Courtney Brain (0:02)

Welcome to Something Positive for Positive People. I'm Courtney Brain. Something Positive for Positive People is a non profit organization supporting people navigating herpes stigma. I'm your host, Courtney Brain. I think I just said that I am in a state of grief. Probably have been for a while. That's why you haven't heard many podcast episodes. And I've been doing that thing that you shouldn't do, but, you know, unfortunately you have to do, which is just like powering through and doing the things that need to be done because, I mean, stuff's got to get done. And so I don't necessarily want to speak into specifics about what the grief is. If you follow me closely or if you communicate with me, you know what that is. But I, I just had to do some very vulnerable things. I had a podcast guest that I was supposed to have on. I'm in the same room that the Zoom Room that we were going to be recording on. And I, I acknowledged that I'm not able to be as present as I normally am. But this conversation is important. And yeah, she did her job. She did her job. She's a. I don't, I don't. Damn. I can't even, you know, recall what her title is. But she talks about abuse, domestic violence. And I was going to interview her for the podcast because she was at Baylor College of Medicine. HIV training. It was a training virtual that I, I got brought in to be a part of alongside one of my board members in order to speak on STI communication, sexual health, and talking among patients, or talking from patients to provider or providers to patients. See, See, I'm scatterbrained. And I'm very grateful to my yoga therapy program because I have resources that help me understand that. Whereas if I didn't understand what it is that I'm experiencing and going through, who knows how that would show up. I'll probably be posting crazy stuff on social media and all typ of unnecessary things that are less than healthy coping mechanisms. So I am going to be taking whatever time it is that I need away from the things that aren't a priority right now. Priority number one is healing the thing that I think is the source of the grief. Priority number two is going to be recalibrating my focus and aligning, realigning and defining what is happening with something positive for positive people. Like, not that too much is going to change, but to give you perspective. This upcoming Saturday, March 8th, I was supposed to have a expo, another Something Positive for Positive People Expo in Newark, New Jersey. I got a venue, a space. I had a guest presenter who is local to New Jersey as well. And we were planning on this for. It's been a little bit over a month and I've posted about it, I've told people and they have flyers at the organization and we have one person sign up for a free ticket. So I went on ahead and just canceled the event. And yeah, now I really don't need to be back here in New York for a bit. So I'm going to take some time. I'm going to go and just reset myself at home. I'm going to be in St. Louis. I don't have like an end date. I didn't have much on the schedule for my part time job teaching medical students to give genital exams. So I'm gonna just take some time and go home. I'm gonna see family and friends again. That was really recharging for me and now I really need to more so spend some alone time and there's going to be a lot of that. I've already worked out what that's going to look like and being able to do what I need to do in order to shift what my priority is. I think that for a while now I've taken my focus, attentiveness, prioritization away from what my priority should have been. And it shows energetically I'm a real big energy person. And for somebody who runs an organization called Something Positive for Positive People, like my positivity has been like, it's, it's been minimized speak of stigma minimization. And I've been running on reserves for a while, probably a few months and doing just enough, I've been doing just enough to get by and do the bare minimum. I've been showing up for my yoga therapy clients, I've been missing class sessions, I've been late to calls and missing calls. And that is not like me at all. So yeah, I'm dealing with the thing that I need to deal with in the way that I. It's a new way. I think that this is a very new way for me to deal with grief. Now having had access to Antonio, I didn't, I cannot say his last name, Sauces Susies. But he does yoga for grief relief. And I've been considering looking at one of his retreats. I got invited like for a scholarship too, but I just couldn't make it because I had my expo, I think or the. It was the Black Men's Emotional Wellness Symposium, one of those. And maybe if I had gone like, I would have recognized. I've been grieving for a long time. And what Kendrick Lamar say, I grieve different. So I'm gonna listen to my little sad playlist. I'm gonna feel my feelings. And P for tomorrow. I don't like that phrase. Push through. I am going to be as present as I can before the social. That's tomorrow on Thursday in Brooklyn at the house. Me and Trisha, AKA Safe Slut, are going to host a social event for people with herpes. And we're just gonna get together, mingle, talk, and just maybe have some music, dancing. If anybody wants to drink, they can. This is not a good time for me to drink. I ain't doing that till I get around safer people and I know where I'm. So that's what I'm gonna do. I'm wait till I get home. I'm gonna have me a day of my little. My vices and then I gotta get to it if that. Like, I'm recognizing that there's various kinds of coping mechanisms for healing and getting through hard things. And I'm human, just like I think a lot of people are. You know, you may not recognize the thing in the moment, but hindsight 2020 is miraculous. It's very. If