Finding love and revealing your HIV status to a partner
Dating is tricky at the best of times - but can love conquer all, even the complications around a positive HIV status?
I have had one experience where someone said, 'I love you, but no thank you...' I was broken. I was heartbroken... to have that happen to me, I literally was not expecting it.
In the latest episode of ‘Don’t Hold Back’, HIV-AIDS activist and digital creator Saidy Brown shares her story of living with HIV, including navigating love, dating, and how to reveal your status to a lover.
Saidy was born with HIV. She found out about her status when she was 14.
“It was a long journey of denialism and just feeling like, ‘I want to die’ - until I was 18 years old. That was when I wrote the letter [on Facebook titled, ‘An Open Letter to HIV’] I remember writing it crying. I literally was crying the entire time. There's a line where I said, 'Because of you I feel less pretty' - and I stopped, and I read that line and I just broke down in tears," she recalls in a frank discussion with ‘Don’t Hold Back’ host Nozibele Qamngana-Mayaba.
There is life after being diagnosed with HIV and you will find love. It's not easy, but you will find your person and they will love you and you are deserving.
Saidy sets the record straight on living with HIV, the myths and truths around HIV, and its impact on life and love. Click below to listen…
Meanwhile, in the last episode: How do we know what our calling is, and what do we listen for? Clinical psychologist and traditional healer Anele Siswana has had to answer this question many times over his groundbreaking career.
From combining both African traditional spirituality with Western clinical psychology, to almost becoming a Christian pastor to reckoning with his own sexuality, Siswana is an exceptional and fascinating human being.
"I'm a representation of modern and a representation of what we can call 'traditional', but I have found spaces of convergence. Because I live in Jo'burg, however, I'm a rural boy. When I got to Mount Frere where my ancestral lineage is, you won't believe it's me," says Siswana.
He tells #Dontholdback podcast host Nozibele Qamngana-Mayaba how he got to where he is, and where his journey is taking him. Listen below.
ABOUT NOZIBELE QAMNGANA-MAYABA:
South African presenter Nozibele Qamngana-Mayaba is well known for her HIV-AIDS activism and YouTube channel. After her own HIV diagnosis in 2013, Nozibele made it her mission to hold open conversations about her journey. Now a published author and respected authority on the subject, the 31-year-old’s work was named as one of the web’s Top 15 HIV YouTube channels. With her direct, engaging, and empathetic hosting style, she's the perfect fit to address taboo topics - and to say: Don't hold back!
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‘Don’t hold back –
say it loud’ is a co-production between East Coast Radio, sister station Jacaranda FM and German broadcaster Deutsche
Welle (DW).
Don’t hold back – say it loud’ is both an audio and video production.