I remember hearing the jokes in school, not just about HIV but also about being gay.
I believed every one of them, and thought every joke was based on fact.
These rumours fuelled my self-stigma around HIV and the intense shame of being gay.
I had these different feelings toward and a strange attraction to men, and other boys in school.
Early in 2011, at the age of 24, I came out.
I spent all those years hiding my true self and I could now finally be me.
I had aches, cold sweats, nausea and fever, followed by a rash down my arm.
Around a week later, I was called back to the hospital to get my results.
Devastation is the only way I can describe how I felt.
I thought my life was over.
The truth however, was very different to my misunderstanding and serious lack of education around HIV.
I started on treatment around three years after my diagnosis and became undetectable around six months after that.
The diagnosis seriously affected my mental health.
I contemplated suicide on many occasions, I isolated myself from the rest of the world.
I felt contagious and dirty, a phrase that perpetuates the stigma around HIV.
I couldnt even hug my mum as I thought she would contract HIV from me.
The journey to accept my status and understand the truth about the diagnosis was a long and challenging one.
Life is now very much unaffected by my diagnosis.
Stigma can be the most devastating aspect of living with HIV, but it shouldnt be that way.
