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In the past 5-6 weeks,I started having crying jags,mood swings and quite a lot of numb emotions and didn't know what was happening. I thought I was headed fora breakdown. I read several articles in the PA and bingo, I wasn't alone and realize why I was going through this and still am. One article, I made copies and plan on bringing them into both my PCP and psychiatrist here in Boston at the MGH hospital. This issue(Jan-Feb) has made so much sense and hit everything I was going through.
I, in no way meant to vilify anyone, and apologize if that is how my statement came across. I just hope for a day when there is a less laissez faire attitude about HIV infection, in some segments of our community. I think we should continue to accept, support, and encourage the care of those of us that do become positive, but also think that it sure would be great if we could support, educate, protect, respect ourselves and our sex partners so that fewer and fewer of us become positive.
There are great role models and mentors out there; they just have to be sought out. Even though we share a commonality, sometimes there are too many labels that create barriers in our community.
What a poignant, thought-provoking article! I'm 61 (poz for almost half of that) and I remember having mentors as a newly-out young man and always wished to help continue that cycle as I aged. As you point out there have been few interested in that kind of help/relationship. I think that is one of the greater losses of the plague years... While seropositive status should certainly NOT be pursued, it is counter-productive to vilify new seroconversions.
To think that there hasnâ??t been complacency is bit naïve. As a gay man in my early 40s who is a public health worker, I have seen and worked with many young gay men who seem to have accepted that becoming HIV+ is just part of life. To me this is very complacent. Why would anyone want this disease, even if it is now â??manageableâ?? I have buried one partner, 29 years my senior, due to this disease and have seen many others die. I have counseled and tested and provided more than
a few positive results to young gay men, some in their late teens. Meth use, use of phone apps and online websites to hook up with multiple partners, and what seems to be lack of self-respect and low self-esteem have fueled not only the continual spread of HIV but alarmingly high and increasing numbers of Syphilis cases each year since the late nineties. As gay men, young, mature or somewhere in between, there is a segment of our community that needs to start caring about more than
just self-gratification and start taking care of each other. Until this happens, unfortunately many more will undoubtedly become infected with HIV and Syphilis. The only way that this disease is ever going to be eradicated from the planet, is if there are no more new infections!!!
SirVivor
It is very much like the end of a horrid war. I see despair; men with their rears upturned for any and all takers in sex clubs even though they know they should be more circumspect; I see denial, paranoia, hope and light and belief that we all are gonna survive our grief, our ghosts. I have 5 of them, They visit me in my dreams; I lived with them, had sex with them, saw them cry and laugh. U can't keep them out of my dreams.They are part of me forever and they want to live that way; I don't mind
February 15, 2015 • Los Angeles