we had that foresight paired with our hindsight, I think we get insight. Oh, that's profound. That's. Some people be like, oh for. But no, all seriousness. Yeah. I've not been doing what I need to be doing. I've shifted what I've given to something positive for positive people over the last eight years. It's been eight years now. I was born at somewhere else and that's not what I should have been doing. I recognize that it's important for me to be able to name my needs after becoming a person who has met my own needs or found people to support me in meeting whatever those needs are. I think that for a really long time I've been unable to name them or unwilling to name these needs. And it's like they're either met or they're not. And regardless, it's me who's responsible for meeting them. So in not being able to identify and name what my needs are, what I've learned is that it is difficult to create boundaries around those needs. And not only am I creating the boundaries, but also being able to communicate the boundaries and then also be able to use those boundaries as a way of setting expectations. And I recognize that how we do one thing is how we do everything. And that's been the same thing here in regards to something positive for positive people as well as a. That I'm grieving. And in that, what I see is I haven't had to. I really haven't had to state my needs. And I think that I've believed that I don't need boundaries for a really long time. I've just believed that. And I think that I've drawn in and done a really good job of bringing in the kind of people who belong here, who belong in my space, who, when I'm aligned with what I'm supposed to be doing, the opportunities, the relationships, the connections, everything has sort of just appeared in my orbit. And then I stopped doing that. And all of a sudden, like, my beliefs need to change. It's not even all of a sudden, but over time, like, I'm trying to do things differently under the expectation that this is supposed to be better for me. And I had a recent experience of finding my notebooks from when I went home most recently, and I was reading through them. And as I read through them, like, I was able to see a lot of the work that I've done on myself to become the person that I am and not perfect. No such thing as perfect, far from it. And in the process of acknowledging, accepting, embracing my imperfections and learning along the way, you know, there's been. I'm sure there's been more damage done than what I can like, verbalize and name or what's in my range of perspective. But there's also been a lot of healing. And I think that I've been hard on myself and I've been talking to family and friends about what's going on. And it's always a wonderful experience to have different perspectives because those different perspectives are, I ain't gonna say, like, make me feel better, but do make me feel like there are just things that I'm unable to communicate for whatever reasons. Right. And regardless of word choice or like how things are said, I think that the thing that I run into consistently is that it is more important that a thing be done than a thing be done well. And along the way, like, we kind of learn. And I've learned that from this simulation. Most recently, I got feedback. A lot of the feedback was, we need to have more lecture. They would like some examples of using stigma free language for the clinicians that are part of the simulation and if they really, really enjoyed the role play. But then I got a phone call regarding how they wish that people wish that expectations were a lot more Clear. And I think that that's something that I run into a lot, even in my personal life, because I've done this thing where I'm like, oh, okay, like, that's the thing that needs to happen. Let's do that. And then along the way, we figure it out. Like, that's how my life has worked out. Well, for me, I've learned a lot. There's been successes. There's been things that are important to me have been accomplished along the way of that. Because there's been so many times in the past where I've planned, and then things just don't go my way, and then we got to plan again for things accommodating. But it's so much more efficient and effective for me that we just. We take action. You know, one of the codes I live by is I never want to look back on a thing and say, why didn't I? Like, why didn't I take action? Why didn't I do a thing? Why didn't I speak up? Why didn't I say something? I would rather look back on my life if there are any regrets and be able to say, damn, why did I do it this way? I never want to look back and have regret about taking inaction. I would rather have taken wrong action. And there's a lot of times in my life where I think about having taken no action versus wrong action. And even wrong action has probably had worse consequences than taking no action. But it. It very much feels like I'm living with an integrity in order to be able to say that, right? Like, why? I remember more times I didn't do a thing then I've done a thing wrong. But I've learned from said wrong thing and been able to take the lesson, embody it incorporated in how I do things moving forward. Like I always say, I'll make the same mistake twice. And yeah, I feel like I do, though, looking at my journals and reflecting on a lot of what I'm reading and seeing. I'm finding myself in a pattern that I've been in a few times before. And one of my yoga therapy clients shout out to Ali, appreciate you. She said this to me, and it stuck. And she said, we don't just sort of beat the game of the lesson, right? Like, we have a lesson, it shows itself again and again and again, and we expect it to just stop. It's like, all right, I've seen this before. Like, I beat the game, get it out of my face. But what it