Telling your family you have HIV

I feel incredibly blessed in that I have been able to talk to my family about my HIV, and that they are so supportive, despite most of them living in different countries to me. I told my Dad first as I felt isolated and needed someone who knew me and how i think to know so that i could talk about what was going through my mind. His response was "Well leading the lifestyle you have led, i always expected to have this conversation". He has then been included in all my decsisions about possible research volunteering (we decided not sensible), starting medication, and days when i am generally down (Although those are few and far between).

At my previous address I lived with all Ghanians. They brought to my attention that within their community that if someone finds out they are positive, they lose the support of their church, are disowned by their family, and particularly the yong men lose the friendship of their peers. Talk about making some one being made to feel more isolated and helpless.

Through the D8FINDR Facebook page we have learned that in Pakistan there is very little to no community support. 62% of the facebook membership is from Pakistan, and the most common requestwe get is "I am positive, please find me a wife/husband". Your heart goes out to people who just want to be loved. As D8FINDR evolves and research money becomes available, we dearly want to look at ways of understanding the social pressures for different communities around the globe, and finding ways to A] help them not feel so alne, B]find love and where possible C] get some sort of education programme out in those communites to aid in understanding and support.

Here in the UK i know of plenty of people who have not told their families because they don't want them to worry. This boils down to society still living in a time bubble with regards how they percieve the virus, which seems to be the common thread between the blogs i have written over the last week. I guess time will lead us to all having the right information and being able to share with our loved ones just why we are feeling under the weather. For my friends in those shoes - i wish this to come sooner rather than later, but stigma and taboo are hard social concepts to break.

Attitudes towards safe sex in 2015

Call me paranoid. Call me sensible.

...but i get so frustrated when i hear a gay man say "I'm a top, so i don't need to use a condom!"

Now before you shout "Homophobe" lets point out i am a gay man. Still with me? OK. I hear that statement a lot, and it unfuriates me that on the gay scene you still hear statements made like that. Especially as there are so many good articles written in the gay press about the dangers of not using a condom for both "Tops" and "Bottoms".

The other one i hear amongst my straight older social circle is "Well that affects the younger people - we don't have to worry about that!"

Seriously?!

HIV doesn't know your age, your colour, your gender - all it wants is some nice human bloodstream to grow in.

Here in the UK there are really strong laws that side on the "victim" if you have not declared your status to a partner before having sex. The law is set up that it's a criminal offense, and because of the ignorance surrounding HIV in the 21st century, a jury is more likely to feel sympathetic towards a so called victim of HIV crime. Ofetn times someone will claim that they were not told the other persons status, when in fact they did know. Its a blatant case of one versus the other, and rather than a jury claim an impasse - they will side with the so called victim. When you are first diagnosed - the great thing is that the NHS nurse sits you down and makes sure you understand this, and the implications of what can happen if you infect someone. Amazingly though i still hear stories of blatant disregard - not only for the law - but more concerningly for other peoples health.

One such incident i personally became aware of was of one man in his late 30's who had a fake passport made to prove he was ten years younger, and a fake doctors note proving he was negative, when infact he was positive. He was then going on social hook up apps and website for casual sex looking for "Bareback" sex. For me this is tantamount to not only fraud, but potentially mansluaghter. Call me over dramatic if you want, but i can not abide idsregard for others at the expense of someone else's selfishness.

aaaaghhhh rant over

Latent Ignorance and Education

Whilst chatting to my mother at the weekend and talking about my health, she commented on how behind she was with the latest information and knowledge that is out there regarding HIV. Now my mother isn't ignorant about HIV. At the turn of the century her and my stepdad had cared for a close friend of theirs in his last few months of his struggle with HIV. Mum's knowledge is firsthand, and of the worst side of the illness which fortunately today is taking fewer lives.

I think what scares me is the complacency that our current society here in the west now holds towards HIV. There seems to be two common trends. One is that HIV is still percieved as a killer. The second is that because it's now a manageable virus, riskier sex is now once again permitted.

Our government here in the UK ran a great "Safe Sex" campaign back in the late 1980's which got the message accross about safe sex, non sharing of drug needles and how to stay healthy. However it now feels that because it's been downgraded to an "accute" illness, the government can rest on it's laurels with education about HIV, which is still incredibly expensiver for each patient diagnosed and living with the virus.

What is needed is a re-newed awareness campaign driven by the goernment and not charities to drive a new awareness campaign, not only about safe sex and why it is still needed, but information on the current medications, medication resistance and it's implications for both healthy and infected people, and overall the main problems encountered by poeple living with HIV. Yes we may live longer, but our road is not a smnooth one - and more knowledge in the public domain is needed.

How i found out

I learned i had HIV just over three years ago. I had gone in for my routine flu jab, and while the nurese was doing that i asked if she could do my next HIV test. A couple of days later my GP called me and asked me to go in and see him, I instantly new what it would be about, so tried to keep calm.

When my GP told me i took it all with relative ease. He looked at me dumbfounded and asked why i was so calm as usually he gets hysterics. I explained to him that a couple of years previously i had gone through CBT (Cognitive Behavioural Therapy) and that i didn't have all the facts - he hadn't been able to tell me my CD4 count, my viral load, how ill i was, if i needed medication - and that until i knew those details, i was not going to attach an emotion to something that was still essentially an abstract. For me information is knowledge. Why create a drama when you don't have all the facts?

There is still a lot of ignorance surrounding HIV here in the UK. It is still percieved with the glasses we wore from the 1980's goverment safe sex campaigns. Many people still associate it with death despite thr NHS now classifying it as an accute illness along the same scale as Diabetes. For this reason my GP was expecting me to behave differently.

Because of the frequency i had my tests done - i was able to say i knew who i had contracted it from, which made it easier, and ironically the person who i caught it off actually freaked out more than i did when i told him i was now positive. I realise i am not the norm. My brain isn't hardwired in the same way as others. I am emotional, but through age and experience have learned that objectivity in hard times is an essential skill to have. I haven't perfected those skills by any means, but i do try to use them rather than spiral out of control.