127: Herpes Work Life Balance With Herpalert And Kristy Spraggon

Life With Herpes

127: Herpes Work Life Balance With Herpalert And Kristy Spraggon

Today I had the pleasure of sitting down with HerpAlert and Kirsty Spraggon of Kirsty TV. Also, I had the worst cold ever and was overloaded on DayQuil, so I apologize in advance. Lol. But in light of being sick we had a great time and we covered all sorts of fun thing about herpes, dating, outbreaks. Something I found interesting was how we both handled the work life balance when it came to herpes and our diagnosis.

Let me back up a bit and bring you up to date with our diagnosis. Both Kirsty and I were in our 20’s when we learned about our herpes diagnosis. We both share how were in a state of looking for acceptance from the wrong sources and trying to figure out this thing called life. Of course, when we learned about our diagnosis we were in shock and we both went into a dark hole. Now how we came out of our dark phases and learning to live with this herpes diagnosis were our individual stories.

I’m sure you’ll relate to one or the other or both.

When I was diagnosed I was struggling financially, I was struggling with my career, I was trying to date and find love. I was a hot mess!. When I found out I was HSV2 positive I went through the levels of anger, resentment, the why me phase and so on. But what I decided at the end of the day was that I won’t become a victim to the virus and the stigma.

Truly being diagnosed with herpes forced me to look myself in the mirror and make the changes that needed to happen. It was like cutting the umbilical cord or that little extra nudge that forced me to grow into who I am today. It forced me to get my career together, it forced me to get my finances organized, it forced me to take care of my body and it forced me to stand up for myself and what I wanted in a romantic relationship. It didn’t happen overnight but it got it together and I thank my herpes diagnosis for it. I give some tips on how I turned myself around in this video and so does Kirsty.

Now Kirsty shares how herpes forces us to go on a journey of self-awareness and how it forced her to dig deep. She says how her confidence was blown, not that there was a lot there before her diagnosis but what was there was shot. It was very interesting how she decided to overcompensate for her herpes diagnosis. It’s the mindset of oh I’m hurt or I’m in that shame phase and I don’t want anyone to know about it so I’m going to go into overdrive and prove my worth. Kristy refers to it as going into her hypermasculine. Meaning she decided that she was going to be the top real estate agent, that she was going to bring in the money to prove how worthy she was. Meanwhile, the root of the issue was not being addressed. This all came along with binge eating, drinking too much and not respecting herself. Basically, she was putting up a wall and not letting anything or anyone in. This is something that Kristy says she sees a ton when working with people who are just diagnosed.

Kirsty shares that getting herpes has 100% gotten her to where she is today. The pain and difficult time helped her get through all the roadblocks and overcome what she needed to in order to show up as her best self.

At the end of the day, both Kristy and I discuss how being in the shame phase, or the victim phase is a choice. We both made the choice to overcome it. To overcome it yourself you can reach out to us.

For more information about HerpAlert, http://www.lifewithherpes.com/diagnosis

If you’d like to reach out to Kirsty Spraggon you can https://kirstyspraggon.com/

I love doing interviews like these because they allow us to share our one version of a very similar story.

Xoxo,

Alexandra

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Xoxo,

Alexandra

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