Never told my parents. Now they are gone and I'm glad I didn't burden them with my problems.🙃 You are younger than I was and everyone is different. You can't take it back once its out there. Its your decision and your life.

It wasn't hard for me to disclose my HIV status to my family, because I did it when I felt ready to do so. First of all it took me almost a year to get myself in my right mind. I stayed depressed and just couldn't accept what was happening to me. I joined a support group, started educating myself about HIV, taking my meds like I should, and did what I was told, stop saying I'm living with HIV but rather HIV is living with me. That was 26 years ago.

When I did eventually tell my mother, her response was "I'm not surprised". Did that hurt? Yes, but it didn't sting. In other words, it would have hurt more if I hadn't taken control of my life. I had already established the support mechanism that I needed and despite that, I still survive. My mom has since seen the light and she is a big supporter of mine.

Unless you are about to get into a relationship with someone, you don't have to tell anyone anything. If you are not ready, you don't have to tell anything. Take care of you first. Then concern yourself with telling whomever.

My advise would be to make fresh lenonade. Drink a couple of glasses a day. As for food. Boiled rice and carrots. Banana. Yogurt. And Pineapple is great as it has natural enzymes with will aid the digestive system.
Eating a orange or satsuma before food also helps digestion

Hi Alex; Actually I was rather stupid about it. I am a very logical person. It was very hard for me to tell my family that I was gay because of religious beliefs and prejudices but my mom was a nurse so by the time I found out I was HIV positive I thought well she'll just handle it like any medical problem or diagnosis. Unfortunately, it was 1990 there were no effective treatments. Everyone was dying, so naturally, she took it like a mother and not a nurse. My father and she divorced when I was 4 years old so I didn't know him at all. My identical twin brother lived in a small town and was already uncomfortable with the news that his brother was gay and the news that he had AIDS which what everyone leaped to. I became an HIV educator for the state of Florida where I was living at the time in the hope of dispelling ignorance that even existed in my own family. Sadly my twin and I are still estranged to this very day. I now tell people on a need to know basis. friends and family alike. If they don't really have a need to know I just tell them I have a chronic illness that is controlled with medication and leave it at that. I was so much in the public eye in Florida that pretty much the entire state knew because I had done TV appearances and all kinds of high profile things. I now live a quiet existence but my friends, close family that I have left and even my employer knows. I am single but when I date I let them know right up front because if they can't handle the news then time will not make the disclosure any easier and actually I believe can be quite harmful when building trust. In the end, there is no easy way to disclose. No right or wrong way to do it. Some will accept the news in a positive and nurturing way others will now and will bring their own prejudices into the disclosure and may leave you. There is now far less ignorance about the disease than there was but pockets still exist. But the reality is if they cannot handle the news they were probably no one you could count on anyway and you're better off knowing that up front.

Honestly you don’t HAVE to tell them it’s no one else’s business but yours and who you have sex with: I understand being open about our diagnosis is healing and can help with our journey but I also think that it can be traumatic as well . And if it’s going to cause more harm then good I’d keep it to myself until I was in a position to come out with it without any repercussions. It’s already a lot to go threw with finding out getting into treatment etc . So no sense it making it even harder if it doesn’t have to be. When I first found out I want ashamed and told whoever and I didn’t realize all the backlash I would get from it relationships changed or were lost . It really brought the worst out of people my family was supportive even though they were scared of loosing me to the HIV it’s just a lot of emotions all the way around and I suggest being as mentally and financially stable as possible so if the worst happens your not homeless .