Over the past several months—possibly even year, or maybe two—I’ve come to a groundbreaking conclusion that I never thought would be possible. Nearly a decade after being diagnosed, I no longer blame the person who gave me HIV. This has been a long time coming; and, in many ways, has been an evolution that has occurred over my medical journey with the virus. In short: I was diagnosed with HIV on November 17th, 2014, at around 5:45 PM. I was at a gay youth center when a preliminary rapid test returned a false positive. At the time, I had a million thoughts running through my head. “How was I in ..read more

Ghostin’ and no, not the Ariana song. So… a few weeks back, I blogged about how I went out on my first date since the pandemic started and how I enjoyed myself on it. Needless to say: I got ghosted. I don’t claim to know why. Maybe it was a combination of my HIV + Herpes statuses. However, I’m not letting it bother me, since I’ve rekindled a friendship that could be more. The ghosting bothered me at the time. I don’t think it can’t bother you when it happens, to be honest, especially when you’re not sure for what reason it happened. But truth be told: I’ve moved on. So, yeah. There’s that ..read more

mckitterick: prismatic-bell: poztatt: star-anise: mg-dl: purplepints: missrebelred: carnivalseb: huggablekaiju: madgastronomer: mycroftrh: smallswingshoes: psychoactive-teratogen: elfwreck: star-anise: brs-love: aphilologicalbatman: freedom-of-fanfic: star-anise: My girlfriend and I talk a lot about our different generations of queerness, because she was doing queer activism in the 1990s and I wasn’t. And she’s supportive of my writing about queerness but also kind of bitter about how quickly her entire generation’s history has disappeared into a bland “AIDS was bad, ga ..read more

Hi everyone, As someone who once tried to get disability (and navigated the system for over five years as a result as a result,) I thought I’d take a moment to write this post about some things that I learned you shouldn’t do when applying for the process. I should note that this post isn’t designed to show you how to scam the industry (the court requires documentation of notable disabilities that prevent you from working.) Rather, it is designed to help people navigate the process, which has undoubtedly been abused and oftentimes suffers from judges whose jobs is to completely rule out your d ..read more

So… I went out on a real, honest to god “date” with a guy tonight. (And before anyone asks: yes, I had a good time.) However, he did note, at one point during our three-hour long outing, that, though he had been looking at my profile previously, he was initially slightly hesitant to meet me due to the fact that I’m both herpes and HIV-positive, and I list that in my profile. He did admit that this was in part due to his roommate wanting him to “be careful.” He said he later reevaluated her words and that’s why he responded when I messaged him. Which leads me to a realization: I was more “desir ..read more

This is going to be a long post, wherein I discuss my eating disorder. If that’s triggering, you might want to avoid this. Anyhow— It’s no secret that I deal with weight-related anxiety. However—it wasn’t until last year, when I began speaking with a nutritionist who specialized in disordered eating, that I was officially diagnosed. My disorder—which is technically considered “EDNOS,” or, Eating Disorder Not Otherwise Specified—is a dual-combination issue, wherein I do one of two things: I either A] binge eat or B] resort to severe limiting or starvation. I have never purged (though not for a ..read more

It is not someone else’s job to heal you. It is also not your job to heal someone else. You are responsible for your own actions, just as other people who suffer from PTSD are responsible for theirs ..read more

Though I have been maintaining this blog for a few years, I fell off the wagon last October due to some issues that occurred in my personal life. Though I thought I would never post about them here (on my Positive [+] blog,) I feel it’s necessary to talk about this now, almost year later. Last Halloween, my father committed suicide. Before anyone worries: I don’t intend on posting methods or the circumstances surrounding his passing. What I can say is that it was an incredibly traumatic experience to go through, and I’m still processing portions of my experience a year later. But, this isn’t t ..read more

An article from Buzzfeed touched on an issue of a rapper (who goes under the name DaBaby) who made some very ignorant, serophobic comments regarding gay men with HIV. As a (surprise) gay man living with HIV, I want to say a few things; 1. HIV is NOT a “gay disease.” ANYONE can get HIV, no matter your age, gender, sexuality, how many times you’ve had sex, or how you have sex. 2. Those who seek antiretroviral treatment to combat the viral load of HIV in their body often achieve undetectable status, and live long, healthy lives. This also leads into point number three, which is: 3. “Undetectable ..read more

Apologies for not updating It’s been a while, and I wanted to update y'all real quickly: After getting on Dovato briefly and having it screw with my mood in the worst way possible, I returned to the Descovy/Tivicay combination I’ve been on for years. Thankfully, I feel mostly okay physically. I’m just trying to treat my body better with additional prescribed medications. So… yeah. Other than that, not too much has been going on (nothing that would be beneficial to write about, anyway ..read more