I think that deep down inside you know the negative part of me thinks that I am a failure. I have not got a job, I have no qualifications, I am on benefits, I am long-term sick, I am in and out of depression. [ugh] I can’t really socialise quite well, so I become more introverted rather than being the extrovert that I used to be. Maybe that is financial as well, maybe that blends in with the finances because if I could afford to go out and have a drink now and again maybe I would get social [laughs].

How do I tell my partners? How do I live a normal life? Can I live a normal life anymore? And these are real questions that, you know I still deal with today you know and it, people think living with HIV today is manageable. There is absolutely nothing manageable about living with this virus. People who are telling you that, they’re either doctors or the professionals, they’re not living with the virus every day, day-in, day-out. Theres nothing manageable about it, the possibility of infecting somebody you care about or you love is always ongoing. Theres nothing manageable about that risk factor. And that really annoys me you know because it’s, it, yeah, [sighs] yeah just, I don’t want to be rude, it pisses me off, it really is. Because it’s not, you know theres just nothing easy about living with HIV.

I think it was just like as early as like four, and things like that, I really liked dressing up. And you know there was a real I did have a real sense of not being quite the same as the kids in my class at school and things like that. I mean part of it was because I was left handed and that made me stand out. I had to wear glasses, again that made me stand out. And it was like you know back in the 1970s and it was like National Health glasses and which break so often. But you know, they would, it made you stand out even further. I was very nervous, and didn’t find it very easy to integrate either with like sort of my peer group at school, that’s another memory. We lived out, we didn’t live in a sort of urban area, we lived slightly outside. I come from [small city] and we lived about six or seven miles outside [small city], and there weren’t many other kids around my age to associate with and things like that.

I just hit a low you know which we all do. This just got lower than most people I think. I definitely went lower than I should have.

So I started to use drugs more than I had, and not just recreationally, but just for every day. And I was using Speed, and cocaine just to get through the day. I had never used this before, and I was using it as an antidepressant. You know to try and function, so stupidly then you know continued that. And friends were concerned they got very concerned because I wasn’t acting in the right way, and I was acting badly you know. Just, just unreliable, irresponsible

There is so much choice here in the UK and loneliness. Even in midst of people. Apart from HIV, only HIV. In England there is so much loneliness, people don’t have time for people. Even families don’t have time, there is too much stress. Trying to meet up, trying to meet up, there is too much stress. In midst of people, even withinif you have an immediate family you could still be lonely. And in Africa we don’t have that kind of set up. People keep too much to their self here. People don’t care what is happening to their relative or their neighbour. They havethe family tie, there is no family ties in England. There is none.

I was trying to cope with settling heretrying to settle here. I had lost my husband. I was sick. I was stressed. I wasthe world, everything around me was justI had no job, I’d left my children back home. I had just my sister here who waswho was also, who was about to leave her husband. And things were just upside down.

So myI was kind of very stressed. I lost my appetite, so I lost my weight. When I got here I was about, around 65 kilograms. Then when I got onto treatment I went down to about 52 kilograms at one time yeah. Then it started picking up, right now I’m around 60nbsp;

But my problem is on, I still have problems with settlement because I’m still trying to settle, I haven’t completely settledI’m not yet settled, I mean as far as immimy immigration, I’m, yeah. I’m still working on my immigration because I’m still waiting for some documentation to come from back home so that my solicitors can work on. So that’s still quite giving pressure on me.

I see that the immune system is the problem, with the virus. And if you live calm, ordinary, well secured life, then everything is fine. But if you start putting school inspections into the equation. In, you know, in the state schools like OFSTED, or in the private schools, the private school equivalent of OFSTED. And then you put parents evening. And then you put end of term reports. And then you put the whole thing that goes into education, which when you’re 24, 25, 30 you’ve got the energy to cope with. When you are in your 40s, you haven’t got that sort of energy. And round and round it went and eventually I just completely fell apart. I did. And that was about 10 years ago.

While I was in hospital they couldn’t put a finger on why I had a fever. And that nightBecause they said, ‘We can’t let you go home unless your pyrexia’s settled down. I just got so depressed. So I started crying that day. And then this nurse came and he talked to me. And he saidYou know, he was very much into counselling. Because he, he really talked to me.

And he said to me, ‘Look, you are very lucky you’re here. You’re getting your retrovirals. Don’t depress yourself, just get on with your life. You know.

And he talked to me. He said, ‘Look, you’re a parent, you’re looking after your daughter. You don’t have to get yourself into a depressed state like this. It’s not going to be good for your, it’s not going to be good for your daughter. Just look positively to life. Take your retrovirals. You’re going to be alright. And from that day I have never looked back.

I found that nurseI’ve never looked back. So in a way, I’ve had a bit of counselling. And he said to me, you know, ‘You’re going to be alright. They’re trying to investigate where this pyrexia is coming from. If they find a cause they’ll treat you. They never found a cause. It settled down on its own.

What doesn’t kill you makes you more strong! And I am 100% more strong now than before I think that I have been born again, you know and I feel more happy now than before. Amazing you know the first thing is I had the I discovered I was… HIV here.

I didn’t have no one, no member of my family to give me support. I didn’t have job, I don’t have place to stay. I was, I was very very close to being a illegal immigrant, so and there I was, HIV positive.

I have, I have got over all these things, do you know what I mean? And now I’m here

And I think that after I discovered I was HIV positive, I start to take care more about my health than before, you know what I mean? I started going to the gym, I hated the gym, the gym before, but now I am starting to go to the gym before I used to eat everything and now I start to look for my anyway after my health.

And then I still do worry about whether I can get any illnesses. I mean I wa- wake up every morning thinking is there anything wrong with me. You know.

I mean it’s like this morning, when I was on my way to come and see you. I don’t know whether it’s, whether it’s because of the changing in the atmosphere, high pressure or low pressure, I think that’s probably has something to do with it. But I felt a little bit sort of like breathless. But I think that’s because I suffer from anxiety, you know. But no, I, I thought to myself well let, let’s play it at its own game. You know, I mean why should this things stop me from going out or, or doing anything I want to do?

And he (his partner) died not very long afterwards. And depression is funny but’ It was a year later when, it was my fiftieth birthday. And oh it was absolutely wonderful and it started, the 50th year was probably the best in my life up to then. 51st year. And I realised that I had been depressed for a year.

In retrospect I realised that, it had been a very low year. And I was going to Venice with a few friends for my 50th birthday. And we took his ashes, and took a gondola out into the lagoon and left them. And I’d arranged, I had made a little speech and I thought it would all be a bit sombre. So I’d arranged with one of my friends in the gondola and said… when I said certain words, I said I want you to let off the cork from the champagne bottle. And it broke the ice and it was lovely, because it was a year later. And but it was a perfect little ceremony, hed shown, taken me to Venice the first time I went, and we both loved it. And so his, his ashes are there in the lagoon.