I was a happy-go-lucky 19-year-old woman who enjoyed the finer things in life: family, friends, dogs and pizza. I was also the 19-year-old woman who was afraid to go to the doctor. That all changed when this 19-year old-woman had her life turned upside by negligence and ignorance. The negligence came from the fact that I shouldn’t have avoided some important signs, and the ignorance stemmed from the fact that I put my life into someone else’s hands. That someone was named Sean.
Sean and I were best friends turned lovers. We’d spend our Saturday mornings going out to eat and then to see the latest movie at the theater and our nights screwing around in our secret hookup spot. This went on for several weeks until one day, I decided to take it up a notch: I wanted to have unprotected sex. However, I would only have unprotected sex if I knew all of Sean’s sexual history and was certain he was STD free. Sean assured me that he hadn’t had sex with anyone in months and was STD free. I asked Sean how he’d feel about having unprotected sex and he (unsurprisingly) was more than willing to oblige. So, we started having unprotected sex.
As time went on, I kept believing everything was alright with me. I believed that Sean was telling me the truth about his sexual history. I believed that as long as Sean told me the truth, I was fine. Oh, how stupid I was!
On Sept. 10, 2017, I felt the worst pain I have ever felt in my entire life. I felt like a thousand needles were stabbing me in my labia, and the pain only intensified the longer I waited to go to the doctor’s office. I kept telling myself that maybe I had used the wrong soap down there, wore too tight underwear, anything to convince myself I didn’t have an STD. A few days later, I go to the doctor’s to get tested, and sure enough, I had the dreaded chlamydia. I called Sean, told him the news and suggested that he get treated. Come to find out, Sean had lied about his sexual history and knew that his previous partner had chlamydia (which in turn gave him chlamydia). I got treated and never spoke to Sean again. Moral of the story: never avoid the body’s warning signals, always get tested and NEVER have unprotected sex unless all parties have truthfully confirmed (and in some cases proved) they are STD free.
Author’s Note: This is not my own confession, and names have been changed to conceal identities.