is is that from the previous Time we should have learned something to apply to the next time that we're met with that pattern. So we get better at handling the pattern as it comes up. And I think that my history with patterns is an attempt to avoid dealing with things that I've had to deal with in the past by putting myself in different environments and situations and telling myself like, oh, okay, well, if this is the setting and environment, then the assumptions are blank. And that's kind of the same thing with my career field. It is the same thing with my career field. It is the same thing in my personal life that there are and have been a lot of just assumptions about things. And that's on my part. Like, I assume that, okay, well, if this thing has branches and leaves on it, then it's a tree because there's other trees around it. But that may not be the case. You know, just because it looks like a tree doesn't make it a tree. This has happened a lot of times for many of the opportunities that I've. I've had and, you know, yeah, business wise, personal wise. Yeah, it's been, it's been really weird for me because on one hand, one thing's going really well or seeming really well, and then the other's not. And it's. It's regardless of how connected I think everything is. I think I took on an all or nothing approach, as if, like, I can only do Full Throttle 100. So it was Full Throttle 100 in my relationship with something positive for positive people and then in my personal life. So it's one or the other. And I think that what boundaries are going to do for me and being able to know my needs and communicate what these boundaries are, set expectations is, it's going to get me out of this all or nothing pattern of I need to pour everything into only this and allow for me to evenly distribute what I have to pour and also be able to find healthy ways of filling my energetic cup, because I think that people and things are typically what we pour into energetically. And for me, I've looked to people to fill my cup, feel my cup, now fill it. And I need to step away and fill my own cup and then enjoy sharing what I fill my cup up with with people. So, yeah, it's going to be a process for me. I leave from New Jersey on Friday and I go back to St. Louis. I'm gonna take my stuff to my grandmother's house and yeah, I'm gonna spend a lot of time. I'll have like an office space Just like a sanctuary for myself. Shout out to Carl for always telling me I always got a place there. I always got a place at home, but it's temporary. I don't want to do what I did before where I go home, get caught up and stay home and look up, and five years go past without me having done much of what, you know, aligns with my purpose. And I say that, but I've been able to do a lot for people over those years that I was just at home starting something positive for positive people. And now, like, maybe this is part of the hero's journey. And when I say the hero's journey, I mean, like, bad thing happens, person goes off into the world, did my bad thing, maybe let's call it my herpes diagnosis. Go out into the world and try and, like, conquer something. Like, finding a sense of purpose, which was living life. Like, it wasn't really any more complex than that. It was super simple. And along the way, I got all these little bumps and bruises and. And I've also picked up these skills and these tools. I learned about simulated patience. I learned that they don't. They don't talk about sex and sexual health. I learned that there's, like, no men learning how to talk about sex and, like, being one of. I don't know how many of us there are, but as far as talking about sexual health, communication, right. It's just me. It's just my lived experiences. And in these lived experiences, I see that there's tools and resources that I wish that I had available, regardless of what I've learned on my own, regardless of the trial and error myself and what I've just been able to pick up from workshops and books and podcasts, like, it's not enough. And I am in a very unique position to be able to recreate and distribute those kind of things, more of those kinds of things in the settings that matter and give people the tools to be able to talk to men about their sex and sexual health and all this other stuff. Like, there's a lot of just things that I've gotten sidetracked from. And even this podcast is probably, like a sidetracked thing. But I think I need to get this out. I need to say what I'm saying right now for the sake of getting it off my chest. I was listening to a Childish Gambino interview club, and he was talking about working with Erykah Badu, and he asked. He was like, you know, how do you do this? Like, the pressure of making great music for people like, how do you make what they want? And she told him, she said, I, I feed them and how they eat it, it's up to them. Like, I make what I like to eat. They can eat it with a fork, they can eat it fast, they can eat it while they clean in it, whatever it is. Like, the, the product that is made is making what I like, what I need. And they take it in how they take it in. And that was a really powerful quote for me because I've been also doing that both with people and in my relationship with something positive for positive people. I've been trying to do all these events and it's hard to get people to show up to the events. But I know damn well that like more of who follows and engages with something positive for positive people is. It's global. It's not just like, oh, I have such a large community in this place. And, you know, I feel that way for sure about New York. Like, New York is the website numbers are there, but it's, it's difficult to get people to show up. I don't really have support from support groups and the dating site that exists. So