Lily’s Take
Hey, it is a FREAK to hear, “You have HIV.” Of course, that punctuation is all wrong, because what your voice isn’t saying, your head is SCREAMING, No FREAK’IN WAY!!!!” Followed shortly with, “IT CAN’T BE ME! Who did this to me?” and so on, until your head feels like it is spinning of your neck. Projectile vomiting is not out of the question here.
After scraping myselfoff the floor, and pasting some essemblance of my face back, well on to my face, I then like a Zombie make the mindless walk out the door of the testing facility, all the time feeling like I was somewhere between a full out freak’in panic attack, and the serious need to hit something really, really hard. Several times until I felt better, or was too bloody.
Maybe THEY are wrong? Not me after all?
Once the fresh air hit me, I finally struggle in a long, deep breath, stopped to get out a cigarette, Coughed a few times, and it was then it hit me that the people around me on the walk, had absolutely no idea whatsoever what just happened to me a few seconds ago-Or at least it seemed like just a few seconds ago, especially since everything seemed to be going in slow motion.
They however, looked at me no differently, despite the freak-out happening behind my “Big Baby Blues”.
The HIV Twilight Zone:All of a sudden it’s Lonely. Choaking fear. Scared Sh*TLESS. Where should I go, who should I tell. I must think. this won’t end well, all flash over and over again in your head, like a LosVegas Casino marqee. Nausiating. Exhausting. Inconvenient. Loser. Whore. Slut…
Um, what did you just SAY? Could you repeat that please? HIV?
It didn’t help any that I was considered the least likely to ever…Fill in the blank, in High School, or in my circle of friends, either. Nerd/Freak I was, so this diagnosis just confirmed how “Special” I was, like my family had been saying about me since my birth. Little did they know yet, just how freaky things were goihng to get.
It took me wweeks to tell anyone. Well not totally true. I called “Mr. Last Kind-a Perfect” and unburdened my soul and test results on him.
I am not sure what I really expected out of him, still trying to come to grips with my HIV status myself, but I sure didn’t expect or I guess, want to believe that he would do me the way he did, either.
what he did say confirmed for me that I’d better strap on some body armor, “grow an inch thick layer of new, tougher skin, and prepare for the battle of my life!
Him: “Umm…Well, aahhh…Um I’m not too sure what to say…”, the uncharacteristicly strained voice I thought I knew so well, stammered out in a voice I suddenly didn’t recognize.
“Well me neither. Shouldn’t you go get tested, too? It only takes a little blood…”, I choaked out
He interrupted me, saying, “Why should I, you dumb B*tch? I don’t have anything wrong with me!” He continued on without taking a breath, “I don’t want anything to do with you ever again…EVER!”
If that wasn’t humbling enough, or dramatic enough, he screeched, “I hope you DIE!”
As the line went dead.
I felt dead.
I caught my reflection in the mirror on the other side of the room, and realized that I was alone, and that I was going to do this new chapter of my life evidently ALONE, too.
I was going to have to fight, become a warrior to save my own life. I sure didn’t see any line of those great friends of mine, who supposedly “always would be there” for me, forming behind me, either!
I was positive for a few STD’s not just HIV wen I got my test results. Why the H*LL NOT?! Embarrassing, but I’m still glad I got tested when I did. Before I left I was given meds to cure my “Other Little Lovelies”, too. What a relief, not to have to go right away to another doc, I was still a little shelshocked…
Part one of three…