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.