When I was diagnosed HIV-positive, at the age of 31, I thought that I wouldn’t live to see 50.
At that time, 21 years ago, we were in the early days of effective treatment and fears that it may not be enough were commonplace. The images of HIV in my own mind were of my friends who had died, and of the men that I saw on the gay scene, their cheeks sunken or their bodies scarred with Kaposi’s sarcoma lesions.
The physical manifestations of this disease were almost as frightening to me as the prospect of my own mortality.
I celebrated my 50th birthday a couple of years ago.
I now take just three pills a day, which is more than many people with HIV, and they keep me healthy. I go to the gym three times a week and usually for a run on Sundays. The other day, I ran the equivalent of a half marathon without even planning to.
I feel fitter and healthier than I did when I was in my twenties and far stronger, both physically and mentally, than I did when I learned I had HIV.
I know how fortunate I am to have been diagnosed when I was. Treatment keeps me alive.
Generations before me weren’t so lucky. I carry the memory of those that I lost with me. Some who survived that era still suffer from the damage caused by the virus before treatment was available, or from the days when dosing was less refined and the side-effects of HIV medication were greater.
The government’s ‘Don’t Die of Ignorance’ campaign in the 1980s ensured that everyone knew about HIV and AIDS.
Unfortunately, the doom-laden imagery of icebergs and tombstones left a legacy of fear that people living with HIV still deal with today.
So much has changed since then.
People with HIV live full, productive lives. We work hard, sometimes we play hard, and we’re subject to all the same stresses and strains as everyone else, plus a few more. We are not doomed, we are not ‘unclean’, we are not predatory or dangerous, just because we are living with HIV.
For many people living with HIV, it is the stigma we face that now provides the greatest challenge. Attitudes towards people living with HIV have not progressed as rapidly or as positively as the medical treatment has.
As a gay man, going through my teens at a time when homosexuality was still very much taboo, I used to censor myself the whole time. I felt the need to hide parts of myself in the hope that I would be accepted.
It didn’t work for being gay; it doesn’t work for being HIV-positive.
Openly HIV-positive role models, such as Welsh Rugby player Gareth Thomas or Queer Eye’s Jonathan van Ness, help us to chip away at the fear and ignorance that people with HIV often face. I hope that I can play my part too.
HIV treatment not only means that we should live long and healthy lives, it also means that we can enjoy sex, without condoms, without any risk of our partners getting the virus.
When we are virally-suppressed to undetectable levels (as 95 per cent of all people living with diagnosed HIV in the UK are) there is zero risk in sex. This means that pretty much all the fear that HIV-negative people have of those of us living with HIV is just wasted energy.
HIV has changed so much over the 31 years since the first World AIDS Day.
Most people living with HIV in the UK are able to do so healthily. We are not a sexual risk to others. We can be strong. We can be powerful. I feel that I am – and that’s the image of HIV that I want to share with the world.
I smashed my way out of the viral closet years ago – and I’ve never regretted it. Now let’s smash HIV stigma too.
Matthew Hodson is Executive Director of the HIV charity, NAM. NAM / aidsmap provides news and information for anyone living with or concerned about HIV.
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source https://metro.co.uk/2019/12/01/its-been-21-years-since-i-was-diagnosed-with-hiv-and-i-am-healthier-than-ever-11242116/
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