Unnamed Participant (9:07)

Well, the first one that I thought of was native. Well, yeah.

Courtney Braym (9:22)

So community and what communities you're a part of. Right. Okay, thank you for that because I think that that is really important as well. But is there anything else that you wanted to add to? Okay, you jumped ahead. That is exactly the point that I was going to make about what people who are experiencing stigma kind of go into. Would you say that it felt like one of those baby extensions of you were maybe heavier than the rest as you sort of went down that dark.

Unnamed Participant (9:59)

Road a little bit? I feel like it's. I live in there that I grew up knowing. And so it was amazing. Even though I'm not Hispanic, it's just there. So I think that's like a lot of experience.

Courtney Braym (10:25)

Thank you. Thank you for sharing that. Has anyone had a similar experience of that? Everybody close your eyes and raise your hand if you did. Okay, we got a few hands. Everybody put your hands down before everybody opens their eyes. Okay. This is very synonymous to. From what I've experienced in talking to people of what people who are struggling with stigma experience. So while like we try and say stigma is this and we verbalize it, like on a somatic level, that's what it feels like. It feels like an extreme over identification with a fragmented part of sex. And a lot of what I speak to is really just identity validation for people to see themselves outside of that part of themselves in which they're over identified with. And through presence, practices of presence, we're able to take those lines of all these identifiers and bring them home. But that's like more yoga than what we have time for today. So I'm sorry to just kind of leave y' all there, but. But I wanted to speak to some of those observations. So we saw the statistics from the 2019 SCD engage that I went to and presented at. And now we're looking at the 2023, 2024 survey that we conducted through something positive for positive people, which has now become so much more than just me being a dude with a podcast asking people who are in these support groups, hey, you want to talk about herpes? Because now we're able to get a. A lot more responses. That first survey was 100 people. This one was. I have a slide later, but this stands out. I always say that sexual health is mental health because the over identification with one's sexuality as one of those identifiers. When someone gets herpes, it's not, I have this diagnosis. It becomes I Am this diagnosis and the weight of that, what I was trying to speak to. I ain't mean to, like, try and put words in your mouth or your experience is like, the weight of that. It just makes a person forget all these other aspects of themselves. And so the identity validation piece is just being a space that reminds people that you are whole. Going back to Irving Goffman's definition of stigma, right? That attribute that makes a person feel less than whole. All right, so I have to go through these really, really fast because it's like a few screenshots, but the slides are in your. Okay, thank you. All right. Because I just did it. I ain't gonna lie. I put the rest of this presentation like, I modified this yesterday because I asked the community. There was someone who reached out for support, and I was like, damn, this would be great for the presentation. So here we have someone. Hold on, I want to play this. Oh, no, it won't play. All right, never mind. It's somebody texting. So I thought it was real cool to see, like, somebody texting while this is popping up. But the synopsis here is that someone reached out to me on Instagram and they just wanted to share their story theme for today, Right? So she had no expectations of what she was going to get out of it. She appreciates what it is that we do. And this is as a result of a community that's been going on since 2017 that's just perpetually stayed in motion of being a space for people to share their stories. I'm about to click through, so if you want to speed read through the rest of it, you can. But essentially what we have here is that someone was in a relationship for five years, disclose to the partner that they have herpes. It's a non monogamous relationship. Partner's like, I want to do this shit no more. Okay, so here's what community support looks like in action. I just shared that screenshot and made everything anonymous and just asked, hey, if y' all have any words for our friend here, please share them. So we got a lot of. Some of these responses are very extreme. I didn't put all of them up here, but here's some of them, right? Like, normalizing not just the stigma of living with an sti, living with herpes, but also normalizing that the relationship structure. So we talk about stigma and identifiers. We're dealing with someone who is non monogamous. We're dealing with someone who was in a relationship who's also dealing with a breakup so there's these other identifiers there as well. So here's the kind of support that we're able to get from being involved with, engaged in community. And this is one of the things that is so healing for people, because now this person is able to see their self, themselves outside of just their herpes diagnosis. Here's some more if y' all want to just take a moment to read these. Yeah, I mean, I had the general consistent. I don't know if y' all got any ideas based on what y' all saw. I'm assuming this dude probably just didn't really want to say what the real reason was and just kind of dismissed it off the herpes. So what you see here is, like, these are all different. These are all different