Telling Others You Are HIV Positive

This is an excerpt from There is Hope: Learning to Live with HIV, 2nd Edition, written by Janice Ferri, with Richard R. Roose and Jill Schwendeman, a publication of The HIV Coalition.

• How to Tell Others You Are HIV Positive
• Telling Your Employer You Are HIV Positive
• Telling Your Child's School That Your Child is HIV Positive
• Personal Perspectives

How to Tell Others You Are HIV Positive

There's really no easy way to tell someone close to you that you have a life-threatening illness. Test Positive Aware Network suggests the following approach for breaking the news to the "significant others" in your life (especially your parents):

1) Assess the reasons you want to tell your friends or family. What do you expect from them? What do you hope their reaction will be? What do you expect it to be? What's the worst possible reaction they could have?

2) Prepare yourself. Gather clear, simple, educational brochures, hotline numbers, pamphlets and articles on the disease. Take these with you to leave after your discussion.

3) Set the stage. Call or write and explain clearly that you have to meet with them to discuss something extremely important. This is a once-in-a-lifetime experience for all of you--don't treat it in an offhand or rushed manner.

4) Enlist help. Ask a close friend or family member who knows the situation to come along or write a letter to your folks asking them to try to understand and reminding them that their acceptance and support are vital. Ask your physician or therapist to write a letter to your folks as well. This can be most effective--many parents will believe or listen to a stranger before listening to their own child.

5) Be optimistic. Accept the possibility that your parents are caring and rational adults. Likewise, you need to be as caring and rational; having a chip on your shoulder or selling your parents short is not going to help win the support you need.

6) Let the emotion come through. You are not asking to borrow the family car. The prospects to be considered are as frightening for them as they are for you. Now is not the time to assume false fronts or joke away the more serious implications.

7) Let them know you are in good hands. Explain how you are taking care of yourself, that your physician knows what to do, that a support network exists for you. The single thing you are asking of them is love.

8) Let them accept or deny it in their own fashion. Do not try to change their position right there. Leave them the material and put an end to the discussion if things go very badly. Try not to revisit past discussions about lifestyle.

9) Give them some time to digest the information and adjust to the news. After a reasonable period of time, call them back to assess their reaction.

10) ACCEPT their reaction and move on from there.

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Attempt to keep the lines of communication open. Approach the process of telling with the best expectations. Still, with all the preparation possible, there may be surprises. Be willing to pull out, pull back and give them some room. If you're prepared for the worst, the best will be a blessing. adapted from Positively Aware (formerly TPA News), July, 1990. Based on an article by Chris Clason. reprinted with permission.

Last updated: 10/05

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