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I can identify with David,you literally have to retire from being gay,dating is hopeless,you are afraid to,infect someone else,internet dating is hopeless even HIV people want a the fantasy,it's hard enough being a 59 year old gay man,then through HIV in the mix,my biggest problem is the part of the country I live,I am grateful to be here,but there are better support groups on the east coast,I think of all my friends that are gone,so I try to live for them.
Wow this article hits home in so many ways. 25+ years and still here was first told that I had maybe 3-5 years to get things in order. Had a lot of support on how to die, and had made my peace. Dyeing from AIDS was so much more cool than living with HIV in the gay community. Find it sad that with all we the survivors have to say. We are looked down on as the lost step children no one wont's to admit are in the room.
Amen-diagnosed 1991(infected 1983) headlines foretell for decade my "uniform death sentence"- MD gives me 4-5 years? Continued to work-had kids(safely with help of MDs afar). In spite of luck, hope of meds of 97, struggled to live in lesser known straight married life. IMHO-we had NO support- a Salem witch hunt feel. Working for mega corps, HR smiles commiserate then back stab "manage us out" of job! Stigma became larger issue than illness for gays/straights sadly! Society is I'll not us- cure!
I'll soon be hitting 63 and been pos for 27 years. We long term survivors are the forgotten. My T count dropped to 73 when AZT and ddI first came onto the market and many of you will understand the horror of taking those! I so identify with all that so many of you have said and my experiences mirrors those comments.It is good that so many people can get treatment asap, it limits the damage done. This is not true for us, it is more than the chronic illness it appears to have become now.
wow. I have been a poz for 23 years and everything I read is so true... But im a hetro and was infected by my girlfriend.. So what now?
Now that I'm starting my 25th year of living with HIV, and at age 52, I too, feel somewhat like many of you who are long term survivors. For me, I feel almost "stuck" in the system, in that when I left my job years ago due to illness, and now, stable, and living on disability, causes me to be stressed, and feeling unproductive, as a member of society. I became an advocate/educator, but, that too, now sets me apart from the "others". It is has become a dilemma of sort.
There's nothing worse in the gay community than being old and having HIV. I'm 58 and never thought I'd still be around this long. I'm still working at my job, but I've retired from being gay because there is simply no place in the gay community for older men like me with HIV. I try to make the most of life as it is, but I'm looking forward to the day when I can move on from this earth and on to something better.
Sean Plummer
Does anyone still monitor this? I turned 60 this summer. I got the results that I was positive the day before Thanksgiving, 1986. I could prove that I go back to at least 1982, but I won't. I would be one of the people talked about in the article who, although gay, was not an activist. I haven't been one to live in major cities for the most part and didn't see much of the real battle zones. In fact, I still live alone in the country. I would love for someone to contact me.
November 29, 2015 • Yankee hill