In Search of My Whole Self..

I remember the day I learned that I had HIV, the first thing I thought about was the guy that I was dating. I knew he wasn't infected with HIV because we had used condom's 100% of the time.  But Lawdddd ever present in my mind was the question of my worth. Would he still want me?

Let me be honest, I've said it over and again, my self-esteem was very low at 23 and my worth was between my legs.  As a girl I was taught that sex was love.  The men in my family started touching me when I was 6 years old.

Touching was what I knew how to do. By the time I was 19 years old I believed that if I sucked a man's dick until he plead for mercy, he would love me forever.  A relationship couldn't be deep if we didn't have sex. Like For Real, what was a relationship without doing that thang? I was all jacked up, and I didn't even understand that I was.

It didn't matter that I was picky and choosey and didn't have one night stands, because the men that I did date, sex was a major part of what we did. Whether it's in a relationship or a hook-up you are still giving a part of you to them. Stop kidding yourself; Sex is sex is sex is sex is sex!

 I say it in my latest book, The Politics of Respectability, that a fuck is a fuck is a fuck and the only difference is how we spin it to make ourselves feel good about what we are doing. This is more true for women than men. A woman and a man can have equal sexual partners and the woman is seen as a whore and the man as mack daddy with a tight game.  So we women spin sex in a way to make people think good of us, I talk about that in my blog, Crafting Our History,

But this blog isn't about that per se, it's really about my how I saw and now see my worth. Russell Simmons Global Grind tweeted the other day, "All that we are is the result of what we thought."

It's so true, sex was what I knew and was taught and it was everything to me in a relationship. Now, here I am 23 years with this infection that people saw as a modern day curse.  I didn't know how my boyfriend at the time would take this information. However, I found some comfort in the fact that he  was a minister in seminary at the time. I figured if he didn't want to date anymore, at least he would serve as support in some way. He was a minister in seminary, so I knew that I could count on him for support, so I thought.

I remember the night I told him as if it happened this morning.  The same evening  that I learned I had HIV, I waited with nervous energy for him. Within minutes of his arrival I told him. We stood in the middle of my living room. I didn't even give him time to sit down. I had to let it out.

We need to talk I said. He gave me the easy smile and I felt reassured already. "I donated blood and the Red Cross sent me this letter." I paused and that got his attention. He stopped in his tracks. "What's wrong baby?" He asked. "I have HIV." He froze. "What?" He asked. "I have HIV," I repeated." It started to sink in. "They told me I have HIV." I repeated, "They told me  that I have HIV." He stood there frozen almost as if in time. I was to afraid to say another word. He spoke up, "Are you for real?" "Yes," and I grabbed this piece of paper with the number to the National Institute of Health (NIH)  where they had referred me." I'm sure you're not infected because we used condoms," I added as I handed him the piece of paper.

He snatched the paper out of my hand, picked up his laundry that I had done that was sitting by the door. He paused for a second, looked me in the face and said, "You Bitch," and walked out my door. That was the last time I saw or spoke to him. The doctor at NIH confirmed that he was not infected.

I was left to deal with HIV on my own. It was a scary time for me. At the center of my agony was my dating life. Of course I was concerned with what people thought of me. This was the an ugly area in the history of AIDS in the United States. Cosmopolitan magazine had declared that women with, "Healthy Vaginas" couldn't get HIV. Did that make my vagina unhealthy from day one? How does one navigate life when everything you thought about yourself changes?

Then over time I learned that men still wanted to date me and yes have sex with me. This only severed to make me sicker. I thought that I was one bad BITCHHHH! I could get a man with HIV/AIDS and I knew women who couldn't get a man to save their life.

It was crazy, here I am this wonderful woman with so much to offer  not just a man, but the world and all I could think about was would he want what was between my legs. It was the ultimate validation.

As time went on, I began to feel lost... Like I was missing... Yes  that's it, I was missing. I had given so much value to one thing, I lost the rest of me. I started to not like the parts that were adjoined to me and that took me searching for something I could like, something I could be proud of.  Be clear, not what others were proud of. By many standards I had arrived; the covers of magazines, Emmy award, designer clothes the Oprah Show, it couldn't get any better.

But I felt lost and I started to not like myself. I didn't like the me when the camera lights were turned off and the St. John was in the closet. I remember after fucking one day I felt this emptiness. It was all in my spirit.

