SHAW%UMUC.BITNET@oac.ucla.edu (Andy Shaw) (10/30/90)
I don't know if this will work, but here goes....... About the posting from the friend that was in 3 parts where he found out his (essentially) roommate was HIV+ and was trying to get him to deal with it. From my own experience it is not easy to come to grips with the fact that you are HIV+. I found out in 1987 and it took me 2 years of celibacy before a friend and I discussed it and he said something as simple as "haven't you ever heard of safe sex before?" Well, of course I'd heard of it but I'd never to that point looked at is as being applicable to myself. I'd decided like the gentleman in question originally did "if I don't want to pass this virus on to anyone else I won't be able to have sex with anyone ever again." Looking back it is rather stupid, but it was my first reaction, and a lasting one. I don't know the ages of the persons involved in the original 3-part message but this does have something to do with how people react to finding out their HIV status. I was 38 when I found out and I think that I reacted quite differently than perhaps someone who was in their early 20's. One common demoninator amongst all the people who find out that they carry a deadly virus--it take TIME to adjust to the fact. My first reaction was perhaps not too uncommon and boiled down to a sort of "my God!, I'm gonna die tomorrow!" Well, when that didn't happen (and it took a while for this to _really_ sink in) I began to back out of disaster mode and start to make plans to start living life again. I encourage everyone I know to get tested, and I encourage people that have tested positive to go to a support group (no, it really isn't as bad as you think, it's more of a social support arena where everybody there is in the same boat as you, so you don't have to watch your P's and Q's when you open your mouth), and lastly I encourage everyone who is HIV+ to take steps to preserve their health (on the hopeful assumption that one day there will be either a cure or an arrestor of the virus found). But that's all I do, I encourage people. I've learned _not_ to TELL people what they should do, it doesn't work too well and frequently backfires on you. Advice to the friend who wrote about his friend: for now, just Be There for your friend, tell him you're there to talk if he wants to, when he wants to. That by itself comes to mean an awful lot.