IT’S TIME TO TELL THE PARENTS

If you are an individual like I was who exhausted all the pros and cons as to whether or not to tell mommy and daddy that you have HIV, then this blog’s for you.


For me, if there is an even greater obstacle than dealing with my HIV status it would be telling the two people I trust the most in my life- my parents. I never actually said that out loud that I trust my mother and father the most in my life, but when it comes right down to it it’s the truth. I am very fortunate to have been adopted into a healthy, yet occasionally dysfunctional, household. My father was a hardworking provider who made a manageable income for my stay-at-home mother of three kids to prepare food for the dinner table. As my teen years arrived I learned to resent them just like any other adolescent would do. However, at the end of the day they are the two people I can always count on- no matter how many headaches my mother gave- and still gives me.

At first I convinced myself that NOT telling them was the right thing to do- that they have their own problems and I don’t want them to ever worry about their middle child. But as I spoke with my mother on the phone a few times knowing I was hiding this secret from her it began to dawn on me. What if something happened to me and I was unresponsive? Shall I leave it to a disconnected physician that their pride and joy was HIV positive? I can hear my mother already asking herself, “Why did he hide this from us? I could have helped him!” Would my parents think that they failed as parents because I was afraid to come to them with anything I had to tell them?

Let me give you a quick background of my old school Greek mother and Irish father. My mother is crazy- mostly in a good way, but sometimes in an eccentric way. I have a pretty good idea as to how she will handle the news. She will cry, be scared and worry about me. I say, LET HER- she’s a mother and she’s entitled to that. In time, she will realize that there is nothing to worry about. It’s my father who I am more concerned about. He is a very quiet, keeps to himself personality type of person who at the same time would bend over backwards for the people in his life. He doesn’t say much, but when he talks you listen. He had (and still has) a hard time with the fact that his middle son is gay. His brother, and best friend, was a gay man who died of AIDS in 1988. He’s supported my decision to go to college, to move to Florida-then back to New York, to pay for my DWI charges myself, to name a few decisions I’ve made over the years. But, for the first time in my life I have no idea how my father will react to this type of news. When I say, “I am HIV positive,” it will be 1988 all over again. How do I ensure him that everything will be all right and that there is nothing to worry about? I can send him all the internet sites and buy him books on HIV in 2010, but it may not make a difference- who knows. It will take a long time, but they will accept it and be supportive of me.

Parents are smart creatures. They know when something is wrong with their kin. When I asked my mother for my birthday for a watch that has an alarm on it her first response was, “are you on medications that I should know about?” Now that I think about it that was when I started contemplating telling the folks about me. When I was sick for two weeks (the first sign of HIV) my mother and father were right beside me in the ER and at home taking care of me. Maybe they already know.

I want to add that that I am eternally grateful for my parents teaching me what responsibility is. I have been working since I was ten, paid for everything from my first car to college all on my own and learning what it takes to be an adult. When the sun sets I know they will appreciate that I told them this news. This may make us a closer family when push comes to shove. I am not naïve. I am aware that many of you will disagree and feel that your family should not know about your HIV status. Many of you are living without family and I wish that wasn’t the case. All I can say is that you are neither right nor wrong in your decision. Everyone’s family history is different and for some it may not be the right time to tell them. For my family it is important that they know that I am here, I’m alive, and will be around for a long, long time.

Tune in to next week’s blog and I will let you know how it turned out!