Something Positive for Positive People

Herpes has taught me more about sex than any of my sex education teachers, girlfriends, educators, have. And honestly I can't even say it's sex I've learned, it's intimacy. With four more episodes til retirement of SPFPP's podcast, it felt aligned to talk to ya'll. It's been an interesting day home. I had some aspects of my inner most being reflected back to me and in genuine Courtney fashion, I interrogated it with curiosity. My relationship to sex and the partners I've given the title of girlfriend are interconnected as they've shaped my earliest ideas not just of sex, but also intimacy. Having herpes changed how I do sex, and in interrogating that, I inherently developed a new idea of what intimacy is. We're on the countdown to episode 400 and celebrating in NYC!

Hailing all the way from Alabama, well, actually Florida, but Alabaman roots, our guest this week. Jade is the founder of Essentially Prepped, integrating essential oils and lifestyle coaching. For those looking for another option for herpes support, listen to this episode and see if she's someone who resonates with you. We talk about stigma in the south and some of how Jade's dating experiences have gone. We speak about the fluidity of sexuality as it relates in the south along with being publicly visible as people living with herpes and the pros and cons of this. You can connect with Jade on Instagram @essentiallyprepped and check out her stie here.

"I really didn't realize how ashamed I was about how happy I am". In this episode I reflect on just how much I've pushed down my happiness both publicly and even privately just to keep other people comfortable especially in a time where there's not much visibility of joy and happiness. Releasing my resistances to joy, happiness, pleasure, and receiving brought up many emotions, including the last of my rejections for applying for grants! I speak about growth, rejection, the nervous system, and how herpes helps with identifying the need to manage stress.

In this episode, I talk through what SPFPP support groups are, how they started, and what people can expect when they join. I share how these spaces are less about advice and more about being seen, and why presence matters more than performance. Whether you're new to herpes or just looking for community, this episode breaks down how the groups work and why they matter. Learn more about the herpes support group for men and women.

Jealousy, rejection, and other perceived negatives are broken down not as bad things, but as infinite potential. Take something that makes you jealous for instance, you can either be inspired by it to be better, or you can want to corrupt it and make it worse. The intensity of emotion that comes with the label of jealousy is what it is, but we assign a narrative to the label which can create an identity behind it. There's a practice of attaching and releasing that's the natural flow of rhythm that all beings adhere to, and the same way it applies to jealousy, it applies to fear, and applies to rejection. This'll make all the sense if you can make it through my rambling and sharing of personal experiences of jealousy and how I apply its lessons to self-rejection which is the only rejection that truly exists for us on this episode of Something Positive for Positive People.

Our guest is a therapist specializing in DBT (Dialectical Behavior Therapy), but when she was diagnosed with HSV-2, she found herself in unfamiliar territory, navigating a rare neurological complication, medical dismissal, and the emotional weight of a life-altering diagnosis. In this episode, she and I discuss what it means to be the helper who needs help. We unpack Ellsberg Syndrome, and how the medical field did NOT exercise trauma-informed communication, and the power of integrity, validation, and DBT as an option for people with herpes in their healing. This episode is a great example of how herpes stigma intersects with the mental health field, and why remembering who you are validates your identity and jump starts the healing process.

After a herpes diagnosis, dating can feel daunting, but community can change everything. In this episode, I sit down with Rachel to expand on her experience navigating self-stigma, dating, and disclosure after contracting genital HSV-1. We discuss how therapy, community, and self-reflection helped Rachel reconnect to her voice, reclaim her confidence, and find grounding after emotional turbulence. If you’ve ever felt like your diagnosis defined you or held you back from dating, this episode offers comfort for wherever you may be in your own diagnosis.

