Groups I have joined

I am involved in the following:

http://www.poz-fem-uk.org/index.html

Welcome to Pozfem UK online - The National Voice of Positive Women

PozFem UK is the only national network of women living with HIV.

It was established during Changing Tomorrow, the UK conference of people living with HIV, held in Leicester in September 2004. PozFem UK works through 20 HIV positive regional coordinators who are linked to regional groups around England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales. The International Community of Women living with HIV/AIDS (ICW) and Positively Women provide technical support to PozFem UK. PozFem UK is an initiative that is funded by The Big Lottery Fund.

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I am also off to PozFem's regional meting on the 2rd to the 5th or October in Bristol

And I am really so looking forward to it

I think/hope it will be so very good for me to meet face to face women that are out about their HIV like me and doing their best to campaign for services for women with HIV nationally
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I am also a member of ICW - International Community of Women Living with HIV /AIDs
http://www.icw.org/


If anyone reading this wants to join me in both

Please do

We can only all try our best to fight for change and educate

If we die without doing this our HIV dies with us - and no one has learnt or achieved anything?!!!

Just my personal perspective

Cornwall Womens group - what I was trying to say

I think what I was trying to say below about the new group
Is I feel such a group is really worth while

But after thinking long and hard I feel if my presence in the group feels too 'risky' due to my going public about my HIV - for other members I am totally happy to withdraw from the group.

I have decided that I intend to say this a the next meeting as it is more important to me that if it is valuable this meeting happens - than I actually attend it.

________________________________________________________________

I acknowledge that we all have to find our own path through living with HIV

And I respect this absolutely and totally.

And know that however well we seem to be coping form the outside - this thing is a nightmare for all of us and a terrible thing to have to live with and through!!

Some of us may need not to tell anyone - and others - such as me for instance - may need to be very public and join activist groups etc

• I especially understand why those living with HIV who have young children or jobs that they value may feel especially that they need to keep their HIV status totally to themselves!! My daughter may now be 19 but it seems only yesterday that she was a baby !! and I know how much you feel you have to protect them!! So I RESPECT this so totally!!

I also was once a youth worker for Cornwall County Council for 14 years and before this another 12 in London - so I understand why a job may mean that you have the need no to be open about HIV - also I understand why relatives, the estate you live on or the area you live in, community, friends may make you feel you can not be at all open about HIV - and I respect this also.

• But I also feel that even women who are having to live keeping their HIV status to themselves in Cornwall may benefit from a peer support network where even just for a brief hour or so and in a safe place..............
• A place where we can all can be open!! a place where no one will judge and a place we can actually air openly our concerns, feelings and distresses - as distress goes hand in hand with HIV for most

_________________________________________________

But I accept


No one who attended the womans network knows me very well or trusts me at all - or each other as yet! - and trust will take much time.


- and as I have been 'out' about my HIV in the press and on this blog and belong to many HIV organisations in my own name and fully out about it.

I therefore understand that no one knows me and do not trust me and have no knowledge of how I have a long track record of being out about an issue indeed being an advocate for an issue and yet still being able to keep others confidences/confidence on the subject.

I do understand that my having gone public may mean that others may not want to be seen with me - as Cornwall is quite a small community

• However as I have lived in Cornwall for over 23 years , have relatives in Cornwall and many friends and acquaintances, few if any who have HIV and am often to be seen about in Cornwall in the company of many different people and also with those due to my work with Post Natal Illness as well as relatives friend and others who have NOTHING to do with either issue!!!

So actually even though I have gone public about my HIV, if someone was seen with me there would be no reason at all for anyone who knew either of us to make the assumption that they have HIV or Post natal illness for that matter.

So I do not think that my continuing to be public about my HIV, be involved in activism for HIV rights and issues and yet still attending a local HIV womans group are both not compatible?

But I am willing to withdraw from further meetings if the others would want me to? And at the next meeting I will ask if they do.

As I do no feel I can just creep away into the woodwork now!

The path I have chosen to take for the rest of my life regarding my now being HIV positive is to use my experience to raise awareness, to change attitudes etc if I can.

