**Hi, I’m @lifeofaphilosopher. And this is the story of how HSV tried to break me, but failed.**

They say knowledge is power.
But the truth is — some knowledge doesn't arrive as a gift. It arrives like an earthquake, uninvited, unrelenting, rearranging everything you thought was solid.

The day I got my diagnosis — HSV1 and HSV2 — wasn’t just a medical moment. It was the death of a version of me. It was the moment I looked down at the screen and saw my life split in two: *before* and *after*.

And when it hit me… I didn’t fall into panic. I fell into *stillness*. A kind of paralyzing silence that wrapped itself around my chest and made breathing feel like betrayal. I didn’t scream. I didn’t cry — not at first. I *disappeared* inward. I crumbled into a place inside myself I didn’t even know existed—a dark, quiet corner where shame lives and self-hate builds nests.

It wasn’t just my body that changed. It was my reflection. My language. My relationship with the word *worth.* My relationship with the word *future.*

I became a stranger in my own skin. I looked in the mirror and couldn’t recognize the woman staring back at me. Not because she looked different — but because something had fractured between her and her sense of self.

Since then, it’s been a quiet war.

Not a loud, dramatic one — but the kind of battle that’s fought in bathrooms and bedrooms. In the spaces where you're most alone. In every skipped glance at the mirror. Every half-hearted affirmation whispered through gritted teeth. Every moment I’ve questioned if love would ever find me again. If I was still allowed to dream about marriage, or softness, or forever.

I’ve been at war with three versions of myself:

* The *woman I used to be* — confident, blossoming again after motherhood, full of hope and plans.
* The *woman I see now* — hurt, hesitant, picking up shattered pieces without knowing if they’ll ever fit again.
* And the *woman I want to become* — not in spite of HSV, but with it, within it, beyond it.

This is not just a story about a virus.
This is a story about identity. About what happens when the image you’ve carefully stitched together rips open.
It’s about womanhood—when it’s touched by shame.
About the violence of silence.
About resilience that doesn’t roar, but whispers, *"You’re still here."*
About the radical act of redefinition. Of saying, *this will not be the end of me.*

This is the beginning.

And if no one ever told you this: you are not your diagnosis.
You are not the person shame is trying to make you believe you are.
You are still whole.
Still worthy.
Still wildly lovable.

And this — this story right here — is proof.

## **The Mirror Became My Enemy**

Before the diagnosis, I was blooming again.

Motherhood had reshaped me in ways I never expected, and slowly — deliberately — I was reclaiming my body. Not just the physical curves and softness, but the *power* inside it. The quiet strength of someone who had created life and was now creating *herself* anew. I was starting to feel beautiful again — not because of how I looked, but because I could finally *feel* myself returning to my skin. Confidence was coming back like sunlight after a long, gray storm.

But HSV… it didn’t just change a medical record.

It crept into my reflection.

Suddenly, the mirror wasn’t a place of celebration or self-love. It became a battleground. A punishment. A liar. A judge.

I would catch glimpses of myself — shoulders bare, hair undone, body soft from both creation and effor t— and instead of admiration, I’d hear a voice in my head murmur: *“Dirty. Unlovable. Flawed.”*

Those weren’t just thoughts. They were *branding irons.*

And what made it harder—almost cruel—was the fact that HSV never even showed up on my skin. I’m asymptomatic. There are no signs. No blisters. No pain. No warning bells.

Just a silent sentence I carry in my mind, echoing in places no one else can see.

People talk about visible illness.
But what about the invisible ones?
The kind that live in your self-esteem, in the pause before intimacy, in the way you flinch when someone touches you kindly?

That’s what this diagnosis did. It didn’t break my body.
It broke the *way I saw myself.*

Every morning became an apology to the woman in the mirror.
Every glance felt like trespassing.
Every attempt at self-love felt like a lie.

Because when the world teaches you that “clean” is tied to worth, and that health defines desirability, the moment you get a diagnosis like HSV, you don’t just question your future—you start questioning your *humanity.*

But here’s what I’ve learned in the quiet hours of healing:
That mirror was never the enemy.
The enemy was the story I told myself in front of it.
A story shaped by stigma, not truth.

And I’m slowly — deliberately — rewriting it.
Word by word.
Gaze by gaze.
Day by day.

## **The Funeral of Dreams**

I didn’t cry because of pain.
I cried because I thought something *died* inside me.

