Blog or Not?

To blog or not to blog? That seems to be the question. I never realized how far my humble blog had reached until I personally heard some feedback from people who didn’t know that it was me. Unfortunately it was negative feedback.

They say I have given away to many details in this blog. Hmm. My mind raced trying to recall each and every entry I did. I know I never identified any other clients by name or any really distinguishing characteristics. Remember, I’m still trying to work on the rest of my alphabet friends.

Hell, if there’s any identity I’ve been giving away, it’s my own! If someone who knows me well enough puts all the little puzzle pieces together, he or she would know it was me no doubt!

Apparently, my giving away details on the hospitals and the doctors scares some pozzies. They’re afraid that if someone who reads my blog hears them talking about this doctor and that, and this hospital and that, then they’d automatically get linked to HIV and get outed. Hmm, and I thought I was paranoid.

Even the disclosure of the meaning of the term pusit was mentioned as foul, but that would no longer be solely in my hands, as it had been used and defined in news articles and television documentaries long before I was one.

Hearing all that just startled me, and really got me thinking about this blog. I had never meant for it to be a nuisance to my kind.

I thought this would be my outlet. I thought it would be a means of sharing what I am going through. I thought it would help people understand the importance of knowing your status. I thought it would emphasize the value of playing safe and staying negative. I thought that it would dispel the fears of others like me who live with HIV, but feel they are alone. I thought it would help those that are too afraid to start their own HIV journeys. I thought that it would open up our lives to others, towards more knowledge, support and understanding. I thought that it would show that we are not suffering from HIV, but rather living with it.

Personally, I think there are a lot more important things to deal with, than always having to worry about who hears what, and what that stranger thinks. The discretion of your conversations after all, will always be under your control. It must really be funny to hear all this from a self-confessed paranoid freak as myself.

So anyway, here’s my compromise. I’ve edited all my entries, removing all the doctors’ names, except those at the Social Hygiene Clinic of the Manila Health Department, because they actually WANT people to see them and get tested. The hospital names, I’ll have to keep, because I really think it would be a huge help for pozzies like me to know their options through my experiences. How I wish I had some references to guide me through the early days of my journey. It just so happened I was lucky enough to meet the right people. Others might not be that lucky.

Oh, and about the pusit thing, blame the Inquirer and ABS-CBN.

I can’t take back what I’ve written before, nor erase what people have already read. Albeit I be Will Smith in Men In Black and use my Neuralyzer to zap all those memories away.

It’s been one thing for me to lock myself in my closet, and another thing for the rest of the world to scare me into a corner. But it feels as if someone just like me just hooked the latch… from outside! Suddenly the World Wide Web feels so limiting.

I know, I know, it’s the stigma connected to HIV that those like me are afraid of. But it’s precisely the lack of knowledge due to it being such a huge taboo that fuels that stigma. Hopefully the time will come when we can openly talk about this without the fear of being burned at the stake.

But for now, I humbly submit and bid goodnight. But fear not, my story shall continue... tomorrow.