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This lady believes God gave her herpes as a ‘wake-up call’

"We can look at things like a victim or we can look at them as a wake-up call."

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By Ben Thompson via SWNS

This mom believes God gave her genital herpes as a "wake-up call" to turn her life around, sort her finances out and learn to love herself again.

Alexandra Harbushka was first diagnosed with herpes in 2011 when she caught it from someone she was dating, leaving her in a "depressive" state for two years.

The 39-year-old, who mainly suffers painful outbreaks around her genitals, contracted the STI while living with her parents and struggling with drinking, bouts of binge eating and poor finances.

Despite feeling she wasn't "deserving of love," content creator Alexandra now has the support of her husband Bill Gaylord who urged her to share her story to help others.

But now the mom-of-one is much more health-conscious, limiting junk food and alcohol in a bid to decrease the number of outbreaks and has cut "toxic people" out of her life.

Eleven years on from her diagnosis, Alexandra has now accepted her health condition and produces TikTok videos to give hope to others.

In a video shared on July 17th, the founder of LifeWithHerpes told her followers that herpes was a "blessing" because it forced her to "get her s**t together."

Alexandra, from Las Vegas, Nevada, US, said: "I believe that God was giving me messages along the way that I wasn't on my path. I wasn't being who I was meant to be.

"Finally, God gave me herpes so I would wake up, listen and make changes."

"I think God was showing me that my life wasn't the one I was meant to be living, but he had to show me that through a physical manifestation.

"I think there is a shock value to saying herpes is a blessing.

"We can look at things like a victim or we can look at them as a wake-up call.

"If we look at it like these changes improved my life and shaped me into the person that I am now, then it's a blessing.

"Even though getting herpes is something nobody wants to go through, this was an important phase of my life.

"Getting herpes was a blessing in my life because it allowed me to focus on who I am and learn to love myself and grow with confidence."

Alexandra was given the "devastating" news from a man she was dating in 2011, who wasn't aware that he had the infection himself.

Alexandra said: "I got it from somebody I was dating at the time. We decided to go to the next level and started sleeping together.

"He said he'd been tested, but herpes testing isn't included in the STI testing. So he was getting tested and had no idea that he had herpes.

"I never thought I'd get herpes. I had this mindset of the activities or lifestyle that caused it, and I wasn't living the lifestyle that I believed caused it.

"I was being a responsible adult. So when this happened to me, it was absolutely devastating, crushing and suffocating.

"I believed that anything I had worked towards had been worthless. I thought that now I had herpes, nothing mattered. I didn't think I was deserving of love."

The news sent Alexandra into a two-year-long 'Eeyore phase' before she decided to make some positive changes when she turned 30.

Alexandra said: "It took me two years before I came to terms with it. I was turning 30 and I thought 'I can't stay like this, I need to figure this out.'

"I felt like Eeyore from Winnie The Pooh. I cried every day, I just couldn't seem to get out of this fog.

"I thought 'I have to change this.' I was living with my parents, I needed to fix my finances, and I needed to change my lifestyle.

"I needed to work on the mindset of self-acceptance and self-confidence.

"Around the time I got herpes, I was struggling with acne, yeast infections and drinking too much.

"I've talked to a lot of women who say that when they got diagnosed with herpes, they also had a yeast infection, or a UTI, or bacterial vaginosis.

"I have oral and genital herpes, but I very rarely get oral outbreaks. Genital outbreaks manifest far more often.

"That's something I have to work with....if I don't sleep well or eat nutritious foods, I get genital outbreaks.

"I was binge-eating [when I was diagnosed with herpes], so I had to relearn how to eat. I started going to yoga and started looking after my body so I could lessen the outbreaks of herpes.

"Bad lifestyle habits make outbreaks more frequent and intense. A lower immune system can lead to outbreaks, and there are certain foods that can trigger outbreaks.

"Chocolate, coffee beans, coconuts, peanuts and sugar can trigger them."

"I haven't cut them out of my diet, but now I'm aware of what they do I limit it. It'll be like 'I had peanut butter every day this week and got an outbreak. That makes sense.'