As me and that accomplished young thang were riding down on the elevator it hit me. I needed to find me. He sensed something and asked, "Is everything ok." "No," I said. He reached over and grabbed me and asked, "Is there anything I can do?" I looked up into that rich dark brown chocolate face of his and said, "No, but there's something I can do."

That day well over 10 years ago, was the beginning of my journey of self-actualization. It took years and a lot of hard work to get to this place where I'm at now. It even meant a lot of lonely nights. I understood that it wasn't enough to know better... I had to apply it to my life. At the center of the madness was the little girl who had been violated. The little girl who had been taught that sex was love by example. I had to cry for her, the little lost girl and the lost of her innocence in order to move beyond the woman that she had become to the women I was intended to be.

Today I understand my worth. I understand that my vagina is only a part of the whole and to place value above one is to diminish the other. I will never go back to that place, not for ANYONE! My wholeness is the cornerstone of my life.

What I Think About HIV Home Testing...

Today the FDA approved the first  rapid take home HIV Antibody Test, Oral Quick. I have to be honest, I have mixed feelings about it. On one level I get it, there are about 240,000 people in the United States that do not know their HIV status and with this in mind, there is a need to have as many vehicles possible for people to get HIV tested.

Testing is important because the early you know your status, the early you get into treatment, the longer you are likely to live. Also, early anti-viral treatment  lowers the chances by 96% that a person will pass HIV to their partners.  Approximately 38% of newly diagnosed cases of HIV are people infected by persons that didn't know that they were infected. With 50,000 new cases of HIV in the United States a year, testing is critical. Treatment can becomes a form of prevention, but a person has to know their status to get to this point. Also, most people who know their HIV status try to protect their partners from infections

I get it! Testing is important! However, I also understand that there is still so much stigma around HIV. I think technology around HIV/AIDS has surpassed attitudes about HIV. Some days, I think we are still in the dark ages with how people feel about people with HIV. I blogged about that on Monday's Reflection.

I'm not sure that testing yourself alone is the best place to learn your status. If your test comes back negative their will be a hugh relief. But what happens when you test positive? Will you have enough courage to go to the doctors to begin the treatment process?

The guilt and shame that comes with an HIV diagnosis is imsurmoutable. A person has to be strong to get a positive HIV test  result at home. For Real! I learned my status from the Red Cross after routinely donating blood. It was in the early days, so the meeting only lasted 5 minutes. There wasn't much to tell me back then a like today. The only hope was that I would never make a transition to AIDS. If I didn't know God, I mean if I hadn't already lived a life time by the time I was 23 and diagnosed with HIV, I would have walked straight into the Potomac River. But I did know God, and I have always believed that God's plan was bigger than my plan, so I kept it moving.

But what about the people who don't have that kind of solid strength? What about those who test positive and go into denial. I foresee a lot of denial and thats both easy and dangerous. It's easy because there are no HIV symptoms, NONE. Symptoms only come 7-10 years after you are infected with HIV and making a transition to AIDS. A person can test positive and walk away thinking, "This has got to be wrong, I don't feel sick."

Also, the home test is only 92 percent accurate for people who are actually positive, while 99.98 for those who do not have HIV. This means that 12 would get a false negative and 1 and 5,000 uninfected would get a false positive.  Both of these come with a host self-explanatory problems.

At the end of the day, I still believe the best place to get tested for HIV is in a clinic that specializes in HIV testing, like an AIDS Clinic or the Health Department with trained HIV Counselors. Pre and Post Testing Counseling is important. It helps you to hash out your life in a way to truly understand your risk factors, it provides support and reassurance, no matter what your test result are. Taking an HIV test in Isolation can be dangerous.

If in fact you do decide to use the home HIV test, my recommendation is that no matter what your test results are, you should be re-tested  with a blood draw by a health professional.

 If you do test positive for sure, you must seek medical attention immediately, knowing that you are positive and doing nothing at all is just like not knowing. Expect you do know. Slowing disease progression should be your priority. Yes, it's true that HIV/AIDS is no longer the death sentence that it once was, but that is only true if you seek treatment as early as possible.

Technology has come a long way in the thirty-two years since the first cases of HIV in the United States. If we are going to take advantage of these advancements ,we should do it in the best way possible for our best benefit, otherwise it's futile.

Monday Reflection: I CAN'T with Nasty Ass UGLY!

