Jo Josh
HIV infection conjures up an image in people’s minds. Most infection is via unprotected sex and for a lot of people that means there’s something nasty about it. I hate the word “disclosure”. I don’t feel I have to “disclose” if I don’t want to. I didn’t tell my daughter until I’d come to terms with it myself. She was 18 at the time, and I was in shock. It takes a couple of years. To start with you don’t know much about HIV, how much better the medication is these days. Then you start to realise it’s going to be OK.
I’m just wrong for HIV: female, 60s, middle class. Some people can’t deal with it – Jo Josh
I “came out” by going on BBC News for Body & Soul, an HIV charity I’m involved with. Afterwards the phone wouldn’t stop ringing. My friends were supportive, but very emotional. A lot of them used the “death voice”, telling me how brave I was. “No, really, I’m fine,” I’d say. There were a few silences though.
I’m just wrong for HIV: female, 60s, middle class. Some people can’t deal with it. I don’t yet need any medication and I feel like a fraud sometimes. I’ve become a kind of pin-up for ageing with HIV. I don’t talk about how I was infected, though. It starts to become a bit of a soap opera, and I’m more interested in being open about life with HIV than how I got it. That’s the only way we’re going to change perceptions.
