HOW IT FEELS AFTER SENTENCED TO HIV-INFECTED?

When the results of blood tests indicate a person has HIV positive, real conditions are falling like falling ladder. Not only will live forever with the virus, but even worse is that sometimes one has to face the negative stigma from society. 

Not easy to accept when someone first found out he was HIV-positive. Is like receiving a death sentence, the reaction can vary. There are ordinary because they do not know anything about HIV, there is also a surprise to no speechless. 

However not everyone can accept and treat people living with HIV as men in general. Some still think the disease is only suffered by those who have immoral behavior, such as injecting drug use and promiscuity. 

In addition, knowledge about HIV transmission and prevention is still limited, so many are paranoid or experiencing excessive fear of the infected. Quite often excluded from the association of HIV, was dismissed from the workplace until expelled from school. 

These possibilities seem to realize true by the sufferers who are members of the community house Philia, an organization concerned with HIV / AIDS based in Rawamangun, East Jakarta. When talking with reporters on Saturday (27/11/2010), some people express her feelings when I first knew her HIV-positive. 

"Shock .. yes of course, in shock," said Tono, say so, a man with HIV who are now active as a volunteer companion even for his fellow people living with HIV-positive in the community. He has difficulty finding appropriate words to describe her feelings. 

Startled reaction or shock is the most common reactions experienced by people living with HIV when it first knew he was infected. Sometimes this reaction is accompanied with an attitude of rejection or denial, that feeling did not believe the test results that prompted him to conduct a retest. 

But even worse, sometimes the shock is developed into a major depression at the thought of bad possibilities that might be encountered due to illness this. Not much to get past this stage and rose like Tono to do things more productive. 

Meanwhile, Sarah is not her real name, looks more calm and able to respond with a more rational verdict. He knew his condition was bad because it will not be cured, but it is the response from lingkunganlah which he said would be worse. 

"If you want to know it was sentenced to HIV, just imagine if you or your relatives deadly illness such as cancer. It feels like it, we already know that we will not recover. The difference is no shame while cancer is always considered to be HIV negative. Thought that was the drug user, free sex is, "he said. 

Indeed, not everyone immediately thought about the bad possibilities. Princess, a positive HIV detikHealth encountered in a separate event on Tuesday (23/11/2010), even not at all surprised when the results of the examination before tonsillectomy showed HIV-infected blood. 

"It is important to tonsillectomy only, not the meditation of what the impact will be like," said the lady who just feel that HIV is really changed his life when he was fired from the company where he worked shortly after that. 

Because it is not easy to accept this reality, HIV tests can not be done haphazardly. Such a test should be preceded by counseling and psychological assistance or called voluntary counseling testing (VCT) to anticipate the reactions that be bad for your psyche. 

translated from: detikhealth