When I look back over my life, it has been filled with many roadblocks, bad choices, deaths, and adversities--yet, somehow, someway, I have always found the strength to carry on.
Check out The Well Project's A Girl Like Me LIVE!, an interactive, livestreaming series created to advance health and wellness education among women living with and vulnerable to HIV.
This is not just a story about illness— it's about intuition. The terrifying silence of being dismissed. And the sacred roar of deciding to save yourself.
HIV cure work is something that is beginning to fascinate me. Having the opportunity to be in spaces where this is the topic of discussion, I have learned so much about the virus.
"You have HIV. HIV3 to be exact." That's what they said—HIV3. I didn't even know what that meant... No one explained it. No one softened it.
They told me that my medication would kill me, not the virus. And I know for a fact they were wrong... When I came to the United States in 2001, I started treatment. Four weeks later, I was undetectable.
HIV criminalization is an amalgamation of a lot of things. It is ignorance overlaid with fear and underpinned by the need to exert power over the same people who are being feared.
Dating while living with HIV can be empowering, joyful, and deeply fulfilling—but it also comes with moments of vulnerability, especially when it comes to disclosure.
It all seemed like talk – until it happened... Words could never do this journey justice. But I will try.
Being part of A Girl Like Me isn't just about telling my story. It's about showing someone else what's possible when we finally decide to stop hiding... We are exactly what someone else needs to see.