responses from different people. So, like, the community is very apt to show up for people who are willing to be vulnerable and share their stories, as long as there's an intentional space for it. Everybody knows Courtney Brain Instagram. Y' all can follow me. Courtney Brain, all one word. My Instagram is a space for minimizing stigma. Minimizing. I ain't trying to kill it, end it, destroy it, erase it, eradicate it. It ain't going nowhere. It's too much money to be made off medications. All right, so the beautiful thing here, I got consent to share this and the individual. I just let her know, hey, look at the stories. Like, you can see the support. This is what she sent y' all. This part, next slide almost made me tear up a little bit. Her sister reached out to me and was like, oh, my God, this is my sister. And I. Wait, did I say, oh, I. I unsent the message. I was like, no way. Are you serious? Like, I was really enthusiastic and excited about it, but it was real cool. Like, that this made it back to her sister. Her sister was able to see that she was getting the support that she needed. She knew that she was going through it, and she really didn't have much of a way to be supportive to her because she doesn't really know what this person's going through. Like, she can be there for her and listen, but there's something about that identity validation piece that is oftentimes missing. And fortunately for me, like, I don't have rules to abide by letters behind my name. I can just press record, start talking, say some things, put it out there, and people maybe reach out. They resonate or they don't, and I get whatever feedback I get. I know, like, a lot of people don't have that privilege of being able to be as open and vulnerable. So I feel like it's a very purpose driven thing for me to be able to be transparent about what my story is. And then I told her I was using this for the presentation. You see, hey, and you can see the timestamps on there. I was working 5:18am but something that's also relevant here is that the power of this storytelling has created sort of this gravity drawing people in who also want to not only share their stories, but also because of the intention, wanting to get involved in a way that we're able to get survey data. So I'm able to understand the something positive for positive people audience. I just threw like some bullet points up there. 14% of respondents are male. So we're dealing with mostly women and non binary people. The whole thing about dirty. So what I love about our surveys is that we get to get to the nitty gritty of things and find out, like, what, all right, what is dirty? What are some of these stigmatizing things that people make assumptions about for people with herpes? And so we look at before people's diagnosis, whether or not whether they've tested positive for any other STIs since their diagnosis. And you see the differences here. And I believe that there's a positive correlation between someone getting an STI and then being like, oh, shit, this is real. Okay, let me be a little bit more communicative. Let me see what resources are out there. Because you really don't have a reason to until you have a reason to. Patient provider communication. Oh, that was very important. So we were able to see the patient provider communication about STIs between a health care provider initiating conversation about sexual health with the person or the person initiating discussions with their provider about sexual health. And you see 30% and 34% are never like, no one in these periods are talking about sex and sexual health. So we're able to see like a lot of what many issues are outside of herpes and sexual health. But also the communication component. Looking at STI prevention. I don't like that word, but it's what everybody uses. Prevention to me means, hey, if we do this, this will not happen. I like minimization. It's on everything because we're minimizing the risk. You can use a condom. Wrong. You can use a condom, right? And then just be like, oh, there's things that can go wrong. I don't have time to really go into the ease of talking about it. Communication is a very Important thing when we talk about, like, how unethical or dirty people with herpes are, what we see is that 87% of people have disclosed their status to a romantic partner despite how difficult it is. So 37% say very difficult, 36% say very. Say just difficult. So that's a very high number of difficulty for talking about it. Talking about safer sex practices, condom use. 73% of people with herpes never wear condoms for oral. So, like, people with herpes aren't just, like, unwillingly passing it on to partners or anything like that. A lot of people are consenting to sexual acts with people with herpes. These are things that we've been able to learn. I'm probably like, over. Okay, cool. So that full survey is like two hours long. If you want more information, hit that QR code, the passwords, no stigma. Please don't share this because a lot of people bought tickets to this conference. And so, yeah, I want to just like, I don't want the word to get out. Did any of y' all go to the conference last year? The Herpes Stigma Conference? Oh, don't tell nobody about this. All right, so the website for more information is something positive for positive people. It's just spfpp.org I'm Courtney Brain. TikTok. I'm. I. I really don't take talk. So if you go there, you see like a post every few months maybe. But I'm most active on Instagram at Courtney Brain. I'd like to open up for any questions. I think we only got like five minutes, right? All right. Okay, thank you. Wait, wait. I saw another hand.

