it was 1987....I was 21 years old...AIDS and ARC were in the news...compelled to do something about the epidemic I became a volunteer at the Manhattan Center for living under the direction of Marianne Williamson...a few months later I became the assistant clinical director and for the past 18 years, have been at Friends In Deed as the director of spiritual counseling.
During that time people were dying by the thousands, as more and more people were being diagnosed.
The city went on a lock down campaign against all the back rooms and gay movie theaters in an attempt to control the spread of the virus.
During this time there were those who believed that AIDS did not even exist. That it was a conspiracy of the government.
It was the time of Gods love we deliver started by.....it was the time of GMHC, Act Up and various other groups that came together during this time.
Each and ever day I would meet with clients. The work was simple....facing mortality one day at a time...moment by moment and staying present to the experience. It was a time of great compassion in the gay community..so many wonderful people came together to be with, help, support and give to those in need.
"My t -cells are falling, nothing seems to be helping" said John, " I must be doing my affirmations wrong!" He said emphatically....John held the belief that if he said his affirmations diligently it would impact his t-cells..John died a few weeks later.
John was one of many hundreds of people that I personally worked with who died during the age of AIDS. So what work could be done with someone who was fighting so hard to stay alive or at least stay alive until some treatment was found.
Desperate times to say the least. There were many so called aids cures at that time..There were Chemical treatments with the idea that if the virus could be cured in a test tube it wold work in the body as well. Drinking one's own urine, various chemical treatments, oxygen therapy, Electrical zappers, vitamin and various kinds of herbal treatments, the heating of the blood..etc.....
Then there was the period of chronic treatment...but we would have no idea of the implications of these treatments...spikes in blood pressure, cholesterol problems as well has sudden heart attacks that would end someone's life...while the deaths of aids decreased as it moved out of the media as a post somewhere back in the paper. The problem did not disappear.
Then came the bug chasers and bug givers..those that wanted to both give and receive HIV on purpose, on their terms, with the assumption that getting the virus was inevitable so there were taking back control.
Because AIDS and HIV became less and less visible. New medications with healthy looking men on marketing materials made it seem to be just a chronic issue that could be managed easily with medication........and more young gay men were diagnosed with the virus.
AIDS may be in the back burner for most people out there and for may of the younger generation they do not even know someone personally who has it. But AIDS is still a problem and not a small one. It was a wake up call. It brought our attention to the frailty of being alive. unfortunately many of us have fallen back to sleep...thinking the worst is over....but it is not.