I CAN'T! I just CAN'T with these people! Be CLEAR, I moved beyond the shame of having HIV when I appeared on the cover of Essence magazine!  The NASTY ASS UGLY that comes to me on this blog, is sickening! It only shows me how fucking far we have got to go. When I woke up this morning at 5:30 this comment was waiting for me. I glanced at my e-mails and I couldn't go back to sleep.

Here's the Comment...
my husband and i were sitting here laughing at your story bout how you want a man, seriously doe...and he said that you need to seal that nasty pussy off for good! for real doe, nobody will take you seriously, and only a crazy man would accept that funky thang girl! thats fo real, but keep on postin yo biz if it makes u feel better an dont be mad when i post back. feel sorry for u honey your life seems to sux

So it's 5:51 and I'm going to try to write this blog before I explode. I'm not going to reduce this response to my pussy, all I'm going to say about that is, tell me that shit or any man that I have dated, face to face. Be CLEAR, I am not responding for me, I'm responding for EVERY Person who is living with HIV/AIDS in the world. I have a lot of international people who read my blog with HIV and I will NOT allow you to make them feel little or deter them from coming back.

 I am not ashamed of one part of me, not my face, or my vagina. Are we still living in the dark ages? I know some of you will say, it's just her, the one that made the comment. I should ignore her.  She's small; yes she and her husband are small. They seem like a perfect match.  #ForReal. But at the end of the day, all it takes is for one small person to sling hate to make it OK and  if we stay silent in the face of hate before you know it, Hitler is ruling. If I weren't so mad I would cry.

This comment speaks volumes to why people with HIV do not disclose their HIV status, even to their family until they are on their death bed. I'm not talking about with their sexual partners; statics show that the majority of people with HIV will tell and do tell their partners. It's a mutual secret that they both live with. I know that to be true in my own life. I did that the first seven years that I knew my HIV status. I told men that I dated, but in 7 years I only told 7 friends that I had HIV, and no family, as little family as I had at the time.

The shame we feel is insurmountable. To know that you have this infection inside of you, this health condition that people despise and you can't get rid of is a heavy load to carry daily. The fear of rejection and judgments is like a cast iron skillet lying on your heart.

 Ok, let me be honest, I just stopped writing and cried. I cried for the every person living with HIV in secret; for every person living with HIV alone. I cried for the 63 year old woman who has written me, but has told NO one that she has HIV. I cried for the 43 year old woman whose mother takes her to the clinic, but won't go in. I cried for my Soror, who is living in secret and feels isolated.  I cried for the man from Uganda who wrote me to say, my blog helps him not feel so alone.

 I cried for my girlfriend Wunadra, a doctor herself, who was too ashamed to allow her colleagues to see her take her medication. Who never told her pastor, although she and her husband who is negative, were leaders in the church. The shame killed her. Inconsistency in her treatment because of fear of being found out, made her HIV resistant and aggressive and that killed her.

I cried for my best friend from high school Tory who was too ashamed to disclose his HIV status, he would wear baggy clothes in public and pee in a jar at night so his roommate wouldn't see how thin he had become. AIDS ravaged his body and the shame kept him so isolated that he didn't seek help.  When they took him to the hospital there were jars of urine under the bed. We all learned his HIV status when he was hospitalized and he died a week later. I promised him on his death bed that I would give him voice through my story until the day I die.

I was working on this blog yesterday morning, but I had to step away from it and get my spirit and attitude right. I don't want what I say to be about the attack on me and my right or ability to date. Honestly, my feelings were really hurt and my BFF Markeeda said that people have said worst things to me on this blog and they have.

This comment took me back to everything I thought those first years that I learned that I had HIV. No one would want me. No one should want me! Who would hire me? What would people think of me? Will they see me as a whore? Will all my RESPECTABILITY go out the window with HIV?  I knew if  Mama learned that I had HIV it would serve as more fuel for her denial. Instead of addressing the fact that her husband was  a sick pervert, I would continue to be the whore in her mind. All of these things made me guard my health condition with my life and all the energy I could muster up. I spent more energy guarding my secret, rather than learning about HIV and what was happening to me. I wouldn't dare read an article on HIV for fear that someone would think I had HIV from just reading about it.

HIV is the modern day leprosy, we just wear our shame on the inside and it is sealed in our hearts. The shame is a heavy burden. This has got to CHANGE! People are living with HIV in 2012, thirty-two years into the pandemic in shame, in secret and alone.

