I've always worried about catching STIs. They're not nice.
A friend of mine, ages back, got herpes and I heard about it and I was like, "Oh my goodness!"
I haven't always been 100% careful,
but I stepped it up from that point on because I thought to myself I'd never want that.
I'd worked with him for quite a long time, got on really well,
became better and better friends and then it took a natural progression.
When we became romantically involved, I noticed that something wasn't right.
I always thought by going to the clinic, I had a completely clean bill of health
and the person I caught it from also thought he had a clean bill of health.
I went straight to the doctor; the doctor fobbed me off,
and then it got worse and I went there again.
They did some more tests and confirmed that it was herpes.
Herpes is like cold sores, you get HSV1, which is on your lips,
and HSV2, which is the genital version.
It’s like getting cold sores downstairs, once you've got it you've got it forever.
Flu symptoms are the first thing that come about, then it was itching downstairs,
followed by lumps, not only on your genitals, but they come up on your backside as well.
When the doctor diagnosed me I was absolutely devastated.
I'd arranged to go out with my boyfriend that night.
I went up to see him and told him and he was okay, he was fine.
I said to him, "I couldn’t have caught it anywhere else apart from you",
I hadn't slept with anyone for 8, 9 months before.
He just said, "I've got a clean bill of health, look at my records",
and I said, "How on earth do you think I caught it?"
He said, "How many men have you slept with?"
You can't blood test for herpes because
what they are looking for is the antibodies in your blood.
If the antibodies are not fighting anything at the time, they're not going to be there.
Therefore, he had a clean bill of health and he was asymptomatic,
so he was a carrier, not knowingly, he passed it on to me.
I've tried to explain this to him repeatedly.
He won't have it.
It was a lack of understanding about being a carrier.
All I wanted was him to be supportive and carry on how we'd been carrying on.
I finished it, I was going through a rough time trying to get my head round it.
I did feel really down.
I really liked him.
I hadn't met anyone I'd liked that much in years.
When I finished with him, he rung me up every night
and he was cool because he'd rejected me so badly that I said to him
I felt it would be like being an upgrade going back to being friends.
At first I thought we would be friends.
But he hasn't treated me like a friend,
he hasn’t been supportive and he just wanted to use me.
I went through 3 months of really bad depression.
I thought no-one's ever going to want to go out with me again.
When I meet guys, I'm going to have to tell them that I've got herpes.
Thankfully, there are these herpes dating sites now.
They’re quite good, I've met up with a few people off them, nothing has sparked yet.
I deal with it a lot better now, time is the greatest healer.
I can't live my entire life on a downer about a few lumps and bumps.
Whoever the next girl is that gets with him I feel very sorry for.
He's still thinking, "I haven’t got it".
She's going to have to go through what I've been through and I don’t wish that on anyone.