a lot of this is just guerrilla warfare. Not warfare, oh my God. Guerrilla marketing tactics. Figuring this out on my own. And when you figure things out on your own, like, you get good at figuring things out on your own. And it also gets better. Bored or not boring, challenging. Like, I want to bring people in. I want to bring somebody in to help and be more involved. And I think that even among that, like, I've gotten sidetracked from what's important here. And what's most important here is that I serve the people directly affected by herpes and I advocate in the right spaces. And also I got to take care of like my yoga therapy school stuff, which I've been neglecting. Again, just grieving brain. I can say that now because of what I learned in yoga therapy school. So when they're like, courtney, where's your homework? Be like, grieving brain. Y'all taught me that. But no, seriously, it's tough. As somebody who I think was at 30, whenever the pandemic started, I think a little bit after that I got into therapy and I'm back in therapy. I took a two year break to do some things on my own. Probably should have been in there the whole time. But money and also, like, I think it's important to be able to do things on your own too. Right? Like the integration versus implementation thing. Right. Like, there's a need to learn things, but then we also have to be able to show that we've learned something from them. And that's what I've been doing over the last almost two years. Yeah, probably a year and a half more. More. So it's been more so a year and a half since I've seen and talked to my therapist prior to like getting back into it with him. And yeah, I, he came at me and was like, here's what's going on with you. And he hit me with the perspective of like something that was just deep down that I kind of knew and I was in denial of. And part of grieving is denial, bargaining and there's all these steps of it. But what he touched on made me angry. And this is one of the reasons that I do appreciate healing modalities and therapy as well as my own self reflective work. Because, yeah, I can ask myself the questions, I can find out, like, why'd I do this thing? Oh, this is connected to this. Right? I can do all of that. But for somebody to. Because he also a sassy gay black man, he hit me with, he just hit me with the real questions and real statements, man, like, like nobody else can. And so I think that between having experienced that anger and burning that up, now comes the, the sadness. I think that I need to feel sad. And I'm working with him on boundaries for myself. And I'm, I'm telling y'all this, man, because if I don't just get this out right here, right now, it's gonna spill out in podcast episodes in the future. It's going to spill out when y'all engage with me on social media. I already had a recent, like, back and forth with somebody where I was trying to be my like, peppy self. And, and I think it was interpreted wrong just based on how the, the text, the messages went. And I could be completely wrong because again, like grieving brain, like, it's, it's. I, I need to get to baseline. I need to get back to my baseline. I know what I would normally like to do right now. I'm not gonna do that thing or those things because they're not, they're not healthy behaviors. So I'm making the space right now to just feel to, to just feel what it is that I need to. Yeah, I, Yeah. So without, I guess, talking specifically about it, because I don't want to. I don't, I don't want to. And my reasoning for it is that I know the core of what the issue is, what my issues are. And this is what I plan to step away and work on for myself, because I'm going to be a better person as a whole for it, and it'll show up in my work when I am able to get past this whole, like, being needless. Because it hasn't served me. It served me, but also it hasn't served me in a matter of, like, most important. Of what's most important, what's a priority to me. Because also, like, if you don't know what your needs are, how can you prioritize them? Right? Because then everything's a priority, so nothing's a priority. So it's very critical for me right now to be able to step back, step away, go into the Fortress of Solitude for a little bit, and then lean into the people that have been supportive to me and, like, confide in them and. And have these positively supportive and healing modalities for me rather than coping strategies and mechanisms. All right, so, yeah, there's a lot of things that I. I want to just pour out and say, but I think that the pressure, it's depressurized a little bit, me being able to come here and, you know, say these things. And while it didn't have anything to do with something positive for positive people or herpes at all, like, I think that me having to, you know, cancel the interview that I should have been having right now on this recording, this zoom meeting link and everything, I think that that speeds volumes to it needing to come out consciously rather than unconsciously, and I push people away or turn people off from something positive. But, yeah, this is me being real. Like, I don't. Like, I. I even told the lady. I was like, hey, this is really hard for me to cancel because I'm the kind of person who we set a date, we set a time. Like, let's show. Let's do this. We got to do this. And she was like, nah, take care of yourself. Like, I'll be here. We can reschedule. And so I. I just. I. I took her up on that, and I actually am kind of glad that I did, because what if this came out then? Oh, man, I can't imagine. She'd just been sitting there like, you want to talk to me about this? Nah. But I appreciate that. Her name's Theisha, so when you see that podcast episode come up, we'll probably. We'll probably have some laughs about