We’re delighted that Tyler Curry, writer and ‘intellectual vagabond’, has agreed to featured on our Positive People pages. We’re honoured to have so many inspiring individuals living with HIV agree to become advocates for our charity, and Tyler’s story – which you can now read here – is fantastic. Tyler maintains a regular blog at the Huffington Post, which you should all subscribe to, but in the meantime here’s a taster of his contribution to Saving Lives:
Telling my story gave me freedom. I had dithered on whether to publish my status right up until the moment it went viral, but the doubts I was wrestling with were eviscerated within mere seconds. Almost instantaneously, I was inundated with people who only had empathy and a willingness to begin a new conversation. The judgment of strangers that I had fretted over before seemed stale.
Furthermore, I received messages from men across the country who were going through experiences similar to my own. They told me about their fears, the dread that lived in the pit of their hearts and their battles with depression. Weaved within these messages, however, was a sense of hope that maybe they, too, would begin to open up about their HIV-positive status.
Thanks again to Tyler for joining Positive People – and for writing so well about his experience of disclosure and public advocacy.