It wasn’t just the diagnosis — it was the dreams I had carried for years, tender and bright like lanterns in the dark. Marriage. Love. Intimacy without fear. A partner who would trace the lines of my body with reverence, not hesitation. Someone who would look at me like I was a masterpiece—flawed, perhaps, but still breathtaking.

The day I got my results, I held a silent funeral for all of that.
Not because those dreams were *truly* gone… but because in that moment, I believed they had perished.

I believed I had become unworthy of being chosen.
Unworthy of *forever.*
Unworthy of simple things, like holding someone’s hand in public or being kissed without hesitation.

And so, I buried it all. In my chest. In silence. In shame.

And when I tried to reach out — to confide in someone I trusted — the response wasn’t cruelty. It was emptiness.
A hollow kind of quiet that echoed louder than any insult could.

That was the moment I understood: this road can be *devastatingly* lonely.
Not always because people don’t care…
But because they *don’t know how to.*
They don’t have the language for this kind of pain.
They haven’t practiced empathy for a diagnosis they only associate with stigma, jokes, or warnings.

And so, we — the diagnosed — are left to carry not just the virus, but the *weight* of educating, of soothing, of justifying our right to still be loved.

But here’s what grief is slowly teaching me:
Grief doesn’t always mean something is over.

Sometimes, it means something is shifting.
Transforming.
Shedding its old skin to become something *truer.*

Maybe the dream wasn’t lost. Maybe it’s just being rewritten — with more compassion, more clarity, more courage.
Maybe the version of love I now seek will be *braver* than the one I used to imagine.
Maybe *I* will be braver, too.

Because now, I don’t just dream of being loved.
I dream of being loved *completely.*
In truth. In vulnerability.
In spite of — and because of — everything I carry.

## **Love, Interrupted**

I haven’t dated since the diagnosis.
Not even a casual coffee. Not a flirtatious glance returned. Nothing.

And it’s not because I don’t *want* love — God, I do. I crave it in my bones. The kind that feels like safety. The kind that lets me laugh freely without a script, that lets me fall asleep on someone’s chest without a second thought.

But the truth is… I’m scared.

Scared of the moment I’ll have to say it out loud.
Scared of their face changing. Of curiosity turning into recoil.
Scared that the moment I hand someone the truth, they’ll use it like a blade—subtly or overtly — to cut into the softest parts of me.

Because when you carry something stigmatized, love doesn’t feel simple anymore.
It feels like a negotiation. A calculated risk. A confession at the altar of someone else’s judgment.

So I put up walls, not because I want to be alone — but because rejection doesn’t just hurt. It re-opens wounds I’m still trying to close.
And yet, in that space between fear and silence… I’ve found a strange kind of healing.

I’ve been using this pause to turn inward.
To sit with myself — not just the happy, polished parts, but the grieving, angry, ashamed parts, too.
To whisper “I love you” in the mirror, even when the reflection flinches.
To place my hand on my own skin and remind it that it’s not contaminated. It’s not cursed. It’s still worthy of tenderness.

I’m learning how to hold myself — especially when no one else is around to.
I’m learning to *become* the kind of love I used to seek from others.

And slowly, I’m realizing:
Maybe love doesn’t come when I prove I’m worthy of it.
Maybe it comes when I stop asking for permission to be loved at all.
When I show up, scars and all, and say: “This is me. Whole. Healing. Human.”

Maybe real love isn’t interrupted by HSV.
Maybe it’s just… postponed. Until I can offer it to myself first.

## **The Philosopher Was Always Here**

Before HSV, I was already deep in thought.
I’ve always been that kind of woman — the one who asks *why* when others settle for *what is.*
I questioned systems, wrote uncomfortable truths in the notes app I never shared, and believed that words could save us.
I was already peeling back the layers of selfhood, trying to find the core beneath the noise of the world.

But *after* HSV, something in me shifted.
The questions got louder. Sharper. Not about the world, but about *me.*

Who am I now?
What do I deserve?
What does wholeness mean when something in you feels... broken?

And in that collapse, I discovered a deeper version of myself.
Not the woman obsessed with how she appeared.
But the one who was willing to *stand inside the fire* of her truth and not run.

