How many with HIV relate to this

[firefighter]

I just read an article the entire story was interesting, but I found the next couple of paragraphs powerful for want of a better word

Living with the constant fear of becoming HIV+ or dying with complications of AIDS often manifests in internalized anger or feelings of numbness. But, paradoxically, a positive HIV test result can provide relief for the person who has seroconverted. I believe what is being relieved is internalized rage, anger, and the numbness produced by excessive fear. The article Protease Dis-inhibitors? quotes a young man as saying, "That awful waiting is gone ... Maybe now that I am HIV positive, I can finally have my life." For me, it is not so hard to imagine living in such fear and numbness that one feels as though one doesn't even have a life. As I reflect on my own experience with sincere honesty, I must say that my life prior to HIV was very lonely and empty. It is as though HIV enabled me to discover the depths of myself and a new depth of connection with the greater human family through all of our suffering, not just my own.Something Absolute I am the "Bug Chaser." I am every man spoken of in this article. I am the man who has witnessed so many die while wishing that I was dying, too. I was once the hopeless, the depressed, the alienated, the physically numb. I was the one who could care less about the future; the one who felt so below another that I would put my life in jeopardy for that fleeting moment of intimacy. I was the man who slept with infected men, who had unprotected sex with these men, through the haze of alcohol, drugs, desire, and anger. I was the man who demonized my own behavior and hated myself for such behavior. I was the man who was asking for help in so many conscious and unconscious ways. I am the man whose life became full, whose life became meaningful after my seroconversion. I am the man who finally got his life back through a glimpse of liberation when I realized the depths of impermanence. I am the man who wanted to share the intimacy of suffering together and of healing together, and I am the man who knows true intimacy now.

Edited January 13, 2014 by rawTOP

[Guest JizzDumpWI]

Neg here firefighter, so can relate from this side of the equation. Lost friends during early AIDS years, and had a survivors guilt of sorts. Why I never converted is a mystery. For a time actively chased. Then PrEP came along and I relate to the end of an unadmitted fear/desire to be one with my now gone friends. My PrEP isnt necessary for me, possibly immune. This said, since I never converted I have not experienced life from your vantage point.

JDW

[NDN]

Definitely agree!

[bearbandit]

I got HIV before we knew it was there (1980) but didn't test till 1987 (it was my anniversary yesterday). It wasn't until 1981 that GRIDS was described and 1983 before HTLV3 was recognised as the cause of what had been renamed aids. So I had only three or four years of the terror described. How guys who have remained HIV- and have lived through the whole epidemic is beyond me: I'd have gone insane.

The fear of death through an opportunistic infection (my life expectancy has been as low as a few days) seems so much less than the fear of starting out on that road. I'm active on a PwHIV-only board where I keep wanting to slap some sense into the newly diagnosed: "It's only a virus! The drugs work! You'll probably live longer because of HIV because you'll see so much of your doctor!"

Sure, the world would be a better place without HIV. My life would be better without HIV. But there are times when I feel closer to women with HIV (and I'm definitely not bisexual) than men who don't have HIV because the men exude this fear.