Kim, age 59 | Melbourne, Australia
I first learned I was positive in 1994. I was unwell and went to a friend of mine who was my doctor as well, and he just threw every test at me …
Asia-Pacific
Loon, age 50 | Manipur, India
From 1983 to 1997, I am fully on heroin in between lots of rehab and lots of jail and lots of anything. From 1997 to about five, six, seven years, I’m totally on abstinence. …
Charlie, age 58 | Auckland, New Zealand
People were just dying in ’83 and ’84. All my friends were dying around me, and then a very good friend of mine was diagnosed with it in ’84. …
Neale, age 54, and Max, age 60 / Melbourne, Australia
Neale: I met this man while we were conversing online. It was really a meeting of minds on a whole lot of levels. I could sense that he was …
Gerome, age 51 | Abbotsford, Australia
I think that my story is personal, it’s unique, and it is not tragic. And, I think it’s something that is probably a little bit different from other people’s …
Jane, age 57 | Auckland, New Zealand
Sometimes, I allow myself to have a wallow day. But it doesn’t happen much now. It used to happen. I cried a lot in the first years. …
Michael, age 62 | Auckland, New Zealand
I was diagnosed in September 2010. I’ve only had it 4 years. It couldn’t have been much earlier than that. Because I was in a relationship, …
Suzanne, age 59 | Melbourne, Australia
I first learned that I was HIV-positive in a letter from a doctor. I’d been working in a little hospital in rural Africa, but I had to go …
Rodney, age 67 | Melbourne, Australia
I didn’t come out. I didn’t tell anyone. No one knew for 10 years. And I think that’s what helped me. You see, on that day I was told …
Meng Lin, age 53 | Beijing, China
I told my family, and I do not have a full knowledge about HIV/AIDS, but I tell them I’m HIV-positive. The same day I’ve been kicked out by the family. And all my friends get away …
Ella, age “nearly 50” | Selangor, Malaysia
In year 2003 I already need to be on medications, but at that particle of time, that we need to pay about 1,000 ringget Malaysia, and my salary is …
Katherine, age 56 | Adelaide, Australia
I always wanted a big family, you know – four to six children. My career was in childcare. I found out that I was positive and pregnant …
David, age 61 | Melbourne, Australia
I’ve really had a lot of AIDS-defining illnesses in the ‘90s, some of which I’ve lived with since. I’ve developed diabetes, and, as a consequence, …
Bev, age 63 | Gunditjmara Nation, Wangaratta, Australia
I don’t feel OLD old, ‘cause I’m still feeling young, because I’m still here, you know. I feel really grateful that I don’t ponder on, oh, you know, …
Bill, age 64 | Cairns, Australia
It’s very difficult to meet positive people, because mostly, they’re still too afraid to come out and disclose their status to almost anyone. And I really would like to have a positive …
Glenn, age 50 | Newcastle, Australia
I think it’s harder now to live up to the expectation that you’re well. People think that HIV has been finished. That the treatments are great and …
Susan, age 62 | Melbourne, Australia
By the end of ’99, I’d really been living with HIV for over a decade – my health was going downhill rapidly. I was doing a PhD thesis. …
Rod, age 55 | Tasmania, Australia
It’s strange to say: I was living in Sydney in the 1980s when the newspapers, every week when they came out, they had dozens of people dying from HIV. I didn’t know of any …
John, age 68 | Coogee, Australia
My partner started to show symptoms of AIDS in 1983, and I talked to my doctor, who said, “Look, this is all happening in the United States. It can’t possibly be.” But in fact it was. …
Jan, age 64 | Mataura, New Zealand
It was the 15th of January, 2002. I had a needlestick injury from one of my HIV patients. I’m a nurse, a retired nurse. Once I’d finished with …
Garry, age 55 | Sydney, Australia
For me, I had to make that distinction between “Me the Caregiver” and “Me the Person.” I couldn’t see myself as the person in the bed, because if I saw myself as that person in the bed, …