The excitement for this one right here is representative of what SPFPP is all about. I've been getting rejected left and right for grants and I THINK after this most recent one, I'm just not supposed to be doing that. The impact of SPFPP isn't contingent on how much money comes in. I've gotten real good at being resourceful and also somehow things just been working out to where we've been able to sustain, so I'm officially done submitting grant applications!!!My man Aaron from about 50 episodes ago rejoins us with his now GIRLFRIEND Dria who shot her shot with him after finding his bravery being a Black man sharing his story online attractive. Aaron hit me up and let me know how things were going so I thought it would be dope to have them on the podcast just to share how they met, and it was a pleasant Convo with both of them and it speaks volumes to identity outside what stigma tends to have us believe about ourselves. She saw my man beyond his diagnosis, and she tapped into something beyond her own. He was brave and she was bold!

Our guest this week shares insights about sharing her diagnosis with her therapist, which led her to SPFPP. This is one of those episodes I would call encouraging, but grounded. Perspective is a mofo. You'll hear the amount of effort someone effort someone can put in only for us to STILL potentially self-reject ourselves. Our guest shares an awesome date story that'll give ya hope or give ya the "nope" but the choice of interpretation is up to you! Listen to this episode of SPFPP for some uplifting guidance and perspective on dating with herpes.

Make sure you’re able to watch the video on this if you can. This isn’t an interview or experience episode, it’s a hard launch of the revised and easier to navigate herpes support and education platform, Something Positive for Positive People (SPFPP). I’ve not been very active with the website exactly and that’s because I just got spoiled with Instagram. Lately the visibility of my posts and education and information has been TRASH so I haven’t been getting visibility, guests, or many people finding the resource at all. This episode, I walk through navigating the site for anyone new to SPFPP in hopes of them getting to the information they need and are seeking a little faster.If you’re diagnosed with herpes and just need support for navigating the stigma, or if you are a health care professional looking to support a client or patient, this platform is for you. It’s a nonprofit organization so we run off donations. If you hire us for a training that helps tremendously too. All of our resources are free or donation-based so any “purchase” made is tax deductible and helps us with our efforts to continue offering support to people living with herpes, and educating the loved ones of them.

The title may have been a lil dramatic lol. I’m catching myself get repetitive with these podcasts and I notice guests haven’t been appearing lately. People tired, political state of the US is trash, life is lifing, the algorithm has discouraged me from putting effort into posting and getting engagement like I had before the pandemic, and it’s just a lot of shit presenting challenges to continued growth at the caliber we’ve had historically. Recapping the workshop I’ve done, I see an uptick in SPFPP’s reach through these avenues which makes sense because these organizations engage directly with people impacted by stigma directly. So what better way to increase impact than to do more of this? I share a lil’ bit of what Tara of the Youth Sexpert program presented to Project Safe in hopes of giving a lil’ inside look at what SPFPP brings to organizations. A lot of it is bringing recognition to stigmatizing language, phrasing, and messaging. If any of this appeals to you, listen in, and if you’re tired of the filler episodes, lemme know what you wanna hear or share your experience. We’d love to have ya!Check out the revised website www.spfpp.org

This one is heavy. We talk about suicide with someone in the Ideation aspect of it. I'm not a mental health professional nor do I have any licenses or anything like that. I will say I am a human who can just ask questions, listen, and be present. Personal takeaways are that really people suffering are often told what to do but not asked what they need. Listen in on our guest's experience and hopefully this helps you feel supported or be able to support someone struggling with suicidal thoughts.Resources Mentioned:Care Menu - @connectwithoumouSomatics & Transformative Justice - @eroticsofliberationSolidarity Economics - @neweconomycoalitionMindfulness practices - Thich Nhat Hanh

