2012 was arguably one of the worst years of my life in recent memory. It wasn't because some life altering events happened (2013 had those in store for my ass), but because I had succumbed to the monster known as depression.
Years prior when I watched those hyperbolic commercials of gray people sitting in dim lit rooms with animated clouds following them and as thoughts their thoughts of despair were recited in the form of rhetorical questions, I thought depression wasn't real. I believed that people had complete power of their emotions and feelings; that depression was another word made up for drug companies to make a profit off of people refusing to accept human emotions, like ADHD. Boy was I wrong.
Most people can get over a bad day with a plate of food, some exercise, a nap or just busting a nut; but nothing can prepare you to deal with having a bad day every fucking day of your life. That was me in 2012. I remembered when a girl in high school told me an old saying that her grandma told her about people that put on a facade of happiness and seem to be doing well. "Those who laugh the loudest, cry the hardest."
Well I sure as hell wasn't about to cry so I had to do my best to laugh dammit. On the outside I was just as social and jovial as with my friends as always. Doing all of the things people do to cure having a bad day: going to happy hours, concerts, eating great food, working out and have lots and LOTS of sex. None of that seemed to work and one of those was extremely risky, the sex.
It was virtually indiscriminate, uninhibited and just about routine as wiping your ass after taking a shit. I was busting nuts on and in random guys like clockwork. Living in DC, a city with a higher HIV/AIDS rate that the country of Zimbabwe, was dangerous, but I didn't care. I hated my job, hated where I lived, hated DC and had no inkling that I would ever be leaving so I thought that living life was pointless. All of my standards for guys went out the window as none of those people I met online only to get inside of moments later turned out to be who they said they they were.
I was even exposed to HIV to the point that the Prince George's department of Health was calling my phone at work to tell me, "Sir this is ________ offering you free testing." All could think was, "oh God not again." I dreaded the moment my cellphone would light up with a 240 area code of a number I didn't recognize, because I just knew it would be some shit I didn't care to hear. I was using condoms with the guys, I had a primary care doctor so I was fine...right?
The worst part is I slept around so much I couldn't even pinpoint who would've gone to get tested by a county clinic of all places and of course due to confidentiality laws, they wouldn't tell me. It wasn't my first wasn't my first time being exposed to the virus that has claimed the lives of thousands of young people since the 1980s and I'm sure that wasn't my last.
I remember being 18 in late 2007, back when I thought I was versatile (boy did that end quick), and I hooked up with a top I met off of BGC because I thought he was attractive and had a big dick (because everybody wants those right?). I met up with him and after a few moments of excruciating pain and the annoyance of him slapping my ass and asking me did I like that "dick in my boy pussy" I was done. I got up and went home with a sore ass and sick stomach.
A few hours later, I logged back on just to check my messages and I noticed that his status was missing off of his page. I shot him a text to ask about it and he told me "oh yeah, I'm poz". I was frozen. I didn't bother to respond because that was the first time in my life I was at a loss for words. "How could I be so stupid?" I thought. Was it always blank or did I even notice? Either way I was pissed at myself for doing it and I vowed never to do it again.
Fast forward to today, I woke up with all of that out of sight and out of mind as I did the morning cellphone check routine, I managed to stop myself and do some thinking about what today means. It commemorates a day for those living with HIV and who have died from AIDS. I took it upon myself to it it a step further and make it a day to break away from activity that spreads it. Staying off of the networks where people can hide their darkest secrets from people driven by hormonal instincts and abstain from hopping in someone else's bed without thinking twice about it.
I still have flashbacks of the basements, bedrooms and living rooms tainted by the smell of smoke, as the moaning of guys humping each other was muffled by the sound of gay porn or a song playing as people engage in unfamiliar sex.
I’ve seen people at their worst, when I thought I was at my best. As I still wonder who it could've been that prompted the anonymous phone calls time and time again, I'll never forget how that could've been me having to make them to someone else.
- CGN
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