Since my diagnosis just over a year ago, I’ve had to learn to live with some hard truths.
I’ve had to learn what HIV is, and what that means for me going forwards. I was pushed forcefully into a new reality overnight with one phone call from a sexual health clinic, and for a while I was unable to find any way out, or even forwards.
Simple things, such as taking my daily pills, were mountains to climb, and there were days I’d wake up and forget, for a moment; before my app reminder would chime sadistically and I would be pulled right back into an abyss of self-hatred.
I’d have to take my own hand, and accept myself when nobody else would. I felt shame, and fear, and research only fuelled both emotions so that they eclipsed any other possible future that my doctor kept reinforcing was possible.
‘You only had unprotected sex’, he would say, ‘it wasn’t your fault that you caught HIV’. And he’s right.
But those words were unable to penetrate into my head, as I was swallowed up by the simple fact that, regardless of anybody’s opinion, the resulting fact was that I now have a virus swimming in my veins… most likely until the day I die.
I’ve had to understand that the person who gave me HIV knew they were doing so.
They made the decision to put me at risk by agreeing to not using condoms, multiple times that evening, all the while knowing they were both HIV-positive and transmittable, purely because they wanted to enjoy my body.
I’ve become a pillar of support for those close to me. In publicly disclosing my status, it brought a certain wave of self-acceptance, and for the first time I began to see something new on the horizon. In educating friends and family I found that, actually, the demon that had plagued me for (now) seasons only had power if I relinquished my own.
By explaining the realities of a modern day diagnosis, and that on effective medication the virus is 100% impossible to pass on, I realised that actually, it can be managed, treated, and stroked to the size of a pebble. As opposed to when it first fell out of the sky and into my life, as a meteor.
I’ve started to stand up to stigma, and fight back against hate. Feeling guilty for harbouring such strength to myself, I now run various social media channels designed to raise awareness, and prevent further transmission of HIV.
I receive daily barrages of uneducated, misguided comments that are equally laughable and frustrating.
I take great pleasure in correcting these, and standing up for other HIV-positive people who will see these comments; I can’t have them feeding into the lies, or seeing this abuse go unchecked. Although sometimes the weight does get heavy, and I have to spend a day or so away from my screens to recharge.
I’ve learnt to let rejection fall around me like the rain. When a guy find out I’m HIV-positive and loses interest or unfollows my social media account I take it in stride, and remember that I’m not the one who’s losing, here.
If he can’t see past a diagnosis and at the achievements of my life, my spirit, my loyalty, my commitment to trying to make the earth a better place in any way I can, then there’s no elements he could bring to my environment that I’d lust for, anyway.
HIV has become a moral compass, weeding out those who, quite simply, do not deserve a place by my side.
I’m no King, but I am a warrior.
And I am not just one man; I’m a reflection of anybody who is living with HIV, or facing daily hardships, or who at one point, didn’t believe in themselves.
I am living proof that you can face adversity in its beastly eyes and watch it cower, as it fails to understand just how you can become so resilient. Many take my diagnosis as a weakness, and they couldn’t be more wrong.
For me, HIV was the start of a new age, and those last little virus particles in my blood are just reminders that if I can survive this, I can find the courage to fight for anything and everything that I believe in.
