Mens Health Blog. Medical Blog

Another vital source of support is friends—anyone from a partner, lover, or confidant to a person to have fun with, a neighbor, a co-worker, another person affected by HIV infection, or anyone who shares interests. Sometimes, because some of these people feel less intimately connected to you than family, they actually find it easier to be good companions and sources of support. June said that with her son’s sickness, she really needs her friends: “I need all the support and prayers and love I can get from anyone. My friends call and say, ‘I just wanted to know how you were. And how your son is. I’m thinking of you.’ My friends are such a source of strength. They’re there.”     Sometimes friends are also less intimidating to talk to than family. You choose your friends in the first place for what you have in common, and because they will not judge what you say. People commonly say of a friend, “I can say anything to her.” Alan is quiet and not especially talkative, but he gets together with other people who have HIV infection and listens to them talk. “It helps to hear other people talk,” Alan said. “They say your feelings for you. You relate to people who think the way you do.”     Many people affected by HIV infection have found their friends more helpful than anyone else. Their friends bring them food, help them do their laundry, cook meals, clean their houses, pick up medication, bring flowers or books or videos, drive them to the doctor, get them out of the house, and are just generally on call. Dean’s friends brought him a birthday party when he was in the hospital: “Balloons everywhere,” he said, “and cake, cards, presents, everything. I had lost track of the date, and had forgotten it was my birthday. I felt so good I cried.”     If friends honestly offer these services, do not” be shy about accepting. Your friends are certainly concerned about you—and some of them love you—and helping you is a way for them to show how they feel.     Even co-workers can be a support: some people feel the people they work with are a kind of family. When Dean had his second opportunistic illness, a co-worker called his hospital social worker and asked what she and other colleagues could do. The social worker’s answer was a good one to give anyone who asks such a question: “Don’t leave him alone. Give him openings to talk but don’t push. And stick around and don’t head for the hills.”*231\191\2*

First, separate the virus from a sense of punishment. Lisa states: “What I say is, it’s a virus, not a punishment. I didn’t get the virus and my husband did. Does that make me good and him bad? That’s ridiculous. Everyone got this virus like my husband did: being in the wrong place at the wrong time.”
The virus does not set out to “get” anyone. It has no brain, no judgment, no ability to pick out who is worthy and who is not. The virus has nothing whatever to do with punishment. Nor does anyone set out to get infected with the virus. The behaviors that put most people at risk for the virus may well be behaviors that are directed by biology, and in any case, are not the result of a conscious intention. No one makes a conscious, informed decision that they will become gay or will use drugs.
Understand that guilt, except when it keeps you from repeating mistakes, is a remarkably useless emotion. Feeling guilty means worrying about something you cannot change. Whether people knowingly ran a risk or not, the past is beyond anyone’s power to change. Guilt keeps people captured in the past and prohibits them from doing what they can to improve the present. Guilt uses emotional energy that would be better used on the real problems of life.
Balance guilt by understanding your own worth. Ask yourself, outside my worries, who am I? A pastor who has had experience with people with HIV infection asks people, “What else besides the things you feel guilty about are you? What do your friends like about you? They tell me, ‘That I helped them move the piano, that I had some good kids, that I was a good friend.’” Sometimes the pastor had to remind his parishioners what is good about them: “One man with HIV was having trouble with guilt and thought he was all bad. I had to remind him he was our church organist, and when he played, he would rock the timbers of the church with music.”
In the process of focusing on your own worth, guilt usually fades away. People come to like themselves for who they are. Some people speed up the process by getting help from a therapist. During therapy, they deal with the attitudes and behavior, often left over from childhood, that make them feel guilty. They learn to feel comfortable with themselves and free themselves of their old, useless burden of guilt.

*78\191\2*

AIDS may not yet be completely manageable, but it’s completely preventable. And there’s still plenty of incentive to prevent it.

For example, even while incidence in the United States is decreasing, worldwide rates of AIDS infection are soaring. While the rates for homosexual men are dropping, they’re still high. And while the rates for heterosexual men are still low, they’re rising. Any way you look at it, there’s a problem out there.

Solve it by doing the right things. Let’s assume that you, a health-minded individual, are not in the habit of shooting illegal drugs into your veins with used needles. There’s pan of your AIDS risk taken care of. Virtually all the rest is from unprotected sexual relations. Protect your sex and you won’t get AIDS, says Dr. Kassler.

Unprotected sex is dangerous because HIV can be transmitted through semen and vaginal secretions as well as blood. But if neither of you has HIV, then there’s nothing to transmit. “If you’re in a mutually monogamous relationship with somebody who is uninfected, that’s safe sex,” Dr. Kassler says. “You can do whatever you want.”

That’s simple enough, but it begs a question: How do you know? The sad fact is that you don’t—unless you’ve both been recently tested or have been monogamous together long enough for any infections from previous relationships to declare themselves. Anybody can have HIV, and you can’t tell just by looking at a person.

So protecting yourself against HIV and AIDS comes down to what you do and whom you do it with. “Limiting the number of people you have sex with helps,” Dr. Kassler says. “However, choosing your partners wisely comes first.”

*2/36/5*