During the last two and a half years I have been silent, my voice quiet and non existent.... Today I adjust my sail and scream so I can clear my throat and begin to unload all the turbulence I have been navigating alone.
If you struggle with addiction, depression or mental health, please know how important you are and reach out. I shut down, now I need to relearn self love and self esteem.
If we don't speak up about what we are dealing with regarding treatment side effects (or whatever it is), who will know? Who will listen? Who will care? And how will things ever improve for those who come after us?
I understand mental health is a big issue in today's society, but what happens when the mental health of the provider is at stake here. What should we do?
What do you do when the life you want so desperately to forget collides with the life you've created? You feel.
We all have baggage, we are carrying emotions we weren't meant to carry, and have allowed them to shape our identity!
Being a Black woman and wearing the badge of honor of being strong is exhausting to say the least.
What was the most impactful were the stories told by each of us living with HIV. It would not have been nearly as successful without our voices.
Stigma is deadlier than the disease itself, and the top driver of HIV stigma, in my opinion, is the church.
Changing our mindset to use the winter months as literal rest and mental hibernation gives us the emotional and physical strength to emerge as the HIV leaders ... we are in the New Spring.