June 2012, part 2

I got some amazing news yesterday. News I wasn’t expecting. In fact I was expecting quite the reverse of what I in fact heard.

If you read my post ‘Higher Ground’ on the site a few weeks back you will know I have been going through a difficult time of late, mired with feelings of depression and then followed up by some health problems which have been a nuisance more than anything else but unfortunately there is still to be a diagnosis on what has been the cause of them. And until there is it is causing me a certain amount of concern.

Also been dealing with some emotional stuff the last couple of weeks that seems like a return to the Denis of many years ago. And as much as I know I should walk away from these emotions I just don’t seem to be able to.

You see there is this guy from my past who has recently reappeared in my life, I wrote two blog posts on my personal blog last year http://www.halfalifetime.com/2011/09/i-offered-him-my-heart-but-all-he-took.html and http://www.halfalifetime.com/2011/09/object-of-my-affection-obsession.html

I first met this guy about 9 years ago, a time when similar to now I was going through a difficult time in my career, and my emotions for him overtook everything else at the time. This was also the time I now realise on reflection was when I had the first of my nervous breakdowns. The breakdown wasn’t because of him, but my obsession for him and his rejection of me certainly exacerbated things.

I wrote about him last year when I was in a much more self aware and confident place than I am currently. At that time I thought it was me finally laying to rest feelings and emotions that had plagued me for all this time. I even mentioned him and the process, when I gave a speech at the National Samaritans conference last year http://soundcloud.com/you/tracks  

Shortly after first writing about him, he suddenly reappeared one morning at the gym I use. I had not seen or spoken to him in years. It threw me at the moment of it happening and it caused me to look at who I was back in the past and the power he had over me. Not a power he was aware of, but a power I had given him or at least the memory of him.

I thought and having subsequently written a follow up piece that I had dealt with that time and place and moved on, but recently, it and he have been causing me some moments of reflection and struggle.

What I didn’t write about at the time was the fact that he was Positive, certainly not the first person I had slept with who was positive. But my obsession with him caused me to view HIV in a very different way. You see in the past when I had met a guy who was positive it had been me who had stopped any potential developments in their tracks, as I didn’t feel it was something I was equipped to deal with as a partner. But with this guy it was him who had ceased any future because he didn’t feel he could be in a relationship with a guy who was negative.

After we split and in the midst as I said earlier of a breakdown I totally went off the rails for a while, doing a lot of drugs and having unprotected sex. Some would rightfully say at that time I was a bug chaser, because in my mind I felt if we were serosorted on an equal footing he would want me again.

The irony is that I came out of this period of my life relatively unscathed and uninfected. The only addiction I have ever developed other than cigarettes and coffee is for men who are no good for me. And after many nights smoking crystal meth and having bareback sex I woke up to the fact I was trying to kill myself and put a stop to it. Only to become infected a number of years later while sober and having safe sex.

I have never told anyone about what was going on for me back then, and I tell it now with a sense of shock and shame. I had managed to hide it even from myself, but when he was suddenly in front of me at the end of last year I was no longer able to hide it from me and I guess me writing it now is me hoping that by finally getting it out in the open will allow me to deal with the shame and let it go.

Had me seeing him been an isolated experience maybe I would have been able to hide again. However for some reason he carried on attending the gym I use on a Sunday morning, so I was faced with the turmoil of emotions and guilt on many occasions. At one point about two months ago I plucked up the courage to speak to him.

I had been telling myself it was the correct thing to do, as there was clearly an atmosphere and discomfort evident in both of us. So one Sunday as we where both changing he tripped over my sneakers as he was coming back from the shower, he apologised for stepping on my shoes and I made a joke about not worrying as I walked on them all the time, he gave a short laugh and I felt the moment was right to actually speak. All these Sundays I had felt like I wanted to say sorry to him for being the psychotic ex BF that I had been back then. He didn’t know what had gone in my life since then and to my knowledge didn’t know that I had gone on to become positive myself. So I did what I felt was needed, I explained to him that I had been struggling with finding the courage to do this but I felt an apology was in order. He graciously accepted and told me to forget about it.

And I didn’t see him for weeks after that, then one night he left a track on a dating sight, for all I know he didn’t even know that tracks of profile views are left but that seemed unlikely. I found myself re reading his profile and staring at his pictures and wondering if there was some hidden message in his leaving this track. On my profile I am upfront about my status as I find it better to be that way as then people know what is on offer so they can choose to message me or not. So if he had stopped to read it would know of my change in status.

He didn’t send a message or to my knowledge view my profile again, but it re ignited all those old emotions in me. You see this guy was truly mesmerising to me. And the most sexually compatible person I have ever been with, no one has ever come close in all these years since or any before. And with my depression making an ugly comeback of late it left me feeling vulnerable, but I managed to keep control of it and not obsess over him.

Then last Sunday having not seen him since we had spoken ever so briefly or the Manhunt track episode he turned up at the gym again, and for whatever reason decided to start a conversation, a very pedestrian one, just the basics of how are you and what are you up to? The kind of conversation you would have with an acquaintance you don’t know that well and have not seen for years. But I wanted to read a lot more into it, I wanted it to be a rapprochement, imagining an ultimate reconciliation, I wondered should I message him, and tried to guess what his response should be.

Anyhow with a certain amount of thanks I am happy to say I didn’t. As with the years of therapy and realising more self -awareness I saw that I was descending back to that very confused man I was all those years ago. So it seems I have learned a little more about who I am.

With all of this going on over the last handful of months, the stress, the sickness, the blackout and probably most dramatically the loneliness I have been feeling I was very concerned about what affect it would have on my counts. While attending the clinic last week I spoke at length to the doctor about my concerns particularly with regard to my CD4 count. He said that it could and probably would have an adverse effect and to prepare myself and not to be alarmed if as thought by both of us there was a substantial drop.

Each of us who are positive it seems judges how well we are doing by one particular count, for some its an undetectable viral load, for others it’s the percentage of virus in the system, for me my gauge has always been my CD4, when it has dropped in the past it has usually been at a time of stress or sickness or when I was totally engulfed in a major depressive episode. So I was expecting the worst possible result.

Well yesterday I got an email telling me that in fact it has not dropped but climbed to an all time high since infection of 860.

Maybe I will always have a feeling that this guy was a missed opportunity, and a love lost, maybe no one will measure up sexually or otherwise compatible until THE ONE comes along.

But now you know why I am having faith in numbers, if the numbers are good (and boy are they good) then maybe, just maybe, everything will be all right.