September 2011

I understand that may seem like a hugely controversial question, but for me it is a question I have often asked myself.

If I hadn’t discovered that I was HIV-positive, would I have been brave enough to enter therapy and confront the behaviours and fears that in hindsight were holding me back?

Would I have continued to enter and leave relationships that challenged me to be honest with myself?

Would I have continued to live a life semi-estranged from my family?

Would I have carried on blaming others for my own failings and never taken responsibility for life and myself?

As I sit here writing this, it’s hard to know what the answer to any of these questions is. It’s entirely possible that at some stage I would have been tired of the life I was living and sought answers and changed the patterns myself. I might have had a breakdown and entered therapy anyway.

And whilst I wish I’d never contracted HIV, I cannot change that fact that I have. But when I look at the changes that the catalyst of my diagnosis has caused, I cannot help but be thankful that SOMETHING enabled me to take the steps that have led me to being the person I am today.

It didn’t take my diagnosis for me to realise I was unhappy with the patterns in my life. I was fully aware that there was something or things that were making me incapable of living the life I wanted. I had read the books and gone on the courses - so many I couldn’t even begin to list them all for you. And every time I tried to bring about change I learned something invaluable. It wasn’t until the breakdown I had almost three years after discovering I was positive that I honestly took the decision to make changes in order to figure out who I actually am and what I really want.

I imagine it must be the same for any addict. Until you decide that the life you’re living isn’t worth living you will never be able to move through it and make the changes needed in order to allow yourself to live a life you can be proud of.

My drug was 'drama!' Or ‘woe is me syndrome’. I had lived all my adult life lurching from one trauma to another. Some of them self-induced and some not, but really what I was addicted to was the feeling of validation I got from people acknowledging the drama in my life. It gave me a feeling of self worth.

Unfortunately the people in my life would eventually get bored of the drama and cut me off. So I would begin to look for a new group of people to woo at first, then start the drama all over again.

In the 23 years I have lived in London I have gone through three groups of friends, which never overlapped as they were three distinct periods of time. When the first two came to an end I was lost and wondered why I was suddenly alone, yet the third I actually removed myself from knowing that the end was in sight anyhow. Yet almost as soon as I did I regretted it and tried to work my way back in, but they had had enough and I was cut adrift again.

I bitched and moaned, of course, and blamed them for not understanding me, but, and I am being really truthful here, I honestly don’t blame them. When I look back I must have been exhausting.

The years leading up to me discovering I was positive were the loneliest of my life. I literally worked, ate, and slept, which is why I was sleeping around as much as I did as I was searching for something, a sense of belonging, friendships and companionship, and had I not been so filled with self loathing there were a lot of people whom I met who could have, and should have, become good friends or lovers. But I was looking for an answer or a cure to my loneliness, and when there wasn’t an instant fix I cut off and moved on.

I am not proud of who I was or the people I clearly hurt or disappointed, but the person I was letting down the most was myself. So many ruined opportunities to have fulfilment and happiness and to be a true friend squandered; relationships that can never be repaired - some due to me creating a lack of trust and some because the people I hurt are no longer around, or available to me.

Oddly enough, finding out I was positive wasn’t the drama that you might have expected having got this far. To be honest it floored me. Until then I thought I was invincible. I could party hard and was totally self-sufficient, needing no one but also no one needed me. Relationships and infatuations came and went. The infatuations hurting more than the failed friendships and relationships. But HIV was a relationship I had to work at. No matter how hard I tried to sabotage it, this one relationship was never going to abandon me. I had to come to an understanding with it.

That took a long time. Eventually it broke me down with its overbearing personality. I tried to run but it was just as fast and I could never escape from it. But when the breakdown came I discovered that HIV was in fact an epiphany not a cause. I was forced to look deeper than I had ever been prepared to look, accept things I had never wanted to accept, make amends for things I would never have accepted culpability for and file things where they needed to be filed.

The outcome has been truly amazing for me. I came to understand how wonderful certain people were in my life and I was able to start the process of making amends for all the things I had done that were unfair on the people that I affected. I began to understand the history behind the person I was.

So the person I am today, I think, is a better person than the one I was, or at least I’m now a person who has found a sense of compassion and empathy and self esteem that was not previously present in my life.

As much as I wish I had never contracted HIV, I have it to thank for making me a person who is no longer addicted to drama, with an ability to laugh at myself, able to appreciate friends and family and make new friends. And now I can face the future with a sense of excitement.

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