I found out I was HIV positive in 1989. I felt devastation, death, loss, and isolation. For the first time I didn’t know where to go, who to seek out, what kind of a doctor to see. I thought of my children, the future, and wanting to see my child` graduate. I thought of walking my son down the aisle, being there for my grandchildren. All those things just seemed to be erased, just flushed right before my eyes.

The first thing I had done was have my husband and my son tested. They both were negative. However, my diagnosis did take a toll on my family relationships. With support from the HIV community, it was really just me, the positive person, who got involved with others who were HIV positive. The negative person is left walking around outside the circle. Raising a son who knows that his mom has been sick most of his life hasn’t been very easy. I don’t feel that he had a fair break, having a mom that was sick, that is sick. 

When I started telling friends and family, it was very hard. Automatically they would think “Where did I get it from?” I have never felt so defensive about anything in my life.  Because for me, it’s not really how I acquired the virus, but the fact that I have it and have to take care of it. But, I really felt that within the HIV negative population it’s more about how someone got the virus than the virus itself.
 
As for telling friends, I would walk into my friend’s house and a hush would go through the room. I knew that people that I hadn’t had a chance to tell yet were thinking, “she’s the one”, “she’s the one who’s infected”. I didn’t want to walk around with this paranoid feeling, that AIDS was sitting sitting right on my shoulder, but I knew when it was obvious that others knew my status.

One night, I had to go the hospital by ambulance. They were hooking me up to the IV and I told the woman that I am HIV positive. The woman yelled at the top of her lungs, “This one has AIDS!” That was how everyone in my apartment building found out. Many of my neighbors stopped talking to me. I would walk up the hall and they would zoom right past me.

Being HIV positive, many people think we’re damaged goods, that if they get near to me then they are going to be part of those damaged goods. I’m not ashamed I have it. I like to tell people I am HIV positive because is very important to me to educate against ignorance.  

I think that people need to educate themselves and support people with HIV/AIDS in the community. They have to know that we’re out there and we want to stop the virus. But we want to stop the stigma too. I want to let it be known that being HIV positive still means we are people who have and want to live good lives.