a hopeful possible worried well ... my story - TheBody.com's Bulletin Boards

Hi everyone,

(This is going to be really long winded and may bore you to death but its helping me clear my head and keep things straight for the next month until I can take the 90 day mark so please cut me a bit of slack.. respond if you like, don't if you don't want to, and if I test negative at the 3 month mark like everyone seems to think you can use this little story to help you understand the worried wells you get inundated by and if I don't test negative ...well atleast i'll have a place which has my state of mind and the experience documented for science to add to the pile of research and make that interview about sexual contact and previous partners very easy to do)

I've done everything I can physically do to prevent an HIV infection after the fact, other than turning back time and drop kicking myself into another time zone. I had what has been termed a very low risk situation which was actually my first sexual encounter, (as a 25 year old heterosexual who has for much of his life been a gym rat ....it wasn't that easy to avoid, some very forward women out their ... like that waitress at Denny's that wanted to have sex in the back room). I've always had a hang up about sex and to be very honest even the minutest chance I could get HIV, no offense to anyone on these boards but this disease scares the hell out of me. As someone born in the late 80's and as an observant child I was able to quickly identify that something had everyone really freaked out, that plus the death of what was essentially a tutor of mine from pneumonia in the prime of his life after seeing him on one occasion proposition a prostitute as I drove by in my families car, and the rumors that followed his death about it being Aids related have had a significant impact on my psyche. (The above was just so you guys understand where my special brand of crazy is coming from.. trust me I've been quoted the risk numbers for the encounter below several times)

I've kinda let myself go these last couple years so I'm not in such good shape anymore but still pretty decent looking (with a knack for picking up women) and had a recent bipolar type 2 diagnosis earlier in the summer with my first psychiatrist. The Bipolar was likely something which I have had for years but got triggered by my cousins drug related murder, leading to a major depressive episode. Bipolar is my Achilles heel ... it was the gateway to the current mental state and situation I find myself in. Hypomania is a state in my own words where everything feels great and you kinda feel invincible .... like ecstasy but better because their is no obvious distortion of perception or immediate come down from the high the next day or reason to pop any more pills to keep on rolling, I just feel amazing and limitless! (Haven't done E in 6 years and can't say I regret doing it or stopping it) I've been termed as someone with a bit of insight about my moods, so I guess I have less of an excuse than others with the disorder. So in a bout of hypomania I chose to forgo psychiatric drugs and go toe to toe with my own brain ...guess who lost?

Here goes: September 20, 2012 meet a moderately attractive girl in my university cafeteria and due to hypomania and what I can say is only the sheer unquenchable need to push my boundaries, I asked her out (not my first date ...but crazy me had a goal and god damn if hypomania is anything its productive). Grabbed her in my brand new car the next night, still feeling like a boss that could pull a hundred of her if he put a bit of effort into it. Caught a movie and did the requisite getting to know you things. I wasn't interested in her or what she had to say, mostly myself and what was in my pants. She may have noticed, I wasn't feeling to charming and was kinda grabby with her.

Oooohh wait for it guys heres the anti-climax (or atleast lets hope it turns out that way *crossing my fingers*):

On the way home while driving home we pulled the car over at a parking lot and she gave me head and I fingered her.
(I had a couple of scab on my fingers which were all completely sealed which I examined immediately after the encounter and when I pealed them the next day found fresh new skin under them.. so I 'm saying no risk here and the doctors have concurred. Still kinda rational so far). Either I am some kinda sexual god or I have a defective penis but she sucked my penis for two hours and could not get me to cum .... and pulled up from my penis with this cute little disappointed look torn between inadequacy and confusion and asked me if she was really bad at this or whether I could just last a long time. ... naturally I said the latter but I had a feeling it may have been the former. She said she had a sore neck and wanted me to finish myself off. I pulled my fingers out of her vagina and can hazily recall possibly wiping some of her vaginal fluids off on her jacket and then manually stimulating myself. (Again I had no cuts on my penis upon examination and just a couple of old scabs with perfect skin underneath.) I wanted to penetrate her vaginally ....(damn you brain wheres your self-preservation... we had no condom!) .. she thankfully wasn't going for it and so I had her vaginal fluids on my penis as I masturbated (still no cum ...so i'm going to have to say defective penis)... the anxiety started to creep up on me and so I immediately rushed off to the nearby fast food restaurant which was open 24 hours and splashed my junk with water in some futile attempt to fight a virus with H2O. I jumped back in the car kicked it into sport mode and drove her home at about 160km/h in residential streets in an attempt make it home quickly and dunk my junk in some antibacterial soaps. ... I examined myself, my hand, my penis and everything else and came to the conclusion I didn't have any cuts.