This is the attitude that isolates people with HIV. It also undergirds misinformation and misunderstanding about HIV. Men in Africa who think they can "Cleanse" themselves if they rape a virgin baby girl. In the US things are not that much different. In the South were the numbers have surged, there is still so much misunderstanding. People are isolated in their own families, churches and community.

If you think I don't have the right to date that's one thing, but to tell me I'm nasty is another thing. To say only a crazy man would date me, is to suggest because I have HIV no one should love me or want to be with me; and by the way, with advancements in  treatment for HIV/AIDS, it's about a 2% chance that a person will become infected if their partner is on HIV medication and their Viral Load is non-detectable. It's those people who don't know their status that drive the  infection rate higher.

To tell me that my life sucks, gives me no hope to live. This attitude forces people with HIV underground. It speaks to the core of how people feel about this disease and places a ball and chain on our ankles.

This is also one reason people don't go get tested for HIV. Who would want to know their HIV status when people feel this way about people with HIV?  Its like a life of doom in people's minds. Having to deal with the day-to-day of the illness, then turn around and deal with the attitudes of people while trying to care for yourself at the same time is over load.

The fact that people don't go get tested, only drives the infection rate up.  Be clear, this is a problem in the African-American community. We are 53% of all HIV cases in the United States and only 13% of the population. About 38% of  all newly diagnosed cases of HIV, are people infected by people that don't  know their HIV status.

Also, most African-Americans discover their status when they are already sick and transitioned to AIDS. Which means they have been living with HIV somewhere between 7-10 years? As a result, we don't benefit from the treatment and care like our white counter parts. The earlier you know your HIV status, the longer you live, but who wants to know in a world of this?  The sad thing is this woman and her husband are not the only ones that think this way, she was just bold enough to say it, at least in writing. She would probably never say it to my face.

When are we going to stop this madness? When are we going to be a beacon of light in this world? My friend Robert, a minister himself, said after I read this comment to him, that he bet she is in someone's church this morning and I wouldn't doubt it.

The kind of judgments and the way they are presented on this blog to me are mind blowing and often it's from someone who is setting me straight in the name of Jesus. Jesus was all about love, LOVE! Jesus never turned anyone away. NOT ONE! The woman caught in adultery, the woman that anointed His feet with oil, the thief dying on the cross, Jesus extended himself without judgments. He didn't tell the thief you gotta promise you ain't gonna sin no more, he simply said, "Today you shall be with me in paradise." That's so powerful, POWERFUL! And it's our example, even in dying He left us an example on how to treat people.

When are we going to GET IT? My father in ministry Rev. Clay Evans use to say, "Don't be so heavenly bound you are no earthly good." When are we going to get it? We are our brother/sisters keeper? When did the African-American community become so cold and selfish? When did the Black Church become about how much we can get from God, rather than how much we can give to God's people?

Jesus only gave two commandments in His earthy ministry. The leaders of  CHURCH got together to challenge the ministry of Jesus. The Bible said that after the Sadducees had attempted to challenge Jesus and failed the  Pharisees, "Gathered their focus for an attack." One of them an expert in the law, tested him with this question, "Teacher which it the greatest commandment in the Law?"

Faced with the Law in front of him, Jesus gave TWO commandments, "Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with your soul and with your mind.  The Message translation says, "With all your passion and prayer and intelligence."

This is the first of the greatest commandant. And the second is like it, "Love your neighbor as yourself."  Message translation says, "Love thy neighbor as well as yourself." (Matthew 23:34-39)

When are we really gonna start living the Word over and above getting people straight on the Word? When are we going to become that village again that we once were? Does your family member live with HIV in isolation? Is your family and home an environment that permits them to talk about their status? Do you know their T-Cell count and Viral Load? Why haven't you asked?  Do you know how many pills they take? I bet if they had any other medication condition you would inquire and be as supportive as you can.  We either get silence on the one hand, or ugly on the other. This isolation is a death sentence, not AIDS.

What is your church doing? With the rate of HIV/AIDS in the black community you cannot tell me it's not in out churches and family. This disease is killing us, make no mistakes, and the ugly and the silence is fuel that speeds up  and spreads this disease.

I've had enough of the ugly and I will no longer brush it off. I will tackle it head own. The Hitler's of this world must be STOPPED! When are we going to be the CHANGE? #IcanntdoitAlone Together WE can be the Change! It starts in our hearts and flows to our family, home, churches and organizations...