The Ritardando Diminuendo of Grief

I was talking to a friend of mine on the train on Tuesday and she said that although she's used to me talking about my HIV status, what she realised, which I hadn't, is that the process of dealing with the initial grief associated with your HIV status isn't something you can immediately resolve. That it's an ongoing anxiety about blood tests, CD4 counts and the like, but also that you encounter barriers you hadn't known would be there before - that suddenly you're prevented from travelling to certain countries, you have to make all kinds of concessions and considerations in relationships, you have anxieties about work and the like.

Yes, it's waves of shock, frustration, fear and the like, but it's a cycle I'm becoming accustomed to, I hope. Yes, my freedom of movement has been arbitrarily limited. Yes, I'm a "threat to public health." Yes, I could face prosecution if I don't use condoms and discuss my status with any sexual partners. Yes, it sucks.

But, there's not much to be gained from that anger, that resentment, that bereavement for the life I had before I knew. So what do we do? Keep going, knowing that just as my CD4 count will oscillate, so will my ability to cope with it all. Luckily, the space of time between these wobbles seems to be growing; the severity of them diminishing.