Went to the psychologist today and talked about everything. Most notably about my feelings about David having bone cancer and my anger about him not telling me about it for months.
Psychologist may be going to the HIV book launch next month along with the psychologist David sees there.
BTW David's bone marrow cancer in the bottom of one of his legs is responding very well to chemotherapy and it's looking very unlikely that he'd need a bone marrow transplant. His doctor caught it the moment it came up in his quarterly blood tests as she was keeping a keen eye out for it. David's family has a history of cancer. I think he got ahead of himself with doom and gloom about the big C word.
Much of the session was taken up with that, however we did have another discussion about something else.
I realised when I was going in on the bus that next month it would be 10 years since I was infected with HIV. I don't know the exact date (*blushes*) but I have a pretty good idea of the specific trip to the sex club that I got it. Albeit I still have no idea of the date of that even, other than it was in October (*blushes again*).
Back then it was all a hurting self destructive blur into ice and sex. I met a guy at the (now closed) Kens at Kensington, who was a fuck buddy of his ice dealer in Surry Hills (who has long ago fled Sydney owing money or some shit like that). As he was always hanging around his ice dealer's friend's place, the ice dealer got to know me. Long story short I was being fucked by the ice dealer who was giving ice to me for nothing. Apparently I was a really good fuck as he didn't mind sharing with me his "personal use" ice.
In any case one time I was there he'd got a young good looking gay ice bitch guy to stay with him for a bit who was incredibly jealous of me actually physically being in the same space as him. Dealer was very apologetic quietly to me and I said I should go. In apology he gave me this big hit of ice (yes we were injecting) which blew my head off.
Dazed I left the apartment disappointed that dealer and I hadn't had sex. We did have really good sex together him and I. Somehow we were quite compatible that way. He blew one time with me and said he'd not cum like that in five years. For a bit after that he'd say to me "What am I going to do with you?" Personally I think if it wasn't for all the drugs and the scene he was in we may have had quite a relationship. All water under the bridge long ago now. He's not even in Sydney anymore and we've long ago lost contact.
Anyway, so I was off to the sex club. Totally off my head. So iced off my head that when I was in the , um, dark room of the club I was seeing people that weren't even there and seeing things happening that weren't happening. Long story short, I believe it was that night that I got infected. Some time in October.
I know that because (in hindsight) I had a very bad sero-conversion in November (where the HIV is very high in your blood before your body gets the infection to a much more moderate level - that moderate level can last for years). Felt like I had a very bad flu. My mouth and throat hurt like with a bad flu virus so much so I had trouble eating from the pain and lost 5 kilos in a month (11 pounds for the USA-an's). A rash on my skin. Tired as anything and sleeping a lot. Had quite a bit of sick days off work that month.
After that all subsided a lot in December I had rather the suspicions, and therefore looked up symptoms of HIV infections on the internet. It fit the picture so perfectly I knew I needed to be tested again.
Unlike the previous test I had at a "family" medical centre (near my work) which came up negative, if this one came up positive I didn't want to be at that centre if it did. I got the test done at the Albion St Centre in late January 2009, which was specifically set up in the early 1980's in response to the AIDS epidemic in Sydney, and was part of the Prince of Wales Hospital Campus, and still is.
Back then you had to have counseling before you got tested. It was then I met the psychologist who I still see today. I couldn't get through that counseling without falling apart. Told him I didn't want to go there and fall apart, but I couldn't help it. I was severely traumatised by life events and suicidal and just wanting that pain to end. Suicide is never about wanting to die you know; nobody wants to die really. It's about the pain being endured and the inability to cope with it. Suicide can present itself as the only way out of that pain. Emotional pain can be every bit as terrible as physical pain.
It took about 2 weeks back then to get back the results. Of course mine was HIV+.
I had a very unusual reaction to that. Not at all like most people. It was a big "Meh". HIV for me was the icing on the shit cake. I was already numb from so much pain, and now I was HIV+ too. .....
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