The cry of a woman living with HIV

I contracted HIV from a guy I was seeing. He told me that he knew his HIV status and I believed him because I loved him so much. We decided to take our relationship to the next step which was to trust each other enough to have unprotected sex.

Things didn’t turn out well for me. It turned out that he had not tested for a very long time. He infected me with the virus. I thought I was going to die. I was in self-denial because I could believe I could get the virus. I thought maybe the doctor had confused my results with another person. So for one month I stayed at home without getting into treatment.

When I finally came to my senses I went on medication. I decided to tell my friends about my HIV status and I was so shocked at how they reacted.

The stigma and discrimination on persons living with HIV is 100% worse than the virus especially in this day and age. My friends abandoned me. No one wanted to associate with me. They blocked my calls and texts. I just felt like I was all alone in this world. It was so painful to see people who I grew up with behaving as if I was a stranger to them. Shaking my hand was a big problem for them and this was slowly killing me inside.

HIV is a manageable condition. You take your medicines on time and you can have a long healthy and fulfilling life. But what you have zero control over is how other people will treat you and see you.

There are these misconceptions that people living with HIV are unclean, dirty and evil. People don’t find us attractive, people are afraid of us thinking that we are out to pass the virus. These misconceptions are so hurting and painful and it makes living with transparency really hard. I wish people could stop the entire stigma and show us some love because that’s what we need.

HIV is not me. I am more than HIV. I am human just like you and I get hurt too. HIV doesn’t discriminate; it knows no race, tribe, and class so you shouldn’t discriminate too.