Dating, sexuality and disclosure. These are some of the daily challenges that tens of thousands of HIV-positive teenagers and young adults face. Who do I tell I’m HIV positive? Who don’t I tell? When do I tell them? How much do I tell them?
Questions many adolescents have but don’t have the answers to.
That’s why Dr Kay Mahomed, Right to Care medical officer, started an HIV support group clinic for teenagers five years ago.
The Teens Clinic, which operates from the Themba Lethu Clinic – the largest antiretroviral (ARV) treatment site in SA and managed by Right to Care – at Helen Joseph Hospital. The clinics run on the first Friday of every month.
The teens receive group and one-on-one counselling sessions, debate topical issues, and are taught about contraceptives and safe sex. “The reality is that kids are experimenting, so there needs to be that support structure in place to guide them. The clinic allows them to make friends and they share more among each other. Because they are in a group among their peers, they feel comfortable enough to talk about issues of sexuality and how their status affects the way they date or don’t,” she says.
By the age of 16, Thembi* had attempted suicide seven times in less than a year. For weeks she would complain of a headache, stashing the pills until she believed she had enough to overdose. She cut her wrists, but struggled to find the vein. When that didn’t work she drank cooking oil.
Thembi, now 21, was 14 when she discovered she was HIV positive. She was raped at a young age by her aunt’s eldest son.
She had gone to live with them when she was eight after her mother died. In 2005 she fell gravely ill and was told she would have to start ARV treatment immediately.
“At that time I didn’t understand what HIV was, I had never heard of it before. It was horrible, the nurse just looked at me and told me: ‘You’re HIV positive and you’re going to die just like Nkosi Johnson.’ I was so upset I became depressed and suicidal,” she says.
When she finally accepted what had happened to her, she was strong enough to start researching HIV/Aids, but she had another hurdle to clear – dealing with status and sexuality.
Thembi is gay and says it’s hard to have a relationship.
“Disclosing your status is difficult because you don’t know how the other person is going to react to that,” she says.
Kgomotso*, 22, says that since she joined the teens group, disclosing her status has become easier.
She was 16 when she tested HIV positive, and she, too, contracted the virus through rape.
Her CD4 count was dangerously low at just three and she spent 2006 in and out of school.
Her most difficult challenge, also, was meeting a guy and disclosing her status. She went through a couple boyfriends who were scared off by her status before she found her current boyfriend of two years, who is HIV negative.
“The support I get from him, my family and the group help me stay positive. It starts with you… and what you want in life. I realised I had to move forward because I knew there was life after this diagnosis,” she says.
Right to Care counsellor Nonhlanhla Dlamini says counsellors work closely with parents through the disclosure process.
A 14-year-old patient, who had come to the clinic for a medical male circumcision, was shocked to discover he was HIV positive.
Still a virgin, he grappled to understand how he had contracted the disease.
“The psychological part of the discovery is difficult to break down.
“Some kids get angry and start blaming their parents and they start defaulting with their medication just to spite you as a parent.
“We have to keep reassuring them that there’s hope,” Dlamini says.
* Not their real names
l For more on HIV/Aids, safe sex and the Teens Clinic call Dr Kay Mahomed at 011 276 8946. - The Star