JUS' E-MAIL ME: LOVE, HATE & HIV

I met a rather amiable and attractive man, who just happened to be a considerable number of years my senior. We started dating and went about our courtship like any other gay couple, navigating a potential life together. I had all the enthusiasm and exuberance of an 18-year-old, but I was considered to have an ‘old soul’. No more than a month into our dating, something unexpected happened, my other half was diagnosed with HIV. In his emotional state, he said that he didn’t expect me to stick around and that he would have no qualms about me leaving.

As much as I am ashamed to admit it now, I knew nothing about HIV then. I didn’t exactly fear it either, but that’s mostly down to the fact that I thought HIV only existed in this faraway land called Africa. As ignorant as the thought may have been, I genuinely didn’t suspect it was something that could ever affect me, my friends or my family. I definitely did not think that it’s possible to contract it orally. Or that understanding the specifics of my boyfriend’s viral load could have in fact played an integral part in avoiding a positive diagnosis. All the same, his diagnosis frankly did not bother me and I decided to stick around. It is a decision that I don’t regret as he was, and still is, an absolute riot. Alas, he and I were not destined to be star-crossed lovers, and subsequently our relationship ended.

Not long after we had broken up, I went to have a general check-up. When the results came back, the doctor said that my immune system had started to produce antibodies. Perhaps registering the bewilderment on my face, the doctor explained that this could well be a false reading. I had further tests that were sent off to a lab, and a couple of weeks later I got a call at home that I was indeed HIV-positive. I hung up. Not a second later, I register the clicks of the key sliding into the front door. My mother and stepfather bounce into the living room, their faces all lit up, a day well spent in their wake. I ask my mother to sit down next to me in the least dramatic way possible. But, she who misses absolutely nothing senses immediately that something serious has happened.

“Oh god, your invitation to university has been taken back, hasn’t it?!” I was two weeks away from flying the nest to start studying Chinese at university in London. My mother and I were both truly excited at the prospect of me no longer living in the family home.

“No. I have HIV.”

I immediately burst into tears. My mother collapses on to the sofa next to me, and I slouch into her arms. Deflated, and cradled by her, she is rocking me and wailing in pain. My mother is an extraordinarily strong woman, and I have never witnessed her so undone. Looking back, I know that she was not only crying for the death of my teenage purity, but also for all the challenges that were yet to come. It was the single most overwhelming moment of my life.

Contracting HIV from someone with whom you are in a committed relationship immediately obliterates the myth you hear being spoken loudly by ALL kinds of people, that you will ‘only get HIV if you are a slag’. Never mind these dumdums. Just because someone is capable of speaking passionately about HIV for an hour does not mean that what they say yields any truth whatsoever. It is also extremely easy to trust your friends when they tell you certain untruths about the virus. Taking second-hand information from anyone is always risky, unless they hand over the source openly or unless it is from an HIV specialist. Since being diagnosed I have heard some ridiculously hilarious ‘opinions’ about HIV. The safest course of action is to educate yourself.

The day I found out I was positive, the only thing I could think about doing was blaming someone. So, I sat down at my computer and violently typed out an angrily-worded email to my ex-boyfriend telling him to basically die. 

Am I wrong for feeling like?  

What are your thoughts? 

What advice would you give this person?