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Personal stories |
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Personal stories - Jane
In 1992, I was 24. I was living in NY, was enrolled in film school,
and had undertaken the first half of my film degree. I had been
living there for five years, spent the first three married to an
architect, and when our marriage floundered had found myself
young, free and single in the Big Apple. HIV had dealt New York
a harsh kick in the teeth, many of my friends were gay and I felt
more aware than most of the threat of transmission and the
realities of the virus. I remembered the campaign back home
with John Hurt, the falling sickles and lilies on tombstones. I
had been sixteen when those ‘infomercials’ were aired and I
remember the rainy day when the flier came pushing through
our letterbox at home. I had taken mine to school and it had
been hotly debated in the girls’ loo. Suffice to say we breathed
a collective sigh of relief when we felt that we had nothing
to fear, after all, things like that didn’t happen to nice middle
class white girls like us… Did they? I had always practised safe
sex, had taken a test in NY when I got my green card and been
monogamous in relationships.
That morning in 1992, I received a call from the doctor’s
surgery at work, ‘odd’ I thought and called my boyfriend. We
had been together almost 18 months by then, living together
a year. It was he who had suggested I stop working. He told
me he’d support me through my last two years at film school.
For our future, he had said. We were serious. ‘It’ll be a routine
test result, they want to talk stuff through with you before
they change your health insurance policy.’ I remember him
saying, ‘Baby, don’t worry!’ I still took my best friend with me.
When the young doctor finally sat me down, he explained
exactly which test had come back positive. He told me I may
live ten years, not to have children, that there was no cure or
medication and suggested I get support from a place called
Gay Men’s Health Crisis. The shock was enormous. There
were tears. I went terribly quiet and immediately retreated,
withdrawing into a world that took me nearly five years to
return from. Sometimes I feel as though I still exist there,
even after all this time. A place that is lonely, shameful, and
damaged, where my own body is my enemy and the person
I blame is myself. I didn’t blame my partner for keeping quiet
about his drug use. I understood that he thought I would never
have looked twice at him if he’d divulged that side of his past. I
believed he had not known he was positive and therefore had
not knowingly taken chances with my health.
Despite that, we broke up and for the next few years, I embarked
on a mission to live without future. I quit school, buried myself in
work, career and the pursuit of money. I rented a summerhouse
upstate, travelled extensively, bought a car and partied in the
most expensive shoes God ever created, learnt how to scuba
dive, ride a motorbike and jumped out of planes. I counted down
the years before dying and worked through my own personal
checklist of what I thought I should do before I went.
When I finally stopped to draw breath, I realised I was
miserable, bruised and angry. It wasn’t working, this living in
the moment malarkey. I decided to come home. I returned to
London in 1996 like a person who had been chewed up and
spat out. I avoided boys rather than let them reject me until
I met someone who was different. When we found out I was
pregnant I finally sat with my HIV diagnosis and faced it square.
It was the most terrifying time of my life. I had to try and
believe in the possibility of my own future once more, to begin
to live with the fear rather than run from it. I faced the disease
as best as I could and found the London Lighthouse and
Positively Women who helped me meet others and put me on
the track I have never looked back from. Finally, the meds came
and I started them during my pregnancy, my father disowned
me but others stepped up where he’d fallen away. My son gave
me strength, my second gave me hope and together my little
family have given me back the courage and the reason to stand
back up, breathe and keep on walking forward.
If you would like to read more stories like this one you can subscribe to Positively Women magazine or click here for more stories online.
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