HIV Positive Since Birth

I’m not American, I’m Brazilian. I guess it doesn’t matter in my story. My story is simple. Back in the 80′s my mom dated a drug addict. They broke up and she met and later married my father. I was born in ’89. In the year of 1990, she found out that her ex boyfriend died from AIDS. We all took the test. The results were: me and my mother – positive for HIV and my father, negative. She died when I was five. My father and I keep in touch, but he didn’t have the money to raise me after my mom died, so I went to live with my aunt.

It was difficult, being a child with no knowledge and a teenager afraid to die. I tried to kill myself back them. Now, I know. I’m not afraid to die. And I’m scared of life, but I think I can handle it. What I’m trying to say is that I got used to the idea of dying young, so I never worried about what to do, if I didn’t die.

I guess I can say that my challenge now is learning to live. Learning to be normal. I got married, my husband is “normal” and now, like everyone else we’re trying to pay the bills. I’m going to college next semester and… that’s it. I take my medicine right, I see my doctor often etc. People need to learn that life is not over because of some bug. For me, life is only beginning.

by Carolina

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