Lost Soul

To become whole again within yourself takes a lot of work. Every bit of who you were is gone, at least that is what I thought back in 1997 as I sat there waiting for my HIV test results. I was so young, had so many dreams I looked forward to accomplishing. But in seconds, it all changed so fast.

Others don't understand what we go through

I have always said that no one knows what someone goes through until they are put in the same situation. It is funny how people in your life, like family or even close friends, can tell you how you should feel or, better yet, not even understand how HIV has affected every core of your life.

It is like I did not see anything about life being the same. I was confused and wishing it were a dream. But that dream was really a reality, and my self-love disappeared and turned into shame.

Embarrassment and fear of judgement

I now felt useless or even embarrassed as a human being, wondering if people can see the letters "HIV" all over me as they walk past me. It seemed like my life was in a fog where I just could not see through to clear it up. I remember being two years into my diagnosis and was so leery that when it was time to take my medication while eating dinner in a restaurant, I thought that people were watching and that they knew what I was taking it for.

Mind games with myself

How crazy is that it is something how our minds can play these funny tricks on us right? It’s a tug a war game mentally with ourselves and we battle to see if we're going to win, but it just never seemed that I could win because I allowed that other voice, that voice of depression and negativity to overpower who I once was. Not even walking a straight like the line I once took to look ahead is now crooked.

Facing the truth of my HIV diagnosis

The many feelings that come to mind from the first day I knew I was living with HIV are very vivid for me. And after many years, I learned to face those feelings, but it was not easy. It was the fear of HIV that I put in the back of my mind and blocked it. So dealing with it and being honest about all of me changed the internal stigma I was dealing with. Something I never saw in me until I divorced from an abusive relationship.

Holding on to my joy

I sat down, looked in the mirror and at my life, and I learned that living with a virus was not as bad as I thought it was: I was allowing it to change everything about me when I didn’t have to. I wanted to be happy, so I searched for what I wanted in me and found it. It was a process and something I still work on every day. But, I will not allow HIV or anyone to step in my life, grab the joy I feel, and steal it because it’s mine and it keeps me sane.