“Contracting genital herpes ( HSV-2) was a shock, a numbing rush of shame, anger, fear; disgust with myself. I felt that I had been stripped of my sexual freedom, I had only just started. Physically all I could feel was hot, pulsing pain acting as a reminder, a trigger to my discomfort; a painful birth to this new body of mine I had to grow back into. I could feel my body clench, tense, shrivel. Everything felt like it was moving in slow motion, all I could hear was a ringing in my ear; all I wanted to do was float, wade in the numbness; the way one sits on the bottom of a pool to think, to escape. All of the insecurities I felt about myself and my body became facts about myself and my body, they pulled me deeper underwater. looking in the mirror became impossible, I almost wished genital herpes was something you could see all the time. Its invisibility made it easier to pretend I didn’t have it, that contracting it didn’t actually happen, it was just a nightmare. I was pulled out to sea by the current of shame and overthinking. It became comfortable to hold rejections hand, I wasn’t afraid anymore, it was now inevitable that I would be rejected, that I would be alone.”