10. + Discussions Upstairs

For HIV+ people:

Newly Diagnosed facilitated support group—People who are not newly diagnosed can attend and share the ways they dealt with problems the newly diagnosed people raise, but the facilitator will be good at keeping the focus on the needs of the subject group.

Twenty-Year+ facilitated support group—People who were diagnosed more than twenty years ago may have different relationships to their HIV status than people who were diagnosed more recently. The more dire circumstances of that initial hit may have permanently impacted their identities in a way more recently diagnosed people can’t understand. Not all of us are able to declare, “I refuse to let HIV define my life,” like some billboards say. "20+'s" may also may have different relationships than other people to death and dying,loss, living and aging. More recently diagnosed people are welcome to attend the workshop to discuss their issues with chronology—like facing judgmental attitudes that 20+’s are more “innocent victims” than they, "minus-20's", who had information and prevention outreach to “know better.” [The facilitator has never witnessed that prejudice but has a more recently diagnosed friend who’s been confronted with it by HIV- peers.]

A Discussion Group That Will Not Happen—Positive House would love to have a group in which young positive adults who were born with it share what HIV is to them, but some of us are old enough to know that excessive exploitation of young HIV+ people’s life stories, even young adults, and even when—maybe especially—when they’re more than willing--can be problematic in the long run. [But the program directors guess that the “excessive exploitation” part is not so relevant anymore so they're not sure what to think about it.]