When I tell you all that this was an unexpected conversation, I cannot tell you how . . . surprised I was. You'll hear it in the interview how shocked I was when the topic came up. I knew we'd talk about herpes, but the Bipolar conversation was something that naturally came up.

We go into what bipolar episodes for our guest were like, the hypersexuality that ironically didn't lead to her herpes diagnosis, and how people around her were impacted by her mental health experience as well. There is absolutely a stigma on Stigma stigma here and as we often say, sexual health is mental health. Our guest this week is super dope for being willing to go there with us and be patient with me getting back into the swing of interviewing people!

This episode is important to me because I have a family history and relationship history with partners who've struggled with their mental health and there's a lot of understanding and compassion I can have now that looking back on was dismissed as "oh she was just crazy". I even remember my family dismissing relatives' not normal behavior as "Oh so and so just talkin' crazy" but I never really had a REAL conversation with someone navigating an actual diagnosis, I've just experienced behavior from them that I just couldn't describe.

I'm very fortunate to be in a place in life where my life's work I've been called to supports not only my healing past wounds as it relates to sexuality and stigma, but also mental health stigma. I couldn't be more grateful to be in the position of someone who can witness others with presence and learn from them to be able to help others.

We have some events coming up at www.spfpp.org/events virtually if you want to check those out. I advise you to subscribe to the newsletter: www.spfpp.org/herpes-newsletter to stay up to speed on what's happening from support groups, to disclosure workshops, and community events.