27 Years Living with HIV

posted: 08/03/2011

A Nottingham man diagnosed with HIV more than 25 years ago when he was 14, talks to his local paper about his life. He tells us about sex, relationships, and how talking openly about HIV with partners and others has helped change his life.

Matt Gregory is now a HIV health and treatment worker with Terrence Higgins Trust in Nottingham. He said: "To see the relief on someone's face when the HIV test comes back as negative is a great experience. If some people do test positive it's good they know as it gives them choices. I would rather know I am positive than be kept in the dark. I have choices about treatment, lifestyle and sexual partners."

Read and find inspiration in Matt's story of living with HIV.

Positive Speakers from George House Trust

HIV Status Talking

posted: 01/11/2010

Figures suggest that one in seven gay men on the scene in big cities has HIV, and that among men in their 30s and 40s, perhaps 1 in 3 men have HIV. Shocked? Many gay guys act like the risks aren't there and don’t seem worried. Almost half the gay men having casual sex never talk about HIV status with their partners.

Telling confidence 

Telling partners about having HIV is connected with how confident we feel. "It depends on how someone disclosing their status was taken in the past," Sona Barbosa of GMFA explains. "Some people have had really good feedback and they feel more confident saying, 'I'm HIV positive.' But those who've had negative feedback feel more reluctant to disclose."
 

Negative silence

HIV-negative men find talking about their own HIV status hard to talk about, as the men worry that being open about HIV will frighten off their shag. "People think, 'If I talk too much, I won't be accepted. If I broach the subject of being safe, I may lose the person: and so they find it's better not to talk, and not to risk losing the opportunity.'

But why take the risks (by not talking about your HIV status and not using condoms), putting your health on the line, and then face all the worries that follow taking those risks?
 

"This is such a cliché, but it's better to be safe than sorry;' says Peter Stevens, agony uncle for QX, the gay lifestyle magazine. "Lots of people are honest, but some guys lie about their status, and others might not even know they're HIV-positive.

So, if you can't be certain of someone's status, be aware of the ways the HIV virus can be transmitted, and make sure you're confident enough to ensure you both practise safer sex.”
 

The latest issue of FS for NW England for gay and bi men from gmfa includes articles on

• being more confident in talking about sex
• sex, drugs and smoking and breaking our bad habits now
• the 6 stupidest sex questions ever
• the FS problem page

Disclosure Workshop - Telling Others

posted: 24/06/2010

Come along and take part in this interactive workshop about the who, why, when and how of telling people about your HIV status. The evening will be an opportunity to learn from other people’s experiences of disclosure - and to share what you’ve learned from telling others about having HIV.

• Who should I disclose to?
• When should I tell?
• Why should I tell?
• How should I tell others?
• Where is a good place to tell?
• What are the advantages and disadvantges? 

This interactive workshop will be led by Colin Armstead and Daniel Murphy, both Service and Development Managers at George House Trust.

Wednesday July 7
5.30pm (for light refreshments) to 8pm

There will be NO CRÈCHE at this workshop.

TRAVEL EXPENSES will be available to people who qualify.

This Disclosure Workshop is for ALL George House Trust service users.

For more information please email Colin or Daniel - or ring Colin or Daniel on 0161 274 4499

Psychologists and Confidentiality

posted: 08/03/2010

A 20 page booklet of guidance from the British Psychological Society advises psychologists working in the NHS how to deal with HIV confidentiality where people may be exposing their partners to HIV. The guidance – ‘Criminalisation of HIV Transmission – guidelines regarding confidentiality and exposure’ has best practice guidelines, sections on dealing with police enquires and on disclosing information to partners, and what the various codes of ethics and types of professional guidance say.

These guidelines on HIV confidentiality and disclosure were developed to help clinical psychologists where HIV-positive clients have not disclosed their status to their sexual partners and there is a significant risk for HIV transmission. They have also been developed to assist clinical psychologists when clients believe they have contracted HIV under these circumstances.

This 2009 booklet costs £4.70 to people who are not members of the British Psychological Association.
 