After all I am not alone in this .........................as those who founded such organizations as KPS or even THT, Positively women, Worlds Aids Day, International Community of Women living with HIV etc all must have similar motivations and my ambitions and my motivations are so much tinier than theirs?

- all I want is to help in setting set up specific peer and other support services in Cornwall, and raise awareness within Cornwall of HIV.

Another big reason being is that I have a 19 year old birth daughter and have had a foster children and I want to ensure that at that at the very least they and their friends have the knowledge available to keep them HIV free!!

Cornwall Womens network - First meeting has happend!

The group met and for a first one it was felt to be a good turnout for a first meeting.

We are meeting once a month at the KPS building in Truro and the next meeting is 23rd October 2008 at 11.30 to allow those with children to get back in time to collect them from school.

If anyone else would like to join us you would be very welcome and we would all love to see you.
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I considered not mentioning this at all - but I know as I already said that I would be happening that it would seem strange not to even mention it as I have make it very obvious how important it seems to me that we establish a network of women in Cornwall for MUTUAL/peer support.

I have considered it for a few days - since Thursday - and felt that as long as I only talk about in general and how I found it and stuck closely to what we agreed in the meeting

'That

• 'everything said, within the meeting is confidential to those who were there' and
• 'no one identifies in any way anyone who was there, to anyone else not present, by mentioning anything personal about others. i.e such as ages, circumstances, lifestyle, family and children'

Then it will be fine for me to just to say that the first meeting has taken place and my feelings now.

As this blog is about me and my journey and not anyone else or any else's journey through HIV.

So as long as I stick to the confidentiality guidelines above and did not in any way identify or bring anyone else into what I feel then this should be fine.

____________________________________________________

On the whole I felt it was positive - a beginning - and something if we do not try we will never know it will be of benefit.

Most areas of the country do now have at least one HIV Womens support group/network but Cornwall did not have up to now and I so hope that this turns out to be positive to others as well as myself.

I did not try to initiate his just for me at all.

Yes - I certainly did want and need peer support from other women living with HIV, especially when I was first diagnosed. And just assumed that there would be a womens mutual peer support group already set up!! But I found there was nothing and that in fact for at least 3 months after my diagnosis I lived in a vacuum when I did not talk to one other woman with HIV

- this was very painful and upsetting to me because I knew they had to exist in Cornwall but there seemed no way of getting in touch with them.

I would have much rather have just attended an existing group and tried to join in as best I could and give others support as well as receive it - but here was not one and while I certainly did not feel up to being involved in starting one in any way - but I basically felt I had no choice.

As I felt that if I felt so isolated and alone I just could not be the only one feeling like this!! And others may come after me and be diagnosed and find they are alone - so I just want a network to exist if they want to access it too.

I think it may be different if someone was first diagnosed in another part of the country where there were already support groups etc and then chose to move to Cornwall 'post diagnosis' knowing that there was no specific support for women with HIV - or even because HIV is so little recognized here and it was felt to be more anonymous and where no one will know or guess your status.

But I have lived here in Cornwall for well over 20 years have many friends and even relatives here and was diagnosed here and felt I needed local, specifically womens HIV peer support.

I do really think it is still possible to live in Cornwall as a woman with HIV and yet unless you want them to, that no one in your local community ever knows this and yet still come to this new womens network meetings at the KPS building?

Which after all is in an anonymous 'safe' building and nothing need go outside the room we have for any womans network meeting.


Anyway as to the meeting.

I felt the turn out was positive for a first meeting and that it is a start. Irene - KPS - counselor seemed to agree.

And some others gave their apologies and said they will try to come in the future.
The meeting went well in that we certainly had a lot to talk about which is a first step!!

If we had all sat around bored with nothing to say to each other - there truly would be no point whatsoever !!!!! -
But it was not like that.

If nothing else we have a lot of views to exchange - and that can only be good?

Cornwall Women's HIV Network - first meeting

I wanted to let anyone know who is interested

That the first meeting of the proposed Cornwall Women's HIV Network is next Thursday 18th September at 1.30 at the KPS Resource center in Truro, Cornwall.