that. But. But one thing I can say is that while, you know, I'm sad, like, I'm also excited because I know what this Means for me, I think that environment plays a huge role in things. Like, I've been in New Jersey, and I've been really fighting to, you know, like, forcing myself into a bubble, an environment community that I haven't just naturally been able to fall into. And I think that I've been very. I've separated and created space for myself from what makes me happy, what play is for me. I've very much consciously disconnected from what's play for me and immerse myself in the important, the heavy, the. The big stuff. And I've not allowed myself permission to play and engage with the small stuff. I've been reading a lot about sexual energy as well. Can I pull this up? Probably not. No. Damn. Okay. Yeah, I can. I got to go back pretty far. So me and Chat GPT have been having a lot of conversations. So y'all. Y'all probably heard about this. Like, no, fap. Don't masturbate. Use your sexual energy this way, whatever. And something that I've been grasping with myself lately is sexual energy as a whole. Like, not just as sex, intercourse, but as creativity, as vital life force, right? And I try to see, like, well, what is it that I get out of sex, right? And it's not just sex, like work, relationships, right? I think that we have our energy and we pour what we pour into who and what we into. And so for myself, for a really long time, I've poured into something positive for positive people, what I would have to give into a relationship and when relationships would come up. Historically, like, I wouldn't prioritize a relationship. And that would be, I think, like, why some of them have not gone anywhere, because obviously I've been in relationships. But when I look at how I've not. How I've been historically showing up, like, I've been able to really hit the gas on something positive for positive people and then make space for play. I'd always have something, someone, somewhere to look forward to and have, like, immersive weekends or time of engaging in that sexual energy, whether that be in a sex down South. Sex down south is a great example. Or if it's like, meeting up with a partner and just being able to chill and relax and just experience the pleasantness of, you know, good company. And I've, for a really long time, just been trying to, like, force that. That kind of energy for myself in ways that I haven't before. And I think part of me was just like, this is actually what is good for me, right? Like, not doing those things is Going to be better for me because those things are bad because they're externally driven, but then also within a relationship with myself, my partner, or. Well, not myself, my partner or my business, then it's still like seeking that feeling, that sensation externally. And Teal Swan is somebody I follow on YouTube. Always listen to her YouTube shorts. And one of the things that she said is like, she's very counterculture in spirituality, which I really like because of the unconventionality of it. And one of the things that she says is like, we, we need people. Like, we don't learn lessons without people. So these external things that we get our needs met from or what it is that we need, like, we shouldn't be demonized for it. And that really gave me a sense of lightness and a sense of relief because I didn't know what I didn't know that I was okay. Like, I felt like it was wrong for me to be who I am or for who I've become. Like, I think that's the worst shit in the world is when somebody makes you feel like who you are is bad. Especially when you've worked so hard to become who you are. It's not like I just looked up and, you know, I was this person, right? Like, this took a lot of work and a lot of the work that I've done in order to become this. Like, this ain't easy. Don't nobody teach you how to do this. Don't nobody is. Resources are out there, stuff out there. But then, like, you read some, you find out that so and so is not who they say they are. And that discredits everything that they've done. And now you got to find somebody else, find something else to go into. And man, it's been. I. I just, I don't, I don't like that feeling. I think now, like, I'm uncovering some new stuff here. I don't like the feeling of. I don't like the feeling of, like, identity invalidation. God damn, that's what it is. So I talk about how I've learned, you know, what, why people have suicide ideation. And it's that I think that it's an invalidation of identity. Not to say that I have suicide ideation, but the feelings that I have are an intense resistance to my environment as it is like my environment in a way of consciously trying to view what I've learned to view as good as bad so that I can do something better or different that's supposed to be healthier or better. And I gotta I gotta get back into myself because I don't believe that. And there's a direct conflict of behaviors and beliefs within myself. And the environment that I'm in is, like, forcing me to recognize and acknowledge that now. And there's a lot of that's just like, happening in here, in my inner world as a result of my external world. And my external world, when I've been alone has been hard. It's been really, really difficult. But I've made it. I made it. And I think that in those moments, like, I've. I've worn myself out emotionally because, of course, the grass always look greener on the other side. When you single, social media tell you how awesome a relationship is. When you're in a relationship, social media tell you what you're missing out on, being single. And that's just unfortunately how the algorithm works. It plays on our emotional states. And I think people do that too. People are taught by the algorithm, like, what's good, what's bad, what's