Abby Felt Trapped

I began my day wearing my HIV positive t-shirt and I had very long day of shopping ahead of me. I was starting to get nervous because I didn’t know what people would think of me and what they would say to me. What would they be thinking in their head if they didn’t say anything? I mean I was going out in public presenting the most private information a person could ever display.

            

Once I was leaving Drake West Village I was already getting looks from students. So I thought to myself, “Wow this is going to be a long day, I can just picture what other people will be looking at me like.” Finally I got to the mall and I was walking in and was already getting stares from all kinds of people. I felt as if I was trapped and could not go anywhere where people would leave me along and stop looking at me differently. I finally get into the mall, and my first stop is Scheels. Nobody has said anything to me yet they just all keep looking at me and down at my shirt. I walked around very casually and everywhere I went just felt as if I could not get away from all the people looking at me. In the end nobody ever approached me to ask about my shirt. They just all looked at me funny and kind of make smirks at me. It didn’t matter the type of person they all stared at me and gave me looks. Doing this stigma was difficult for me to do because I am not a person who likes to have all eyes on me. These kinds of eyes looking at me are judging me and giving me nasty looks. So it was hard to do and I didn’t know how to react.

                        

This over all experience was a good experience because I found that we as people don’t pay attention to other people unless something is wrong with them or there is something out of the normal about them. I also see the fear of people coming out saying they have HIV because of how people will react to them having the disease. I know for me it felt good to take that shirt off at the end of the day and not have to worry about any more people looking at me but in reality with them they can’t just take their shirt off at the end of the day. They have to deal with it their rest of their life and overcome the obstacles. This was an eye opening experience for me and I’m glad I was a part of it.