Guest post: Disclosing my HIV status

Shugafam, In series 4, we saw the couples Sheila and Femi and Leila and Weki go through loves highs and lows. But what is it like to be a real life Weki or Femi?

In this fourth guest post, guest writer Shawn Decker shares his reactions to series 4, opening up about what it was like for him growing up HIV positive. In this post he looks at how the public perceived his magnetic relationship.
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MTV Shuga Episode 4

“That girl has some serious guts.” “Brave move, man…” “What you guys did- very impressive!”
The community responded well to Sheila and Femi’s message, which went viral online, but there were a few doubters. A couple of girls suspected that Sheila is probably infected with HIV- but either way, people were talking and thinking about HIV.

Weki, however, was still hung up on disclosing his status to Leila. After acting strangely, she suspected he was being unfaithful and followed him to his HIV support group meeting; she secretly listened in and discovered his HIV status. Weki saw Leila, who is shocked, and chased after her.

THE MAGNETIC COUPLE ISSUE IN THIS EPISODE: How the public perceives a magnetic couple: reactions can be mixed. Often the people with the harshest reactions are simply uninformed about HIV transmission. In this episode, Femi had to tell Tobi that he’d sooner hurt himself than hurt Sheila. Even friends can have concerns, but it’s best for people to be honest with each other- Tobi expressed his worry and Femi answered, both speaking from the heart. After the conversation they both felt better and the friendship was stronger as a result.

WHAT THIS WAS LIKE FOR ME: When Gwenn and I started educating together, we had a welcoming reaction, similar to the opening scene of episode 4. The local newspapers did stories about us and we’ve also done interviews for national and global media. It feels good to put a healthy message out there about a scary topic like HIV. But one memory encapsulates the experience of being public. A local paper ran a story about us that came out on a Sunday.

The article was fine and, overall, I was happy about the message being put out. Then I heard from the editor, who said they received a lot of negative messages from readers saying things like, “How dare you make me read about safe sex and HIV on a Sunday!!” and, “She must have a death wish!”

In relation to Weki’s situation in this episode, the circumstances with my high school girlfriend were similar- I waited too long to disclose on my own and she found out in a different way. Things would have been so much better if I’d had the courage to talk about HIV- but it was definitely a learning experience for me, and I never repeated that mistake again.
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Part five of this story will be out next week. To find out more about our guest writer, Shawn Decker, click here.