I think I'm being too logical for my own good.

[Deleterious]

Hey all.

So this is my first post here since my 'I just tested positive' novella of self-flagellation a few months ago. The shock has somewhat subsided, I'm on Triumeq and responding well. All is good in the world.

I now find myself in a really weird mental space. Despite how much I know that there's nothing I really need to worry about in terms of my health, financial situation, social situation etc I still find myself just wanting to hide away and cry my eyes out. And no amount of logical thinking can explain why the hell I feel like this. I'm not dying or at risk of being ostracised by the people I love, so why the mental agony?

I think some of it comes from a feeling that it's somehow unfair. Unfair that this is so easy for me, when so many other people had to suffer and die. I should be counting my blessings, but instead I so often find myself dwelling on the rather gruesome past of AIDS. Perhaps it's just my brain's way of letting me feel emotional about my situation without having to deal with my 'there's no logical reason for me to be upset about my diagnosis' stance.

I guess I'm asking if anyone else has felt this way. I'm only twenty-six, so AIDS has never really been a reality for me. I've only known HIV, and the swift progress of medicine in treating it. Metaphorically speaking, I feel like I'm trying to write a book report on something I haven't actually read. Everyone, including myself, is waiting to hear my thoughts and responses to this challenging text and all I've got to work with is other people's reviews. And I feel really shitty that everyone (once again, myself included) expects me to be emotional and 'changed' by what is, by all accounts, a major entry in the canon of contemporary literature.

Gah, it's a bit of a mindfuck to say the least.

Thoughts?

(:

[harleymc]

Dear Deleterious,

I'm not surprised that the biggest thing in your life right at the moment is HIV, it's new and it is big. You will process this over time but...

Have a talk to your doctor, hiding away when you're down and blue isn't going to make you feel better. You need a recovery plan for your mental health too. Your doctor can help you with this. It's not a sign of weakness to reach out for help, it shows self awareness and courage.

Just so you know there's a bit of light at the end of the tunnel...

Other things can be new and big too, getting to undetectable, changing jobs, joining a sports team, going hard at the gym, a new hobby, doing a bit of volunteering, a new love affair...

Big hugs to you

[mecch]

Deleterious - I don't have a clue what mechanism is working in your head with the rote thinking about the dark days of AIDS.  Maybe there's something here: "Perhaps it's just my brain's way of letting me feel emotional about my situation without having to deal with my 'there's no logical reason for me to be upset about my diagnosis' stance."

I guess only a shrink could help you figure it out.

I suggest, if you haven't, go watch a couple of the many good documentaries about the time, the films, and some books, and get it out of your system. It's going to come off churlish if you over invest in guilt because AIDS has been too easy for you. And its also a kind of grief porn, in my opinion. Just learn about it, if you haven't process it, and move on. 

I don't think all that many people, in similiar circumstances, feel like you say you are feeling. Well maybe fleetingly, but not for long.  People are pretty much grateful for medical advances and thank their stars they can take advantage of them, when they can. 

I'll agree its a bit uncanny that things can change from a nightmare to something very manageable.  Surely AIDS/HIV isn't the only situation in a lifetime where these things happen.

[Deleterious]

Grief porn. I wrote that term in my diary the other day, I had no idea it was actually a thing. Well, it definitely is now anyway.

Truth be told I think just telling someone else (even digitally) and hearing 'That's a bit morbid' has helped shake it a lot. It does seem rather unhealthy, by the light of day while drinking a coffee.

I'm sure I'll get over all this crap. It's still early days, and being generally uninspired in lots of facets of my life simultaneously tends to open the door to weird little obsessions, I find. Enter the crazy thought of 'maybe I should work toward making my life a little more enjoyable'...

I've already seen a psychologist, but I think he's used to significantly more fucked up patients than myself. I got a rather underwhelming diagnosis of 'unremarkable' and sent on my way. I think the fun I had cackling with my friends about that was as healing as any course of therapy could have been haha.

But even now, sitting in the sun and free from morbid preoccupation, I find it a strange place to be. It's difficult to really respond to HIV when all at once you know a) it was fucking terrifying and deadly not twenty years ago, b) now it's not, it's just a pill I need to take and c) everyone I tell seems to be equally unsure of the gravity of the situation. And I suppose also d), that millions of people in other countries still live the reality of point A.

But enough philosophising. I'll just re-gloom myself.

And you're right; I don't imagine many new mothers enter a whirlpool of guilt because they weren't around in the thalidomide era, or think of the thousands of women that died pre-penicillin.

Cheers ^^

[CaveyUK]

I sort-of get where you are coming from.

I spend quite a bit of time telling newly dx'ed people how optimistic things are these days, compared to the old outlook.

But occasionally I stop and reflect on the early days of HIV and how it would have felt to be in the same situation back then. Looking at documentaries or reading stories from LTS folk about the destruction of their communities, or their families really makes me shudder.

I wouldn't however say this manifests as depression and is usually short lived because the flip side of the sadness at the past is the feeling of intense gratitude that we live in an era where we *can* live normal lives, with fairly benign and easy to take meds.

Do I feel 'guilt' at living in this era? Perhaps a little. But such a thing is not completely without precedent. As you said, many years ago they discovered penicillin and this discovery stopped people dying young of various standard infections. I can imagine a similar feeling existed for people who knew or heard-first-hand about the situation before the meds existed (ie. spanned the two eras). Of course, over time all of that subsides and now we don't even think about any of that as we gulp down some antibiotics for a throat infection and go about our business, but that would have been similar. I'm sure there are more recent examples too.

[jckent]

I know exactly what you mean.
I am the same.
I keep thinking why do I feel, lost, confused,  not exactly guilty, but something like it.

I can't quite put my finger on how I feel.
I know I am actually physically healthy, also on Triumeq. VL =UD, cd 400+

I know I am depressed and still coming to terms, even after 11 months.
My counsellor said it it PTSD.   My brain trying to deal with the lose.


I am sure this is common,

[harleymc]

It might be 'common' but it's not 'in common'.

We don't need to live with this, it can be worked through very successfully.

[newbie2016]

I have been feeling the same way, and i did have a chuckle to your psychologist comment, as I am supposdely coping vey well, I am but for the past week i feel much like you, Another hiv friend said Did i greieve, yes i did and i guess with it maybe we go through stages after a diagnoses of hiv, who knows.
I get you the why are we worry with medication today, acceptance, for me it is how will i ever be able to keep living a lie to most of the people i know, no they don't need to know,why because spare me the sympathy, what would change? i am undetectable, i'm doing fine. I hope you are undetectable as well!
I guess i think it maybe the overwhelming year i have had, as the care, doctor's visits all come to a end, my last counselling session is near, no one to vent to, in someways the same as the councillor has from the beginning, letting go of those support systems, good for sure but leaving me feeling vulnerable, Who is going to say, get your thinking back on track! I need a year more i feel!
I overthink as well,, it gets exhausting!!

[harleymc]

"Living a lie"?
Really?

So what if you have a medical condition, lots of people do. It isn't compulsory to share. Neither is it compulsory to think that well controlled HIV is so shocking that you can't mention it.

[CaveyUK]

thats my thought as well.

There are many medical conditions that I simply would choose not to share with people, and I guess this is the same with pretty much everyone. That doesn't mean I'm lying about it or indeed, living a lie.

[giomanach]

"living a lie" is something that I have been fighting with as well. But I guess people will hide some part of their lives and this might not be too different. At least that is what I keep telling myself at the moment.