---

For me, when I got my diagnosis it wasn’t an ‘oh my god’ moment at all, it was kind of ‘mhm, I knew this was going to happen’ moment. What had got me to go and get tested was I woke up one morning with oral thrush and that freaked me out. So when I saw that happen in my mouth I thought, ‘oh no this isn’t good,’ and went to get that cleared up. I then thought to myself, “I bet I know what the cause of this is, it’s that HIV thing that I’ve been hearing bits and pieces about.” When I got my diagnosis, there wasn’t a whole lot of prevention like it is now - particularly in the city of Detroit. I remembered going and getting tested and lo and behold it was positive. I just went, ‘mhm, okay wait for the other shoe to fall,’ I was very pessimistic with my thinking back then. But I didn’t break down and cry, I think I entertained suicide for a millisecond and chose not to do that option because I’m a chicken when it comes to pain. I don’t handle it well. That was my day of diagnosis mindset, kind of expected it. I had fear, apprehension, anxiety about sharing the information with who I felt needed to know. I never asked why did this happen to me - I agreed to have sex, I was a willing participant - so as a result I became infected with HIV. Who’s to blame for that? I’m to blame for that. So there was never any anger, self-pity, or sadness. Sadness did come into play, because many of my friends started to die from their diagnosis, so I was going to a lot of their funerals. It got so bad that at one point I said I’m not going to anymore funerals, I can’t take it. That’s where the sadness comes in, seeing my friends laid out there in a coffin and wondering when my number was going to be up.