My grandpa had this dream my mom told me about that I was a preacher. As somebody whose spiritual values align WAY off from anything remotely related to religion, I think it speaks to how all this is held together. I align with a lot of Yoga philosophy and I’ve integrated bits and pieces of what points me in the direction of what in Demon Slayer (anime) is referred to as the Transparent World. What’s beautiful about this too is that the main character wins his battles after struggle and getting his ASS whipped, but his intention in protecting humanity, he radiates an energy of reawakening, reminding the enemy who they were. Now this doesn’t have a happy ending but it shows that the demons are stuck in their suffering story only to be set “free” from it by being reminded through the light our main character shines. - my bad that went into something not for this platform yet or podcast episode lol so lemme get you your description -I walk a tight rope between reality and the dream world. I imagine myself doing a thing before u do it as a practice for teaching myself that I’ve experienced the thing before. They say sleep is the cousin of death, which if that’s the case, what makes for the cousin of life? Is it reality, is it dreams or nightmares, meditation? Or all of em!?I believe there’s a usefulness to navigating stigma if we can tap into that world and bring it into the one you love in. I’m not saying discard the body, the mind or the limitations. I’m saying to align your dreams with the laws of nature. Don’t jump off a building thinking you can fly. Don’t do any illegal shit. This is an invitation to do what all spiritual, religious, and self help coaches and teachers tell us which is to look within. Look at you aside from identities of the body and with that same angle you see these aspects of self, look at your waking reality. ONE OF THESE has to align to the other and that’ll be whichever you give the highest quality of awareness to. If herpes Keeps you from dating, stigma keeps you from socializing, you fear rejection and being outcast, think of those thoughts as your dreams because that’s where those come from. So what you see in reality is that and you live those rules. If you challenge those thoughts with behaviors in reality, notice if the thoughts change and become supported by reality around you. That undercurrent of consciousness, the dream of reality is where the intersection brings up the Neutron of the atom. Think of the proton as stillness, and electrons as the constant motion of reality. You, the neutron right there, are the choice, awareness, presence that navigates the duality of the two, and this episode serves as a nudge for you to look in that direction of the inner world AND bring something out of that to be expressed and experienced in reality with us! Don’t escape us though lol please don’t. Bring it to us. Gimme them dreams! Show em off to us, tell us about that dream of yours that is your lived experience so we can sing along, dance to your rhythm created through your lived experience. That’s the beauty of life. Entering that transparent world of dreams through sleep, visualization, meditation, (sometimes medication, masturbation, or procrastination)!Enjoy this episode of SPFPP and lemme know what ya think. Feels good to me to say this stuff I been holding on to outloud so thanks for listening.

Yes. For those who like the short version of things, you absolutely can be Nonmonogamous if you have herpes. I talk from my own personal experience in this podcast episode and shake the dust off from not talking about my experience for so long, being mindful of those around me so I don’t talk about my partners or offer too much detail there just out of respect to them. When navigating a herpes diagnosis and dating/relationships it’s important that we just get comfortable sharing who we are, naming our needs, and understand there will be people who do and don’t want to support us in meeting those needs. Some people align, others don’t. When we can detach from the expectation of getting our needs met from a specific person or group of people, we find that a lot of our resistances to getting what we want evoke detached as well. I share why I find nonmonogamy, particularly polyamory appealing from the perspective of my even platonic relationships with women having been a threat to past partners. Hell even my work through SPFPP has been a challenge to navigate in past relationships due to jealousy of me having found fulfillment in my work and the impact people share that I’ve made on them being a trigger for partners. All that to say, I have herpes and it’s out there to the world and I’m still finding love, fulfillment, relationships, and this wouldn’t be possible if I was hidden in the shame of believing my herpes status defined my relationship structure so I want you to look at that for yourself and move forward in a way that works for you!

This episode I wanted to just have something to reference for people who want to know my experience. Usually support calls bring in questions about me and my experience from diagnosis to the point of having created the SPFPP platform. I share my experience with my first symptoms, my diagnosis, the early resources I was provided with, disclosures and dating. This is the story leading n up to the start of the podcast with some sprinkles of hindsight interwoven into it. I speak to some useful stuff to where if you are considering a support call, https://spfpp.org/stigma-support-call this is a better starting point so we can maximize our time together for you to vent, ask questions about your experience, and to just be witnessed in your curiosity navigating whatever aspect of having herpes you need!If you haven’t subscribed to the monthly newsletter, do that here www.spfpp.org/herpes-newsletter so you can be on top of virtual and in person events, workshops, and social opportunities like our celebration in NYC for episode 400 of spfpp on December 19!!! Anyways check this out and I hope this points you in the direction of what you need more efficiently. Stay present.