Stigma and Supporting Disclosure

posted: 16/11/2009

How much do our friends and family influence our lives? Living with HIV, we rely on our social network for advice, emotional support, and information. But to get this HIV support, we have to disclose our HIV-positive status. Disclosing status almost always has some risk. We might be rejected, or experience their discomfort about HIV.
 

Practice makes telling easier
The advantages of telling others about being HIV positive status are well known, and one advantage is the "practice effect." The more we successfully tell others, the easier it becomes. Even if it didn’t go well, we still learn from the experience and will be more prepared next time. Positive experiences in telling others encourage us to do it again.
 

But negative experiences like rejection, and sometimes even physical abuse, may reinforce the social stigma we feel. What we feel and think about HIV stigma is based on what we know about the reality of HIV stigma and discrimination, the actual or potential social disenfranchisement, limitation of opportunity, and negative change in social identity.
 

Internalising stigma and the telling moment
Perceived stigma may lead to various outcomes, including negative changes in self-concept and emotional reactions toward those who may invoke the stigma. HIV-positive people tend to tell significant other people about HIV once they think the rewards of telling will outweigh the possible costs and risks.

Disclosing benefits
Telling others can lead to receiving more and better emotional, physical, and social support. The emotional benefits include

• social support,
• relief that comes from sharing a burdensome secret, and
• the reward of educating others about HIV.

Reasons for secrecy
Reasons for not telling people are

• fear of rejection,
• fear of stigma,
• privacy,
• self-blame, and
• risking the opportunity of sex.

We want to avoid serious negative consequences, so we avoid taking the risk of telling.

How do HIV stigma and social support influence telling partners?
This study gave people different situations and they were asked to say how willing they would be to tell the partner then about HIV. The study tried to discover what encourages HIV disclosure to sex partners, and what discourages disclosure, from the perspectives of HIV-positive gay men.

The study was of gay men using a Chicago, USA, HIV support organisation. The men were between the ages of 18 and 63, gay, 90% white, and 60% were diagnosed over 4 years. 80% of the men were on treatment.

"I've told all but family, who have issues."
The men had a wide range of views on stigma. Feeling socially supported didn’t seem to make this sample of men more ready to tell others. As earlier studies have shown, other things that predict telling sex partners include

• type of sexual relationship and
• adult romantic attachment style.

Social support might not have made the difference in telling for these men because it is possible the partners were part of the men’s existing HIV+ support networks. Many gay men with HIV have many positive men in their friendship networks.

The more socially supported and networked the men are, the less stigma hurts and harms them. Social support allows people to cope better with HIV stigma. Boosting social support therefore could be a way to improve how well people cope with HIV stigma.

This particular study of well-networked positive gay men did not find evidence that better social support encourages telling sex partners. Telling sex partners you have HIV is important because it alerts partners to the risks but telling partners does not automatically lead to changes in sexual risk taking. Some men confident about safer sex might ‘do’ the safer sex to avoid disclosure. Not telling, but using safer sex, seems to be doing enough morally.

Social support supports safer sex

The study did find social support helped men to have safer sex. Having safer sex and not telling suggests past experiences of sexual rejection after disclosure, and not being willing to risk such sexual rejection.

Social support from other HIV-positive gay men encourages men to initiate safer-sex, but didn’t, in this study, increase disclosing to sexual partners. The researcher speculates that most of the gay men probably knew each other already (including their shared HIV status) through using the same HIV support organisation for over four years. Probably for most of the positive gay men, there was simply nothing to say about both men having HIV.

Perhaps social support made no difference to telling sex partners partly because positive gay men often deliberately seek out other positive gay men as sex partners. Perhaps simply coming to a HIV+ social support group improves men’s communication skills and confidence about managing safer sex, with or without disclosure.

Feeling better after a good tell
Disclosing HIV may help improve psychological well-being if the response is good and positive. The value of a HIV support group comes from sharing information, and physical and emotional experiences and learning. For example, HIV-positive gay men can provide others with emotional support and reassurance that one is loved and valued despite HIV-positive status. HIV-positive gay friends can also provide empathy, familiarity and trust.

Telling other positive people does not, however, always help people tell people who, we assume, doesn’t have HIV.

Source

Help with telling people including a video from Terrence Higgins Trust