A Personal Story: Please Read if you are Afraid - TheBody.com's Bulletin Boards

This is my first post to this forum, though I have read many of the posts over the last few months. About an hour ago, I received the results of my HIV test. I am NEGATIVE. I feel so incredibly relieved right now. My body literally feels better than it has in months. A huge weight has been lifted from my shoulders. I want to share my story with you people. I'm not sure if it will help those of you who are worrying about HIV, but maybe some of you can sympathize with the complete HELL I have put my self through over the past five months. Warning: this is going to be as blunt as possible.
I am 20 years old and gay. Earlier in the year, I went to a sex club on several occasions. I would get completely drunk, go to this club, and have oral and anal sex with multiple people in one night. I gave many blowjobs and received just as many. I [censored] several guys. One night at this club, I did something that would cause me to worry for several months afterward.
One night, completely wasted, I had unprotected, insertive anal sex with this guy. This was about a minute after I saw the same guy getting [censored] by someone else. No words were exchanged. I put my dick in his ass with NO condom and NO lube. I stopped about 2 minutes later because I suddenly realized what I was doing. AND, then, perhaps an hour later, I did the same thing with another guy: I saw him, he turned around with his pants down, and I [censored] him. NO condom, NO lube.
These two instances of unprotected anal sex would haunt me. ONE DRUNKEN NIGHT in a SLEAZY SEX CLUB made me a complete mental wreck for months. Speak of risk factors; this was extremely risky behavior, and to top it off, it took place in a sex club, where disease spreads like wildfire.
So I tried to forget the whole thing. I tried to convince myself that "everything was okay." Of course, I could NEVER get HIV, right? I'm only 20. I'm cute. I'm smart. I'm INVINCIBLE!! Yea right. I started to realize that I wasn't invincible. There was a good chance that I had a virus swimming in my blood.
A few weeks after my possible exposure, I came down with a really bad case of what seemed to be the flu. I was completely fatigued. I developed the WORST sore throat I have ever had. It felt like my throat was on fire. It really hurt to swallow. The lymph nodes in my throat were enormous. They were huge. My body ached. My joints felt stiff. This went on for several days, and my sore throat lasted almost a week, I think.
So I convinced myself that this sickness was my seroconversion, my acute HIV infection. I ignored the fact that there was a big flu bug going around, and many people I knew were sick at the same time I was sick. I also ignored the fact that I had been massively abusing alcohol, passing out drunk almost every night. I was also smoking about 2 packs a day. I'm sure this had something to do with my immune system being a little susceptible to the flu!
So I was convinced I had HIV. I had unprotected anal sex and a few weeks later I had flu symptoms. Then I became obsessed. I became obsessed with HIV and AIDS. Over the course of about 3 months, I spent hours and hours and hours looking at AIDS information on the web. I read all the stuff on The Body site, sometimes twice. The www.aegis.org website (a wonderful resource, by the way) became my obsession. I read scientific abstract after scientific abstract. I was obsessed with two main things: symptoms of acute HIV infection and modes of transmission. I read statistics, case studies, AIDS conference lectures, FAQs, etc etc. All of this was done, in retrospect, to ease my mind, to find that magical web page that would tell me, "It's okay. You're fine." But I never found that webpage. The only good thing that arose from all this obsessive article-reading was that I probably know now more about HIV transmission than a lot of doctors! :)
I started drinking a lot to help with my anxiety about AIDS. I had, on several occasions, what could be described as mild panic attacks. My heart would start beating really fast, I'd have shortness of breath, every negative thought in the world would come spilling into my head. So I drank a lot to help me forget about AIDS. I drank every night. I'm sure this drinking had other causes, but a lot of it had to do with the deeply embedded monster in my brain, the immense fear that I had contracted a deadly disease.
So one day I realized that the only thing that would end this suffering was to get tested. So I got tested. And I got the results (of course I had to drink a bottle of wine the night before the test so I could sleep.) AND I AM NEGATIVE!
I wouldn't want anyone out there to go through all the endless bullshit I went through. I honestly feel like "AIDS fear" could qualify as a mental disease. It's very similiar, I think, to Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder. To the people who are enduring the same suffering that I did for months, I offer some advice.
First of all, the only way to restore happiness in your life is to GET TESTED. This is the only way you will truly find out if you have HIV. Second, you can read as much information about AIDS as you want on the internet (perhaps this is good, since it increases one's knowledge), but webpages will not make the fear go away.
I hope to take from this experience some valuable lessons. I will never have unprotected sex again. Never. I will know that alcohol can severely inhibit one's good sense and reason in sexual situations. I know that a few minutes of sexual pleasure is not worth a lifetime of disease and constant pill-popping. I know that I am not invincible, and that AIDS sees neither gender,nor class, nor intelligence, nor race.... it is an equal opportunity murderer. I know that even though today's results were negative, one day I might not be so lucky.
So, people, please don't torment yourself. Please don't worry about symptoms and such. Get tested. And be safe!

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