Unnamed Participant (21:11)

Professional. Is that like how you, like, use.

Courtney Braym (21:13)

Yoga in your settings? When you say clinical, what do you mean? Oh, no. So I have a 200 hour that really taught me how to put people in postures in a 300 hour certification that taught me more of the philosophy. So, like, we want to. If we want to go there, we can. But I don't. I don't know if we do. But the way that I use it is really for. There's a concept of the koshers that speaks to the body, the energy, nervous system, mental, emotional, and like bliss body. Like, oh, wow, sorry. I will just kind of talk to people from that lens and just kind of see what information they're giving me. And then use practices of yoga, whether that be movement, breathing, meditation, self reflection to help guide them. Kind of like what we. The meditation we did where it was like, people's identity is scattered, like, find out where they Are. And try and bring that home with presence. Does that answer your question? All right. I'm a yoga therapist in training, so I'm, I'm going through that. But, yeah, I. I can't really say, like, yes to that yet. Didn't. You were second.

Unnamed Participant (22:30)

Okay, so.

Courtney Braym (22:32)

So I, I thank you for sharing that.

Unnamed Participant (22:36)

This is the first time I've ever shared.

Courtney Braym (22:42)

Y' all see the power of storytelling. Just saying, power, storytelling.

Unnamed Participant (22:56)

And one thing that irritates me, because I have to put a mortality. So in practice, right. Of the screening to happen, unless you show up with symptoms or disclose, I know I had unprotected sex, whatever, with someone who has herpes, you're not going to get tested. Right. And there's tons of reasons why. I think the only reason I got tested, I mean, I got screened out also because, like, you know, today we're going to talk about sexual health. All this other stuff, it's kind of a real mess. So what I find interesting, and what I'm curious about from the people in this room, right, is you might work in an Aztec clinic. You might be dis. You might be doing these things. Things. But in practice, it's very rare to even test for herpes or screen for it. And so there is. Obviously, folks like myself do have suicidal ideation. There isn't a wildly massive psychosocial burden to this, but clinically, it's not like, a priority. And that's no judgment. I understand the reasons why, but. So how do we reconcile? And I just love that you are here tonight talking about this because there is so much focus on syphilis, gonorrhea, hiv, you know what I mean? But this kind of goes like, you know, left alone. And I had a provider tell me, you know, we can treat it and, like, you're not going to die. It's not hiv. You're not going to die if you're not treatment. But psychologically and mentally, this can be so much damage without. There's no U equals U for me. Right? So, like, I don't know, I just wonder how this is. I just find it fascinating you're talking about this in this space because it's so powerful, but in reality, like, as the folks who are the gis or the clinicians, like, how do you reconcile this in the work that you're doing?

Courtney Braym (24:48)

Well, we got like 30 seconds.

Unnamed Participant (24:51)

No, actually six.

Courtney Braym (24:53)

Six seconds.

Unnamed Participant (24:54)

Oh.

Courtney Braym (24:57)

So I've had conversations with people throughout. And while there's, like, stigma, one of the things that I continue to see is that, like, there's no prioritization of it. Right. Like there's the psychological and the emotional piece of it, but that's really it. Oh, what y' all got?

Unnamed Participant (25:16)

I will share. One of my patients is in a clinical trial for a herpes vaccine and the idea is that the vaccine will boost your immunity, that will prevent you from having outbreaks. So there is that. That's what the clinical trial suggests. So.

