We’ve all had an STD scare.

Or, maybe we haven’t. Mine came in November of 2018. After days of irritation and pain, days of waiting on an opening at my doctor’s office, and then finally another week of anxiously awaiting the results from the visit, it turned out that I was free of all sexually transmitted diseases and infections (STDs/STIs) and the culprit of everything was just a nasty, nasty yeast infection. But something happened in the time that I waited. Something clicked between my endless agonizing over how this could happen when I had been so safe, the intense self-blaming, and non-stop google searches for symptoms, pictures, and support blogs—I realized that not a lot of information about STI’s was out there.

Sure, there were pictures, but only of extreme cases—the ones that they use to scare you in middle school health classes. And sure, there were stories, but again—only for people who knew with almost 100% certainty that they had what they thought they did. Those extreme cases matter too, but when what you have doesn’t look or feel how the internet says it should, it’s difficult to have anything to relate to. There were no accounts for people who thought a pimple was an ingrown hair before they discovered it was herpes. There were no stories about people who had chlamydia yet didn’t show any signs or symptoms for it. There was no public information for what life could and would look like after an STI Diagnosis—what was it like to have children? Or date? Or move on after taking the medication for a curable sexually transmitted disease? In those moments when I was afraid, confused, and wondering where I would start if my test results came back as positive, those missing links on the internet were the exact things that I needed the most.

And so, the idea for The STDetails was born. I thought about all of the men and women who must feel like I felt when wondering about their bodies. I thought about all of the men and women who were diagnosed with an STI and were figuring out how exactly to move on, but had little information to access or people currently living with an STI to talk to. So, for all of those people, no matter if you have never had an experience with a sexually transmitted disease or infection, if you have only had an STD/STI scare, if you were diagnosed with a curable STD/STI, or if you are currently living with a sexually transmitted infection, The STDetails is a space for you. It’s a space for you to share. It’s a space for you to learn from others. It’s a space to promote understanding, awareness—and most of all—it’s a space to cultivate healing.

I hope that here you are able learn and that here you are able to grow. Either way, thank you for visiting.