Thinkpiece Archives
World AIDS Day 2008
I first began to work with people with HIV/AIDS as part of my graduate studies in the mid nineteen eighties. Although
much has changed since that time, I use the occasion of World AIDS Day not only to consider what still needs to be done but also to reflect on those earlier times.
As I recall, the AIDS crisis came as a horrible shock in the
wake of the sexual revolution and the gay liberation
movement of the late sixties and seventies. At the time I had
begun my work, the disease was primarily confined to gay
men whose life expectancy was measured in months. At the
end of three years, I had lost all of the clients that I had
begun to work with. And although I have lost them, I have not
forgotten them and the marvelous things that they had to
teach me.
One of the first things that I learned was how many of these
men had evolved to become unashamed of their desires.
Though often despised by others, these men were not
ashamed by their desires for people of the same gender. If
our desires define who we are, and who we are hurts no one
else; then these desires are truly something to fulfill and
celebrate. Shame, humiliation, degradation, and
embarrassment are antithetical to our desires and inhibit our
growth and fulfillment as human beings. Most of the men
that I met were proud of their sexuality. None would have
claimed to be heroes and it is neither my intent nor place to
confer that status on them.
Secondly, one of the things I most admired about those
pioneers who founded AIDS support organizations was their
prescience in knowing that what seemed to impact only one
community (the gay community) would soon impact
everyone. They rightly saw the issue as of one health, not
morality and fought to establish organizations like AIDS
Vancouver and the BC People With AIDS Society. They
fought hard for legitimacy and have left a legacy that has
benefited thousands and has served as a role model for
similar organizations in other parts of the world. With
estimates of 25 million people being infected world-wide it
is impossible to underestimate the value of those early
pioneers in fight against AIDS.
Focusing on the task at hand, concentrating on what needs
to be done now was one of the other invaluable lessons I
learned from my clients. I recall discussing with one client
some of the details of his sex life that time. He was able to
gently but firmly redirect me to what he needed from me in
that moment in time – not a dissection of his sex life, but
attending to his current psychological needs in dealing with
what was then a killer disease. This, of course, eventually
led me to the inevitable conclusion that treatment had
nothing to do with technique and had everything to do with
how you treated the other.
There were innumerable other lessons that I learned too. I
learned that just as it is possible to live a good life; it is
possible to have a “good” death. And finally, perhaps the
most important lesson of all – that it is possible to protect
the people we love by being careful in our love and taking
whatever precautions that we need to protect not only
ourselves, but those we care about.
Although the AIDS pandemic has been the most horrific of
modern health issues, there is still room for optimism.
People are living longer (there are even some survivors from
earlier times who are still with us). The world is no longer in
denial about the crisis and most countries are now
addressing it. Most of all, in our grief and sorrow, we need
not lose the capacity to love and to remember.
An interview with Michael Danyluk: "Aids is still a work in progress," The Georgia Straight, 27 November 2008
Please click here:
http://www.straight.com/article-172309/aids-work-progress
Serious Illness Counselling
< back to Thinkpiece