cool, what's popular, right? And people's own inner beliefs have, like, their own conflicts. And we deal with those sometimes by projecting them. We might project them on our businesses, might project them on people closest to us or the communities that we're part of. And I. I feel like that's something that I've. I've done. Like, I've been doing that, and it's not mine is what I mean by, like, my environment. I've been listening to Napoleon Hills out winning the Devil again, and he talks about these seven principles, right? One of them is definiteness of purpose, exercising caution, how important our environment is, self discipline, mastering the emotion of sex, harmony, especially in our relationships. I do not remember what number seven is. I always forget the seventh one, whether it be one of those ones that I just said or the one that I didn't say. But in that, what, motorcycle or bike? Okay, Excuse me. Sidetracked, grieving brain. Right squirrel. But in reviewing those, right, like, I'm. I'm looking at myself and I'm like, damn, you know, I've been doing a lot of. Of not those things. And environment has been a really key part for me. Like, I have not been able to be myself in the environment that I've been in. And it's just not been conducive to me. It's not been something that I have been able to maintain my momentum of growth. And I believed for myself that maybe doing something different was growing. Maybe, like, I outgrew things like sex, positivity or Non monogamy or, like, the being active on social media and Instagram. I really. I really think that, like, that is part of why I'm grieving right now, is that my beliefs changed because I really wanted something that I think that there. That I was convinced that there was only one way to get. And I think that's because I've worked so hard to learn that that's not the case, to unlearn that as the case and then to learn that, to, like, have to now unlearn those things and, like, relearn that. What I knew in the beginning was actually right. It just needed to be done different. No, no. Like, I. I'm way more powerful than that. Like, I'm not. You know, I think I said this earlier. I'm only human, but I'm not. Like, I'm. I really, truly believe that, you know, this body is the vehicle of experiencing this part of whatever it is, the electrical current that runs through the nervous system of this body that is moving and speaking and having the experience. And I really, you know, I'm working to not identify with anything because that's what all the spiritual teachers say to do, like. Unidentified with that which you are identified. And it's like my environment has tried to, like, force me into identifying with a lot of things and trying to get me to unidentify with things that, you know, that. That have actually served me. So, yeah, I don't. I don't have any desire to go into, like, specifics of things. I'm not. I'm not good at that. I know what I feel. I know what I experience. I know what I've experienced. And also understand that feelings are subjective and that people can experience completely different things from the same exact situation just based on their proximity to the core of whatever it is. And so I feel like that's where I'm at right now is needing to change my environment. I need to really self. Not abandon. Whatever. Whatever the opposite of self abandonment is. Do that and be present with myself, be present with my grief, be present with my healing process, be present with my purpose and be present in delivering the things that I promised that I was going to deliver and really make. Make work what I know I can make work. And just, yeah, this, this. This is just going to be the upcoming challenge. So if y'all listen to this, I want to just express my gratitude for your willingness to hear me and listen, you know, if any of this resonates with y'all, like, I don't know that I really need, you know, the. Sorry, what's going on? If you, if you follow me, you know, but yeah, I'm not. I don't want to feed that. I want to feed what's happening. Moving forward again, yoga therapy, the peer support calls, the podcast, and then my training for health professionals, focusing on yoga therapy, training and working part time as I can with the priority being my own personal healing. So I hope y'all continue to rock with your boy. Support something positive. And, and yeah, whenever I do have any virtual event type things, I hope that y'all will attend. I would love to see y'all there, but I definitely, I need to stop trying to work with other people. I'm. I'm over. I'm almost said something. I need to just trust myself. I need to trust myself. That's what we're gonna say. But we got that survey still up and running on the herpes survey tab. So if you check that out and please contribute, partake in the survey. We need as many responses as we can get so that we can show that we're speaking from the experiences that y'all are sharing. Again Tomorrow, Thursday at 7pm, we're at the house in Brooklyn, New York. Me and Trisha, aka Safe Slut, we're going to be hosting an in person social event. Just something for people with herpes, people who follow her, people who follow me, come grab a drink, say hi, start a conversation, and then, yeah, that's, that's it, y'all. Thank y'all for letting me grieve and letting this be like an act of grief instead of me bitching on social media about some or being on there and responding to things and all of that. This is, this is my. One of my. Part of my space and healing and all that good stuff. All right? So until next time, the next podcast episode, I'll be in a different environment and I'll probably be in a different mood. So just bear with me as I get my back together, y'all, because it's not together. I'm not. Okay. All right, y'all, till next time.