Closed mouths don’t get fed! SO LADIES AND FEMMES SHOOT YOUR SHOT!In this conversation with Goddess Bats (@actuallybats), we talk about various intersections of identity when navigating herpes, polyamory, sex work, rejection, and identity. Together, we go over:What does it feel like to be blamed for “giving” someone herpes—and how do you advocate for yourself one-on-one?Are statistics useful, or just a paradox when “everyone has it but no one talks about it”?Disclosing in polyamory: do you only date people with herpes? And what about play parties—when does disclosure really happen?Never being rejected for herpes—how is that possible? And does ghosting count as rejection?The difference between rejection from men vs. women, and why “no” sometimes gets misunderstood as “try harder.”Having “game” in sex-positive spaces compared to everywhere else—what does that even mean?What exactly happens at a sex party (and what’s it like to walk into one without knowing)?How shame from religion, being poly, bisexuality, and sex work all intersect with stigma.Why boundaries—clearly spoken—are the real markers of respect versus playful teasing.We also ask: what can the stigmatized teach us about navigating freedom, authenticity, and connection?If you’ve ever wondered what conversations about herpes, rejection, sex parties, and stigma is all like, check us out here.

When I tell you all that this was an unexpected conversation, I cannot tell you how . . . surprised I was. You'll hear it in the interview how shocked I was when the topic came up. I knew we'd talk about herpes, but the Bipolar conversation was something that naturally came up. We go into what bipolar episodes for our guest were like, the hypersexuality that ironically didn't lead to her herpes diagnosis, and how people around her were impacted by her mental health experience as well. There is absolutely a stigma on Stigma stigma here and as we often say, sexual health is mental health. Our guest this week is super dope for being willing to go there with us and be patient with me getting back into the swing of interviewing people!This episode is important to me because I have a family history and relationship history with partners who've struggled with their mental health and there's a lot of understanding and compassion I can have now that looking back on was dismissed as "oh she was just crazy". I even remember my family dismissing relatives' not normal behavior as "Oh so and so just talkin' crazy" but I never really had a REAL conversation with someone navigating an actual diagnosis, I've just experienced behavior from them that I just couldn't describe. I'm very fortunate to be in a place in life where my life's work I've been called to supports not only my healing past wounds as it relates to sexuality and stigma, but also mental health stigma. I couldn't be more grateful to be in the position of someone who can witness others with presence and learn from them to be able to help others.We have some events coming up at www.spfpp.org/events virtually if you want to check those out. I advise you to subscribe to the newsletter: www.spfpp.org/herpes-newsletter to stay up to speed on what's happening from support groups, to disclosure workshops, and community events.