"When I was 28, I wouldn't eat all day because I thought it would manage my weight. Then I'd binge eat in the evening.

"It wasn't even that I was bingeing on ice cream or anything I just struggled with food. I had a difficult relationship with it.

"That's how I thought I could keep a low weight, but doing that was hard on my body. Now I eat real food. The body craves food."

Alexandra now runs TikTok channel Life With Herpes where she shares experiences from her life in a bid to raise awareness and give hope to those living with the condition.

Alexandra said: "The goal of my TikTok is to raise awareness and remove stigma. There's so many people who are in their 'Eeyore phase' after being diagnosed.

"I want people to be educated so they can practice safe sex. If somebody has herpes, I want them to know how to live with it and not let it hold them back.

"There's still a lot of stigma. I understand that when the word 'herpes' comes up, there's this reaction of 'why are you telling me this? I don't want to know.'

"There are some people who are very negative and will say stuff like 'you're disgusting, you should have kept your legs closed.'

"That, to me, shows that you don't get it. I forgive people for not understanding. Whether you're promiscuous or not, herpes doesn't care. It's about skin-to-skin contact.

"The diagnosis hasn't affected my friendship circle or family. They can see I come from a genuine place of wanting to support people. It's not like I'm trying to be an exhibitionist."

Although she is now happily married with a two-year-old son, Alexandra initially found that her dating life completely changed after her prognosis.

Alexandra said: "Getting herpes completely changed how I dated. It made me realize that whoever I dated would truly love me for me, and it wouldn't just be a fling.

"When I disclosed that I had herpes, I would find out if the guy genuinely wanted to be with me.

"Without herpes, you wouldn't really know the intent of the person, I think it helped build my confidence.

"Did rejections happen? Yeah, they did. Did they hurt? Yeah.

"But I didn't always get rejected. I realized that if somebody rejected me for having herpes, they weren't a person I would want to be with.

"It wasn't a first-date conversation. But I would discuss it when we get to the point where we wanted to get intimate.

"I made a decision to not let my herpes diagnosis hold me back from becoming the woman I wanted to be and that meant marrying the love of my life and becoming a mommy to a beautiful little boy.

"My husband Bill has been a huge source of support. He was the one who had the idea of me opening up about my herpes diagnosis.

"He knew that I struggled with it in the past but didn't let it hold me back and believed that my story could help others.

"We should never let anything hold us back from our full potential and that includes a microscopic herpes virus."

In the video, Alexandra said: "Herpes can actually be a blessing. I know for me in my life, it was.

"I had a lot of stuff going on and getting herpes forced me to get my s**t together.

"I had to change my diet, I had to get rid of the toxic people in my life. I just made a lot of changes."

TikTok users were divided over Alexandra's positive outlook on her diagnosis.

One sympathetic commenter wrote: "I chose to use my diagnosis to become an author helping others overcome the stigma, better diet, made me more empathetic and dating with intention."

Another commented: "Herpes made me a much more empathetic person.

"It made me check prejudices I didn't even know I had and educate myself like the system failed to."

A fellow sympathizer wrote: "It forced me to realize how much of a people pleaser I was."

However, other viewers weren't as impressed and voiced their criticisms.

One wrote: "The itching is not a blessing."

Another commented: "I don't think an STD is a blessing in any way."

WHAT IS HERPES?

Genital herpes is a sexually transmitted infection (STI) passed on through vaginal, anal and oral sex. There's no cure. Symptoms clear up by themselves, but the blisters can come back (an outbreak or recurrence).

Genital herpes is caused by a virus called herpes simplex. Once you have the virus, it stays in your body. It will not spread in your body to cause blisters elsewhere. It stays in a nearby nerve and causes blisters in the same area. If you can, avoid things that trigger your symptoms.

Triggers can include: ultraviolet light – for example, from sunbathing or sunbeds, friction in your genital area – for example, from sex (lubricant may help) or tight clothing, smoking, drinking alcohol

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