I started using drugs at like 17 years old, in high school. My friends were doing it, and I wanted to be like them, I guess. It went from weed to pills and by the time I was 21 I was using heroin. I didn’t have that bad of an upbringing. My parents were divorced, and...
I discovered I was HIV positive during a routine medical screening when I was incarcerated. That news hit me hard - really hard. I had never seriously considered this could happen to me. Looking back, I hadn't been taking care of myself for years before and sometimes...
I found out about PrEP when I went and got tested for HIV and STIs. I usually go twice a year. It just depends on how many partners or relationships I’ve had between getting tested. I got my testing done for free at a local clinic because I don’t have insurance. The...
I get tested before every new partner, and after the relationship ends. I started this practice after I contracted chlamydia a couple of years ago. When I was younger, I would only get tested once a year. There were times when I would have drunk sex or a casual...
I’m a retired, 60-year-old, gay, male. I moved down to Florida 5 years ago. I’ve been HIV positive since 1987 and my partner died of AIDS around that time. In my retirement, I started to use crystal meth, but I now am clean. I received substance abuse treatment in a...
I just wanted a little bit more control over my own sexual health. At the same time, I also knew there are other people out there that deserve the same protection as well. I look at it as a kind of a double-edged sword in a way. I wasn’t sure how to go about getting...
I am a product of the eighties. How I didn't get HIV during that time, I am not sure. Not that it's anything to be ashamed of, but back then people were, sadly, dying like crazy from the virus. A lot of my friends would go to New York City and come back and find out...
I was born in Dominican Republic. I always believed that I had a problem before I picked up the first drug. I always knew that there was something off. That, because of family circumstances and poverty, I was chosen to be messed up. I found out I was HIV positive in...
I ended up flying to Palm Springs, California at 19 years old on a one-way ticket. I moved in with some other prostitutes because, when you’re young, sometimes it’s easier than going to a clock in clock out kind of place. That’s what worked for me then. A lot of it...
Getting therapy led me to get tested. I found out my boyfriend cheated on me, and I was devastated. We had been together like 4 years. I just couldn’t believe he would break my trust like that. Thankfully I ended things with him, but I was very traumatized by the...