As instructed to Aviva Patz
September 18, 2022, is Nationwide HIV/AIDS and Getting older Consciousness Day.
It’s onerous to consider that HIV may very well be a blessing, however for me, it was.
That’s as a result of it gave me an opportunity to alter my life.
After having been sexually abused by my uncle and emotionally abused by my father, I ran away from dwelling at 13 solely to be positioned within the foster care system, the place I used to be sexually abused once more. By the point I used to be identified with HIV at age 18 in 1991, I used to be dwelling on the streets of Miami, courting the chief of a violent avenue gang and committing crimes myself, together with armed theft. I used to be stuffed with anger and self-hatred.
Paradoxically, my HIV analysis got here simply once I was attempting to show my life round. I’d left the gang once I was 17 and moved again in with my mother, though she made it clear that she didn’t need me there as a result of she thought I used to be a troublemaker. Ultimately, I instructed her I wished to go to Job Corps, a vocational faculty for teenagers in hassle. I assumed it was my alternative to show that I used to be worthy.
I wasn’t sick in any respect, however at Job Corps, they did routine blood work on new college students to check for being pregnant and different circumstances. On TV, you solely noticed homosexual white males from San Francisco with HIV. By no means in my life did I feel I might be instructed I used to be HIV constructive.
The physician who identified me had no compassion. He simply blurted out, “You have got AIDS.” It was horrible. He didn’t give me a pamphlet or something. However I didn’t cry. I simply put my head down and thought, I’m by no means going to get married, by no means going to have kids. Again then, HIV was a demise sentence.
I come from a superb household, a conservative Catholic household from Colombia. And, the Latinx neighborhood is like, “Don’t ask, don’t inform,” so my mother sat me down and mentioned, “We will’t inform anybody within the household or associates. They’re ignorant. They’ll discriminate.” So I felt I needed to hold my HIV standing a secret.
On the time, the one therapy obtainable was a most cancers medicine referred to as AZT. They instructed me within the clinic that I might get on AZT, however I must signal a waiver acknowledging that it might injury my inner organs. I mentioned, “Nope, I’m not taking that.”
After years with out therapy, my T cells went all the way down to 39 — the conventional vary is 500 to 1,400 per cubic millimeter of blood. I knew I might proceed dying or start medical therapy.
I selected to stay.
At Jackson Memorial Hospital in Miami, the place I used to be handled, I began going to instructional courses in particular immunology. I went two hours a day, and I realized a lot. I used to be very talkative in these courses, and each time I spoke, individuals listened. The directors approached me and requested if I’d wish to be a peer educator. They mentioned, “You helped so many individuals already.”
I bought skilled by the well being division to counsel minorities — not solely Latinx individuals but additionally the African American and LGBTQ communities and immigrants.
Maria Mejia chatting with members of Congress
I by no means supposed to turn out to be an activist, however that’s the place I landed. Today, I assist move laws for the HIV neighborhood. And I’m a worldwide ambassador, neighborhood advisory board member and A Woman Like Me blogger for The Effectively Venture, a nonprofit group giving info, help and instruments to ladies and women with HIV/AIDS.
I’ve based on-line help teams with 40,000 members, in English and Spanish. We’ve got individuals from tribes in Africa all the best way to Patagonia in South America. I name myself Maria HIV with “HIV” as my center title. I don’t care — that’s how I appeal to individuals.
I lead by instance, and I struggle stigma by humanizing the situation. I’m a long-term survivor who isn’t solely surviving however thriving. I’m some of the seen faces of HIV on the earth, and I present that individuals with HIV can love, get married and have kids. I give hope to the hopeless. And, I don’t remorse that I bought HIV as a result of, mockingly, it saved my life.
It’s helped me develop in so some ways: I’ve realized to like myself and maintain myself and to be extra compassionate and non secular. And, better of all, it’s made my objective clear to me. I’ve met so many individuals who’ve been by means of quite a bit, and collectively we’ve saved so many lives. In serving to others, I’ve discovered I additionally assist myself.
