Seriously, what comes to your mind when u hear the words HIV/AIDS? How do u feel? That shit scares me. I can't imagine living with such a disease as it is something akin to a death sentence (in my mind). It is this mythical yet so real disease with such a horrible stigma attached to it. I refuse to think it can happen to me, after all I've hardly ever met any real life person with the disease.
Fortunately, or unfortunately ever since i started working at the mental hospital, i have met a quite a few people who were HIV +ve. For such a small population of patients (at that particular hospital) there seems to a large percentage of them with this disease. I can no longer pretend that this disease is a modern day myth, not that i ever thot it was but still it was something that was kind of surreal.
What gets me is the stigma that is still attached to it. I've noticed that whenever we have an HIV +ve patient, staff tend to spread that around, in a be careful conspiratory kind of manner. It's almost like everyone is afraid of the disease. I understand that we've had malicious HIV +ve patients who have thrown urine on staff, spat or tried to scratch people just because, but still i can't help thinking if sometimes staff who pass this information around in this manner are scared, especially if it's a non violent patient.
One thing that scared the shit of of me initially was how healthy/normal these people looked. It scared me because besides getting tested or being told there is absolutely no way of telling if these people are HIV +ve just by looking at them, which is a good and a bad thing. It's a good thing because then they can carry on their normal lives without being stigmatized and it's bad because how many sexually active people can say that they go out and get tested with their boyfriends (or whatevers) BEFORE they ever have sex? Many have sex, THEN get tested, maybe when it's time to get married or something like that. That is scary.
Last weekend, we had a 20yr old on the unit who had tried to kill himself. I didn't know why he was at the hospital at first, but cos he had a unique name and i had nothing better to do at the time i decided to look in his charts (we are allowed to). I was really shocked and saddened to see he was HIV +Ve and had just found out 5 days prior. The next day, we were chatting, he happens to be a very good looking, talktative, attention seeking young man, and he mentioned something about his boyfriend. He doesn't look or act stereotypically gay (forgive me for stereotyping), and i was like "your boyfriend?" Thinking i misunderstood. He tell proceeds to tell me he's gay and then tells me his boyfriend's name: first, middle, second middle and last name.
Then he's like, "he's very cute, he's the one who gave me AIDS and i tried to kill myself that's why i'm here" He said it so cooly like it wasn't a big deal.
Me: "Did you know he was HIV +ve when you first started dating?"
Him: "Yeah"
Me: "So why did you sleep with him without a condom?"
Him: "We stopped using protection almost a year after we started dating"
Me: "WHY?!"
Him: "I thought i would not catch it"
If he was my brother, i would have slapped him upside the head for that statement. My mouth mentally dropped at the ignorance of that statement, and i had already sucked in my breath to start lecturing him, but i realise there's no need cos he already has the disease and learned the hard way anyway. I tried to encourage him and tell him he shouldn't try to kill himself and he'll be fine. I even talked about Magic Johnson blah blah. He's a really cool kid, even though he spent the better part of the day arguing that we were the same age or i was younger than him for that matter. I guess looking at him being his crazy self, being funny and being a pain in the ass at the same time, i somehow got over my fear of the disease.
Just the way working at the hospital has helped me put a face to mental illness, seeing him and other patients who have it, has also helped me put a face to the disease. They are regular people like me and you, with people who love them. Watching him call his great grandmother and sing to her over the phone (did i mention he loves attention), touched me and made me aware that regardless of his HIV status, he's always going to have people in his life who love him.
Funny enough, the 33yr old lady whom i watched that day one on one, was also HIV +ve, and the main reason she was on a 1:1 was cos she wanted to have sex with anyone who would let her. She was having a good day that day, meaning she didn't give me a hard time esp with my apparent "young age" (according to her). She told me she had had 2 miscarriages, and was hoping to still have a child in the future. Her parents and sibling came to see her and she cried when they left. I guess all these little experiences have helped me get over my fear and negative associations of HIV.
Seriously though, u guys need to go get tested. It's never too late or too soon. No unprotected sex also, that's so not cool. Do better. Use a condom. 1-30mins of pleasure is not worth a lifetime of pain.
I done tell una oh. I've done my christian duty for the day. (Not that i'm much of a christian, but that's another story).
Ciao
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