouble in the 1st place.
That might be the reason why I have this rolling out or, and
it's also like, well, what if there are physical, if you are
taking this causes physical harm to me and to other people.
It's like then I'm left kind of like this weird situation of
like, well, what do I do? How do I navigate this?
What, what does this mean for my life?
What does it mean for healthy sexuality and all these
different things? And it's like, I feel like
there's another whole added weight to it of being a sex
addict because it's like, you know, other people can partake
in sex in a normal, healthy way. For me, I kind of describing it
lately of like, it's like opening the bottle and I can't
put the bottle down. So what do I do when this
happens? Because it's like it did, it did
trigger addiction withdrawal. And I'm like, this is new, this
is scary, this is uncertainty about the future.
Who's ever going to love me? Those thoughts absolutely popped
into my head. Oh, I was going to love a sex
addict. I was going to love a herpes too
sex act, all of these things. And then actually I started
thinking about what you said on the phone call of if I ever
decide to date and I start meeting someone and you know
this person, if they do have interest in me, they'll have
interest in me for me, not just for the sex addiction, not just
because I'm herpes too positive they'll look beyond that.
And maybe right now I don't fully believe that, but I'm
having starting to have hope that, yeah, maybe this will mean
I'll find a better connection than what I have been before.
I'll know when I'm ready because I have to come to terms with
this. And I'm still struggling with
that. And it's also, like you said
earlier, right, this, this ended up being a superpower, right?
You, you start to believe a thing and you start to then have
the hope, right? And it's just something that as
you have more experiences with it, you start to experience more
of that thing that you're experiencing.
Like the more we do a thing, the better we get at it.
So the more you have a self acceptance, the more self
accepting you're going to become.
So I, I just man, I'm excited. I appreciate this interview,
this podcast episode, and I want to ask before, because we're
just getting close to time. I want to ask if there was one
thing that you wanted to leave people with or if there is any,
any number of things that you want to leave people with.
I invite you to just have the space to share what it is that
you want to have somebody who might be where you were six
months ago, two years ago even, or even before in recovery.
I think about all of your intersections of identity, from
being adopted to having to take care of your parents at such a
young age, dealing with the father, with depression, dealing
with sex addiction, love addiction, and the spending
addiction. Whatever it is that you want to
share, I want to just leave you the space to go ahead and do so.
And then when you feel complete, you let me know and then we'll
wrap this up. I think I kind of want to let
people know that, you know, that I think there's people that have
definitely gotten herpes too. And they're not, they're not
addicts. They're just people struggling
emotionally with this and, you know, feeling like, oh, my God,
this is my whole identity. This has ruined me completely.
And, you know, obviously herpes too, is a little bit different
than sex addiction. But I think I kind of speak for
any recovering addict of like, accepting and knowing that,
yeah, this is part of me, but it's not all of me.
And I think This is why I'm saying this, you know, for
myself. So I hope I believe this myself
too because I'm still trying to believe it.
Like, yeah, herpes too does suck.
It is part of it is part of me. It's part of something I have to
live with, you know, for the rest of my life, just like
addiction. But I learned to live with it
though. It doesn't deny me from having a
life. It doesn't deny me from being
around friends, family, doing all the things I love.
It's an inconvenience, just like addiction is at times.
And someday it's going to be worse than others.
I understand that. But I think I'm want to say it's
just like these people and all of us is like we're not just
herpes too. I don't say I don't write herpes
too on any type of government forum.
When I'm signing stuff, I write my name down because that's who
I am. I'm not just I don't write my
name as John sex love, you know, spending social anorexic herpes
too positive person. I just write my name down.
That's it. I'm me.
This is part of me. Wish I would rec honestly I wish
it wasn't. But I got to live with it just
like I live with addiction. And I've gotten to that point
with my addiction that I I'm more than my addiction.
I'm not just a sex, I'm not just a sex craze addict addict.
I'm me. And maybe with herpes too in
time. And I think I'm slowly getting
there. I'm realizing it's not just me.
I'm me. It doesn't define me.
I'm more than just the diagnosis.
And I think that's how I'm trying to feel.
Yeah. Thank you.
We can talk about this off the recording if you want, but if
you want people to be able to contact or connect with you, let
me know and we can sort that out.
I don't want to put that in here and have people blowing you up.
So yeah, I appreciate you, man. Thank you.
This was a great conversation and I think this will be very
useful to people. I appreciate it and I appreciate
having the time to talk about this.
All right, so that concludes this episode of something
positive for positive people. Please like rate, review, share,
subscribe to the podcast and just share this with people.
We have the herpes survey still acceptingresponses@spfpp.org/herpes
Dash survey help us get the most accurate information that we can
possibly get in regards to herpes and stigma so that we can
have more accurate representation of this
community, so that we can get better treatment, that we can
get better testing and we can get better treatment testing.
What's the other thing? Information in general about it.
So, oh, I just hit the stop button up here.
I was trying to set myself up to hit stop without that long pause
in between me hitting the button and then having to find it and
hit actually stop. So that's it.
I appreciate y'all for listening and till next time stay present
still.