amoung friends

[lucas clay]

I went to a meeting of positive people, hoping to gain some insight on how to better deal with "life with hiv".
I left feeling worse than ever, seems things people were talking about just opened up old wounds.

The next one will have doctors talking about meds and then the people will talk about how it affects there everyday life.
I will go to the next one, hope it goes better the next time around.

One discussion i found very interesting was about labels we put on people, I read about my best bi friend, or my best gay friend on the forums from a few of the members.
Seems a few of the people there stated that they never looked at it that way, if they were bi gay or hetero. It was just who they fell in love with at the time.
I would hate to be labeled as "my best positive friend"
Just tossing it out there, may be a good topic for discussion.

I did find kind of a aso near here from a person so  i will try to check into that.

                                                                 Lucas

[Joe K]

Hey Lucas,

Your frustration with most support groups is pretty universal because there are just not the funds to have all the groups we really need to have.  When I lived in Fort Lauderdale, FL. we had a group called "Positive Attitudes" and the sole purpose of the group was to have adult conversations about gay topics and other things of interest.  No topic was forbidden, except for talking about HIV medications or treatments, because there were dozens of other groups for those topics.

At one point we had over 200 members and we would have picnics and pool parties, anything to remind us all that we are still living, breathing and thinking people.  Maybe you can find such a group or suggest that someone start one.  You do not need to be trained on how to run a support group  to run a group such as the one I describe.  You only need the interest and willingness to do some research for each topic that the group will discuss.  We used email to provide a list of topics for each meeting and then there would be a quick vote for which topics would be discussed at that particular meeting.  Topics not chosen at that meeting, would then move to the top of the list for the next meeting.  Very simple and incredibly powerful.

I wish you luck in finding what you need.

[Bucko]

Luc-

It's human nature to want to define people by their actions or appearance or the way they process thoughts and emotions internally, otherwise we wouldn't need so many damn adjectives like "brave" or "skinny" or "focused". The instant a definition is applied, a judgment is rendered and someone becomes part of a group of folks about whom similar judgments can be applied.

On of the main ingredients of humor is when this judgment is shared in unexpected ways. If someone doesn't get a joke, it's because s/he doesn't share the same judgment, or if s/he finds the judgment unfair. I could, for instance, joke that Jennifer Lopez looks more like a drag queen with every passing year. If you think drag queens are demeaning to women (and think JLo's the bomb), you'll be insulted. If you aren't familiar with drag queens (or JLo) you'll be stumped. If you think that JLo's artificial and slim of talent, you'll chuckle at a familiar observation. If the thought's never occurred to you and you think it's cuttingly accurate, you'll think it's hysterical if a little mean. Most really funny stuff's at least a little mean.

I think the danger is when you apply the judgment based on a completely superficial observation without getting to know the person in-depth, or when you form an automatic revulsion of an entire spectrum of behaviors without taking subtleties into account and are unable to judge people as individuals rather than as part of a group. It's also wrong to take a single attribute about a group and predict larger ranges of behavior: it's observant to see someone and recognize that s/he is Asian, for instance, and it's knowledgeable to presume that that person has dark eyes. But it's presumptive and racist to ascribe personality traits, behavior patterns or linguistic limitations to him or her.

      

[Oceanbeach]

I went to a meeting of positive people, hoping to gain some insight on how to better deal with "life with hiv".
I left feeling worse than ever, seems things people were talking about just opened up old wounds.

There is a little town I lived in briefly before moving to the Russian River, we had an HIV clinic with 60 client patients.  Of those 60 people living with HIV, there was 4 of us who joined the "Living With HIV Support Group".  The group was facilitated by Bruce, who had a PhD in Psychology.  Bruce would come to our county once each week for a 1 hour meeting.  Bruce admitted having never met any gay men, had never known any person with HIV and was computer illiterate.  We ran our own meeting, selected our own topics for discussion and I was selected by the other 60 client/patients to Chair of our Community Advisory Board.  According to the Board of Supervisors, County of Lake, there were no persons living in Lake County, who had HIV.  Our Healthcare provider network did not provide an ID doc for 3 of the years, I lived there, a Nurse was sent from Mendocino County while our medical records were signed off by an MD who we never met.

One day after follow-ups with the Nurse, I was left in the exam room alone with my medical file.  My time in the "Living With HIV Support Group" was billed to Medicare as "treatment for depression".    Have the best day
Michael