I still felt like a boss the next day and finally felt like I may have kicked the HIV phobia and could be a normal person ...unfortunately all it took was an off hand comment by my brother (who is very aware of my phobia ...and loves to rub in the fact that while I have all these advantages with women.. I've never been able to use them effectively) that I now had gonorrhea. Well now that claim just had to be investigated didn't it? ...brain meets google ...google meets brain .... google gives brain a massive anxiety attack and I did the only thing I could possibly think to do in the case of a medical emergency ...rush to the ER of my favorite hospital (yes I have one ... been very easy for me to get food poisoned quite badly ever since this bacteria did a number on my gut when I was 18). Met this great doctor their and she categorically said that I wasn't at risk of HIV infection and that I had more to worry about with gonorrhea and chlamydia. I took her word for it ... the hospital had a strong track record in HIV research ... being the birth place of HAART and being at the epicenter of most of the local cases of the virus (right next to the local gay village) and the doctor had been their for a while. I took a little breather for the next couple days to wait for the results of the gonorrhea and chlamydia test to decompress and calm down a bit. Unfortunately that didn't work out ... no matter my initial confidence in my skins condition at the time of the encounter my brain decided it was anxiety attack time and convinced me that i may have had a small dry or mostly dry nick on my knuckle as I fingered her and that I should have myself reassessed. I made the mistake of going to my campus doctor instead of the ER again to not only get my results for the gonorrhea and chlamydia results (negative YAY!) but also to ask about the nick on my knuckle which may have been open. She gave me this look like I was a dead man walking and started telling me that any break in the skin no matter the size could have exposed me to the virus and suggested I go get PEP immediately. Lets just say staying for my next class was not easy and my professor did give me a couple of strange looks as I prevented myself from hyper ventilating as best I could. Jumped into my car the moment I could back I was zipping to the same ER with more questions. New doctor same answer ....very very low risk .. he was very frank and stated that my campus doctor needs a refresher course and was categorically wrong and that my chances were so low I shouldn't bother testing, basically I was in the theoretical risk category and that even an HIV positive persons blood falling on a cut on his hand in the ER would still be low risk and all he would do would be to wipe the blood off and use some soap. Took him at his word and calmed down a bit ...but within two days I was freaking out again and imagining ARS symptoms (which they weren't ..no flu like symptoms, or thrush, just a dry cough which is most likely related to an allergy related nasal drip which I had for years before peeking its head back up now that my allergy resistance from my allergy shots have expired due to not taking the maintenance doses) needless to say anxiety is an asshole and I basically had a month long anxiety attack with loads of skin related symptoms like burning skin (which I later learned was an anxiety symptom ..I'd convinced myself I was going through ARS), When I say anxiety attack I mean it ...nights up hyperventilating and praying I didn't have it, only sleeping and relaxing a bit after taking shots of whiskey. Oh I had it bad .... like really bad, my sleep debt is probably bigger than the US deficit. I also managed to find the time to visit the local CDC twice, and talked to two wonderful public health nurse .. the first one tried to help with my overall mental state and talk me into taking a more mature outlook on my sexuality as a male vs societies expectations of me etc. but also stated she didn't feel I needed to test, I went again in a week to get a bit reassurance as the anxiety was kicking up to a whole new level and to either test finally or just talk. Ended up just talking to a nurse about the anxiety and she was really a great older woman with over 20 years of experience and she categorically refused to test me until the 90 day mark so I didn't end up on a crazy spiral of testing every week to check for changes. Oh and she was very right that is exactly what would have happened if she had tested me and the impact it would have had on my mind which was basically stuck on repeat every day ... they call it obsession... I say the rewind button got stuck on the VCR.

Ended up not studying at all just distracted myself in class by playing racing games on my tablet in class or browsed reddit to avoid thinking about HIV.Nearing the end of the fifth week following the encounter I'd basically been pushing my heart and body to its limit and looked like an unshaven hobo and so back again to the ER, hoping they may be able to intervene with something psychiatric, I was basically quasi-suicidal with plans to jump of a bridge if I tested positive. Got a rough older asian doctor ... who categorically said that they were the experts on HIV transmission and that he'd been around since it first appeared and that I simply did not have have the virus and refused to test me. HIs gruffness helped quite a bit but it wasn't reassuring. Following this my anxiety only abated for a day and a half and I was back at the ER and met a doctor who had treated me in the past for some nasty migraines and had gotten me a neurologists appointment which actually resulted in the referral to the psychiatrist and my bipolar diagnosis, super nice guy and I have quite a bit of respect for him event though he's on the younger side and probably not much older than me. He understood what the situation had done to me, considering he knew me from before it so he went the the extra mile and had the psych team come in and he had an HIV and STD test done. A couple good things came out of this encounter, I got prescribed ativan (wow that really got rid of all my physical symptoms I had considered ARS pretty fast) , a new psychiatrist, and after a nail biting week of waiting I called in to a hotline set up for results and found out that I had tested negative with a 96% probability. The anxiety didn't leave completely but with reassurance from my family doctor and my psychiatrist and the addition of a low dose of Respiridone for mood stability I'm getting by a lot better and am becoming more comfortable with all the professional advice. The Zoplicone for sleep is also helping quite a bit because, god damn that's important for stability.

Now I wait for the final step ...the 3 month test ... praying the health care professionals are right ... that the statistics are right.. and that I'm healthy and can go on with my life put myself back together and move on to achieve my goals and dreams and that HIV is not my problem as the late Dr. Bob would say (The archives are a great resources and he truly was a great loss to the site and the HIV+ community)

Post Extras: Remind Me!