Since the diagnosis, I’ve become something more than a thinker.
I’ve become a **philosopher of survival**.
Of softness in the face of stigma.
Of reclaiming your body when it no longer feels like home.
Of building a life not based on how I want to be seen, but based on what I *know* I want to leave behind.

Because pain? It strips you.
It pulls away the performative layers — the people-pleasing, the perfectionism, the projections.
And underneath all that, I found something… honest.
Raw, yes. Scared, often. But *real.*

I used to worry so much about how I looked, how I sounded, how I was perceived.
Now, I think more about how I live.
About the impact of my voice.
About the kind of mother, woman, lover, and creator I want to be  — on my *own* terms.

And you know what?
Maybe HSV didn’t *steal* my identity.
Maybe it stripped away the version I thought I needed to be… and revealed who I’ve actually been all along.

A seeker.
A builder.
A survivor.
A woman who writes not just for answers — but for peace.

## **What I’d Say to Her — The Me Who Just Found Out**

If I could sit across from the version of me who just found out — shell-shocked, tear-streaked, eyes heavy with questions and fear — I wouldn’t rush to fix her.
I wouldn’t drown her in positivity.
I’d just hold her.

I’d look into her eyes — the same ones that now avoided mirrors — and whisper,
**“It’s okay. You didn’t fail. You didn’t ruin yourself.”**

I’d tell her that pain doesn’t mean punishment.
That love, intimacy, and connection weren’t privileges she lost that day — they're still hers, just waiting to be reclaimed.
I’d say:
**“You are still deserving. Still beautiful. Still whole.”**
Not despite this.
Not because of how you learn to spin it into strength.
But simply because *you are.*

I’d be honest with her.
That shame will scream at first.
That it will climb into her bed at night and curl around her like smoke.
That it’ll make her doubt if she’s touchable, kissable, lovable.
But I’d also tell her that each time she speaks her truth — even if her voice shakes, even if it’s only in a whisper — that shame loses a little more of its grip.

I’d remind her:
**This diagnosis is a fact — not a definition.**
It doesn’t rewrite her worth.
It doesn’t erase her brilliance, her tenderness, her complexity.
It doesn’t cancel the chapters she still has left to write.

I’d tell her that one day, she’ll look in the mirror again — not with disgust, but with compassion.
That she’ll trace the lines of her face and see not flaws, but *evidence of survival.*
That the body she wanted to hide will become sacred again, because she chose to stay in it. To stay *with* it.

And lastly, I’d say:
**“Your story isn’t over. This is a footnote — not the title.”**
&#x20;You are not what happened to you.
&#x20;You are what you choose to become next.
&#x20;And my God, you’re just getting started.

## **It’s the Beginning of My Becoming**

I’m still healing. That’s the truth.
There are days I wake up and feel like I’m dragging a secret behind me like a heavy shadow. There are still moments when I catch my reflection and flinch — not because of what’s there, but because of what I *feel*. I still have those quiet breakdowns where I ask, “Will anyone ever want me fully, truth and all?”

But here’s what’s different now:
I’m not just surviving anymore. I’m reclaiming.
Reclaiming my skin. My worth. My voice.
I’m no longer fighting to be who I used to be —
I’m *becoming* who I was always meant to be.

I study my soul now, not my shame.
I write new philosophies from this bruised heart of mine — truths that carry bite and beauty.
I ask questions that don’t end in self-blame, but in self-liberation.
I’m slowly, defiantly, rebuilding the world in my image—one thought, one boundary, one brave act of self-love at a time.

Yes, this diagnosis is part of my story. But it is not the story.
I won’t let three letters tell the world who I am. I’ve got pages left to write — and they’re bursting with brilliance, power, poetry.

And if you’re here, reading this, hurting quietly like I once did —
I see you.
I love you.
You are not alone.
You’re not broken.
You’re being reborn.

Let’s keep writing the chapters they said we couldn’t.
Let’s make it unforgettable.

With fire and love,
&#x20;**—@lifeofaphilosopher**



**Also Read: 22-year-old woman's** [**<u>personal HIV story</u>**](https://www.shamelesspath.com/blog/std-stories/living-loving-thriving-after-hiv-diagnosis)

<p>I let go of perfection because of HSV, learning to reclaim my worth and redefine love. This is my journey of healing and self-acceptance.</p>

I Let Go of Perfection Because of HSV

I let go of perfection because of HSV, learning to reclaim my worth and redefine love. This is my journey of healing and self-acceptance.