Courtney Braym (25:35)

There'S. Yeah, there's a lot of stuff happening that like is a lot of people wouldn't know about until they're in a situation. Like there is another medication for like people who might be in chemo or super immunocompromised to be able to take that apparently is more effective than the generic brands of medication that we have. But a lot of people don't know about it and there's some petitioning happening now to get that like publicly available. I saw like five hands just went up.

Unnamed Participant (26:04)

This was quick in regards to, not necessarily with my parenthood and we were advised to never group these tests which I did what I wanted because I disagree with that. But a lot of times we were advised that because sometimes patients were like self pay or out of pocket or due to high co and stuff for those tests. So some of it connects with that. Yeah, they're not covered for like the free st and the prevalence of like 400ft was another reason why we were told not to test. There was like everyone has oral so it's always going to be positive. I was like wouldn't you want to know?

Courtney Braym (26:34)

We have one here.

Unnamed Participant (26:36)

It's more so a comment you earlier the slide said sexual health is mental health and that is insanely true. I feel like if you aren't in like the best mental space you can make very risky sexual behaviors. So yeah, just. And you killed it on your time.

Courtney Braym (26:58)

So thank you. I was like 20 minutes kid, show your hand up.

Unnamed Participant (27:12)

But I have found that the number of people living with herpes is in the 80% if I'm not mistaken. So I think a lot of the reason too that they're not testing for that is because you can't contact. Right. So you could have had this and been living in this for century to go home and search out whatever it is and they may not be the right. Yeah.

Courtney Braym (27:37)

Yeah.

Unnamed Participant (27:42)

But I think a lot more people are living with it than to know or they are choosing to admit. So it's great that you have the statistics but I do think there's quite a few more that are not counted because again that Stigma and the shame pain that comes from it.

Courtney Braym (27:58)

And I do need to. I forgot to preface this with I hear from like, worst case scenario people. I believe that most people living with herpes are okay. They're either in a relationship or unaffected by it. They don't have outbreaks or they just don't know they have it. Like, ignorance is bliss. Right. When I hear from people, it's they just got diagnosed or the relationship they were in that took their mind off of everything has ended and now they're having to get back out into the dating world world. But oh yeah, herpes was in the title. I was going to say, like, do y' all feel like we hit all the objectives? All right, everybody, Everybody get the somatic experience. Did you get the example of how community in action can be supportive to storytelling and then whatever that third one was, Minimizing stigma. Yeah. Okay, we have two minutes worth of time left. If anybody has any questions, any feedback statements, anything.

Unnamed Participant (28:58)

Do you. In your podcast, are there any topics bridged about disclosing partners?

Courtney Braym (29:05)

Yes, episode 299. So this is. One of my board members is Dr. Eveline Molina Dacker. She is a family physician and she speaks to the stars method. We're going to have a workshop actually July 21st where she's going to come on and I'll have a zoom link for anyone who wants to participate and she's going to go over it. It's a two hour workshop where we talk about like essentially how to have safe sex conversations. Safer sex conversations. And it's not exclusively about the sex and the sexual health. It's about safety, turn ons, avoids relationship intentions, and then sci status. So she's going to teach people how to navigate that conversation for themselves so that they can go into a disclosure. I hate that word too because we're not signing legal documents. It's not a confession, it's a conversation. So she's going to give people that practice and that resource to be able to navigate this. And yeah, but episode 299, I interview her and we apply it to herpes. So if you just google spfpp299 it should be the. It will be the first thing that comes up. We probably got like 30 seconds left. I can't believe we got this far ahead. I was and my screenshot presentation. What you got everywhere. So I'm from St. Louis, Missouri. My home was affected by the tornado, so I kind of been a nomad for the past like two weeks. So I'm on the road. I'M in a house, sit in San Antonio in June, and then I'll be able to go back home. Insurance check cleared today, though, so. But, yeah, it's virtual. But I plan to move to New York in the fall, so I'll probably be in Brooklyn. But everything's virtual. We talk to people across the world. You wouldn't believe how stigma is different around the world. I should stop now. All right, thank y' all.