In this episode, I reflect on what it means to hold my rhythm, even when it’s challenging AF. If you been keeping up, you know I been big on talking about atoms and the microconnection they have to the o macro connectionmacroconnectiof stars lately. I use the metaphor of the sun—a star that doesn’t shift its light or heat just because someone says they’re cold. If it did, the consequences would be catastrophic for everything in the solar system's orbit. I realized that I’ve done the human version of that—altering my rhythm, light, and presence in past relationships to "FIX" the other partners. And not only did I fail, but it nearly broke me.This is my story of stepping away from what I know I was supposed to be doing, doing something else, and slowly making my way back through the emotional friction of grief, guilt, and shame, as well as the insecurities that I've been holding on to. I speak like I used to when I was in rhythm, being REAL. You'll hear me talk about being emotionally manipulated, (as hard as that is to admit as someone who identifies as rather emotionally intelligent) about my pattern and concerns of being used as someone so openly visible about my life in general, and about the weight I’ve carried trying to be "good" and take all the accountability for what 2 people were part of. I been holding that in all year and this past week it was put in my face.But this isn’t just about pain. It’s about transmutation. About how I’ve found my way back to being the regulating presence I am when I’m in alignment—through smudging with First Peoples of the land (Shoutout to Sedalia) in Canada, through pulling doubles in therapy, and through naming what I was most ashamed to admit: that I kept to myself and dumbed myself down not for me to grieve and heal, but out of fear of being made into content, which still happened. I don't bash my ex for anything, I just speak my experience now after very thorough processing with the intention of what the title is, transmitting stigma into healing. I love her and every version of her I saw during our relationship and after even during her outward version of grief. But this ain't about her, it's about this thing that's bigger than me as it hasn't been. I'm not trying to defend myself. I've been told I'm holding on to something despite how well things are going for me, and it's hard to receive because I'm clinging to my truth and repressing a part of myself that screams to be let out every day before I go to bed and first thing when I wake up.I very thoughtfully and mindfully share this podcast episode, with intention of communicating my feelings. The same way herpes has taught me lessons in healing, I truly believe the end of my relationship was a much deeper surfacing of my own insecurities which all stem from trying to "save" or "protect" people and ain't no more room for that AND for me to be present as I have been. This episode is for anyone who’s dimmed their light to be loved, anyone who' feels like they've been used, anyone who's holding on. For anyone still healing and needs a reminder that you don’t need to change who you are. You can make necessary adjustments that support your becoming who you are, but don't let anyone manipulate you into changing who you are.

In this vulnerable and insightful episode of Something Positive for Positive People, Courtney Brame speaks with Jhivan, who shares their experience navigating life three months post-herpes diagnosis. The conversation explores the emotional and sexual impact of the diagnosis, the fear of transmission, and the internal debate around only dating people who have the same type of herpes.Together, they unpack:What it means to avoid intimacy after a diagnosisThe logic behind only dating people with the same HSV typeHow fear of transmission affects identity and sexual expressionThe cultural stigma differences between Europe, the Caribbean, and the U.S.Learning your body, triggers, and finding peace in the new normalThis episode is a powerful listen for anyone who’s felt the pressure to protect others at the expense of their own connection needs, and for those questioning how to safely navigate dating after herpes.

2025 took me through it. The woman I thought I was building a future with left. I moved in with my grandma, then into my own spot, and just when I started to settle—boom—tornado. Total loss. In every direction of life, I felt resistance. Everything I did to “fix” things only made the weight heavier.That’s when I got the message from what I can only describe as the echo of my nervous system: do nothing.Not as in give up, but as in pause. Stop grasping. Let go. From that stillness, things started aligning again—without force, without explanation. That phrase became a mantra for me in the dark: do nothing. And I started noticing how much I was still trying to be liked, trying to defend myself in other people’s narratives. But “do nothing” showed me those stories are theirs to hold—not mine.“All my effort and action taken just kept creating unnecessary resistance between what I chose and acquiring it.”“There are stories people carry about me—some that have nothing to do with me, some that do, and some that are about their own avoidance of accountability.”“Do nothing. That was the message. And when I did nothing, blessings and pleasant experiences validated that choice.”“Depression was the teacher herpes could never be. And we see what I’ve done with herpes.”“The same way the sun became the star it is through pressure, heat, and friction—I’m becoming through stagnancy, expectation, and failure.”This episode is a marker for me. A timestamp. A reminder that I don’t have to react to the world around me. I get to orient my internal world—my beliefs, my nervous system, my rhythm—and trust that the external world will shape around that alignment.What came through this period of stillness wasn’t defeat—it was clarity. This is how I remember who I am. And this episode is my declaration of that remembrance.