It is a measure of self-compassion on this Bell Let’s Talk Day when I can slow down and remind myself of where I am and where I’ve come from. I have a long history of, and recovery from, substance abuse – chiefly, but not solely, alcohol – begun shortly after
Continue readingTag: PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder)
My journey with AIDS…and more!: The ever-present question: Now what?
I describe myself, rightly so I think, as a long-term survivor of AIDS and HIV. I offer as evidence my being diagnosed with HIV in 1989 and my long, slow recovery from AIDS-related Cryptosporidiosis in the early 90s – the effects of which shadow me to this day. Over the years,
Continue readingMy journey with AIDS…and more!: I am reminded
I am reminded of December 6, 1989 at Montreal’s Ecole Polytechnique. I am reminded of February 5, 1981 – Toronto’s bath house raids, the catalyst for my coming out. I am reminded of stolen innocence as a child at the hands of a strang…
Continue readingMy journey with AIDS...and more!: April 30 revisited
Today marks eleven years since the beginning of events which form the basis of my autobiographical piece entitled Chopin, Roman Polanski and a cab. I will attempt to stay home after dark.
Continue readingMy journey with AIDS...and more!: Another important day for self-acceptance
If I have learned nothing else about my bipolar II today, it is that I am certainly not the only one in similar circumstances who has found photography to be a healing past-time. Facebook is teeming today with some of the creative works of the bipolar support community.
Continue readingMy journey with AIDS...and more!: Another important day for self-acceptance
If I have learned nothing else about my bipolar II today, it is that I am certainly not the only one in similar circumstances who has found photography to be a healing past-time. Facebook is teeming today with some of the creative works of the bipolar support community.
Continue readingMy journey with AIDS...and more!: Post #1031: My latest ‘Aha!’ moment
I’m very close to finishing the book Survivor – Auschwitz, The Death March and My Fight for Freedom by Sam Pivnik and some two-thirds of the way through I was jolted by this passage: We could have run, could have made it, could have reached the welcoming arms of the
Continue readingMy journey with AIDS...and more!: College sports governing body slams Penn State post-Sandusky, Paterno
The NCAA has handed down its sentence on Penn State University’s football program, as outlined in this news release: By perpetuating a “football first” culture that ultimately enabled serial child sexual abuse to occur, The Pennsylvania State University leadership failed to value and uphold institutional integrity, resulting in a breach
Continue readingMy journey with AIDS...and more!: Nine years older nine years later
It’s been so long I had to look up what SARS stood for (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome). That was part of the underlying score as I spent five weeks in two hospitals starting nine years ago early this morning. Why was I laid up? Well an item from Montréal in
Continue readingMy journey with AIDS...and more!: Scanned: my first post-positive lab results
I found this in a plastic-covered folder in my Rubbermaid file drawer: My physician at that time, the late Ed Kamski, ordered these tests as a baseline after giving me the results of my “positive” HIV-antibody test. (He also told me that a blood sample taken about a year earlier,
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