The word “herpes” feels a bit like the real-life equivalent of Voldemort in Harry Potter. People will say cold sore, HSV, anything other than the name itself. As if avoiding the word somehow avoids the shame, guilt and disgust we’ve collectively attached to it.
When I was diagnosed, that shame hit me instantly. Overnight, I became the punchline of jokes I’d once laughed along to. Sitting in the doctor’s chair on the day of my diagnosis, I remember thinking: But I did everything right. I was careful. I followed all the rules.
What I didn’t yet understand was that there are no rules that guarantee protection. Condoms don’t fully safeguard against herpes because it can be passed through oral sex and skin-to-skin contact. The World Health Organisation states 3.8 billion people under the age of 50 carry HSV. Many are asymptomatic. And most standard STI screenings don’t even test for it.
Courtesy of Hannah Trenches
But none of that seemed to matter. Learning this information didn’t soften the blow. What hurt most was the way the stigma flattened all nuance. Even people with oral cold sores – caused by the same virus – often created a distinction between them and me. They were “normal.” I was “dirty.” Promiscuous. Reckless. Despite the fact that they, too, could pass genital herpes to someone in the future.
I would go as far as to say the stigma was heavier than the condition itself. After my initial outbreak, my body returned to normal. But mentally, I didn’t. The shame followed me everywhere. I branded myself “damaged goods,” as though my value had depreciated overnight.
I spiralled. I binge ate. I doom-scrolled. I tried to numb myself in any way I could. I felt unbearably alone, convinced no one else could possibly understand what I was carrying, physically, but more so emotionally.
Then, in 2022, I had the opportunity to climb Mount Fuji, and I very quickly realised how disconnected I’d become from my own body. Unfit, unconfident, a complete shell of myself. And for the first time in a long while, I decided I didn’t want to disappear. I wanted to change.
Very impulsively, I signed up for a charity place in the London Marathon. I couldn’t run a mile. I definitely did not feel like a “runner.” But I needed something to work towards; something that required me to show up for myself and prove that I could get through hard things.