Introduction (and the background story on my diagnosis)

I am a nineteen year old girl from a small town in Maryland. I have had (real) sex four times in my entire life, all in this past year. With three different guys. All who never meant anything to me, and never will. A serious problem I used to have was an ignorance to facts concerning the transmission of genital herpes and the dangers of oral sex. (I'm not even going into my completely messed up attitude of sexuality...yet!). Before having (real) sex, I had a lot (can't- even-remember-the-number-a lot) of guys preform oral on me. "This is safe...", I told myself, "by doing this there's no chance of pregnancy or anything...", "It feels good and it's fun, so why not?" I didn't even think of the possibility of ever getting an STD. This April, I went to the gyno because I was itchy after my first time having (real) sex. My friend said it was just from the condom, but I'm the kind of person who needs to know I'm okay. And everything sure didn't end up being okay. During the examination, my gyno told me that the area inside of me had some bumps, but she wasn't sure if it was tearing from the sex, or, looking at me with such sympathy and a hint of pity in her eyes, she told me, it might be something more serious, like herpes. Tears immediately started running down my face. WHY DID SHE HAVE TO SAY THAT? THERE'S NO WAY I HAVE THAT. NOT ME. You never expect these things to happen to you...and then they do. She did a swab test, sent it away, and a few grueling days later, she called to give me my diagnosis. I felt morally obligated to call the guy who one week past had took my virginity to tell him the news (I'll tell the story of that whole ordeal in another post). I looked up all the information I could find on the internet, and called my gyno a couple of times, just to ask more questions. Anyways, I don't know how I got the herpes, but now after gaining knowleadge about it, my best guess would be that one of the guys giving me that oral I had so desired, had had a cold sore. Simple as that. None of them even know, much less care, how much our fooling around has affected my life. My life will never be the same. Getting news like that is a life shaker. I was doing a little research online tonight for information on the medication I was prescribed, Acyclovir, and happened to stumble upon this blog: http://herpesman.blogspot.com/ . Reading his words inspired me to share my own story. It's my hope that something good will come out of this blog, if only to let me express my feelings I keep bottled up inside. I have genital herpes, but I don't want to let that get me down. I'm striving to make my life be so much more then controlled by a diagnosis.