If you do not know where that is and want to come to the meeting just email me for the address on
veritee@veritee.net

I do hope some of you from Cornwall will come?

I am worried that you may not as I have had some feedback that some women living with HIV in Cornwall may not come along because they are not altogether happy with me!

i.e They are worried about how open I have been about my HIV status and that if they were seen with me 'out and about' in Cornwall, as I have gone public i.e in the newspaper and in a magazine......That this would in essence 'out' them too .

I truly understand as much as is possible to understand another situation and I also understand what a small community Cornwall is. Everyone knows everyone else and it is pretty impossible o keep things secret. If it gets known - everyone knows!!!

Perhaps had I had the opportunity to speak to women in Cornwall Living with HIV I may not have gone so public with my own story and may have understood and taken on board the views and concerns of other women in the county living with HIV?

But unfortunately when I was diagnosed in January I was absolutely desperate to make contact with other women living with HIV who lived in Cornwall. But I was not able to speak face to face to any other woman living with HIV in this county or anywhere for at least 3 months and to his day I have only spoken face to face with three other women

• One woman I met briefly at a meeting
• One woman who does not live in Cornwall but at least 100 miles away but who very kindly visited me and had dinner with us ( thank you your visit really helped us both - Barry and me)
• Lesley who is helping to initiate this women's network with me

However I only met all three some weeks and in some cases many months after I had discovered I had HIV and sometime after I had already gone to the press/media with my story ( they published it some time later not at the time.

So I do understand theses concerns BUT I really beleve that it is possible for women living with HIV in Cornwall to join the network and it not compromise their anonymity despite my going to he press - I am not important I am only one woman.

So I can only apologize if my going to the media has made anyone feel they can not attend the women's network at KPS. If it was not the right thing to do I am truly sorry but it is too late to change it now

However what I want to say is:

• The Women's KPS network is not being facilitated by me but by the KPS counselor Irene Alford
• I may have initiated this network to start because I needed peer support with other women in the county living with HIV and when I looked for it I found it just was not there - but - My status in the group/network is only one of participant just like everyone else
• If anyone does not want to be seen with me in particular or to relate to me in any way in the future I respect this - and you need not - What I am hoping is enough women will come along so you all have a choice as to who you contact and who you relate to among women living with HIV in Cornwall.
• Obviously just because we all have HIV we are not all going to get along we are vastly different age groups and life styles etc - So the reason for calling this a HIV Women's network and not a HIV Women's Group is so you can all choose who you contact or spend time with , if you contact or spend time with anyone at all?

Please consider giving it a go and come along on Thursday 18th September 2008

If we do not try - we will never know if it will be helpful to us

Veritee XX

The irony of life - Cornwall Women of Achievement Awards 2006

I have not written on here for a while............... just trying to enjoy my summer as best I can and try to come to terms with my status as a HIV positive older woman, a situation that will now last he rest of my life!

But I thought someone may appreciate the irony of this.....

That I was shortlisted for the Cornwall Women of Achievement Awards 2006 for my youth work and my charity work and I have only just realized that one of the other two shortlisted for the same category as me was my consultant Frances Keane - the head HIV consultant in Cornwall!!

I wonder now if she realized?

The official website listing the finalists for the Cornwall Women of Achievement Awards 2006 for my category has been taken down now but here is one where it is mentioned I was a shortlisted for my voluntary and youth work endeavors.

http://www.antonylordfoundation.org.uk/pages/updates.htm


If you scroll down you will find that my category is listed and I am shortlisted with one other along with my first HIV consultant, Frances Keane, who is the head consultant of the GU clinic where we both ( my husband and I ) now get treated and while I now tend to see one of the other consultants, she was the first one I saw and the one I saw when first diagnosed in January and when VERY upset and is still my husbands HIV consultant.
_______________________________________________

Community and public service sponsored by Cornwall County Council

Francis Keane, Consultant at the Department of GU Medicine, RCHT
Nancy Morris, Child & Family Centre, Bodmin (formerly Sure Start).
Veritee Reed Hall
_______________________________________________

I find this fact so very ironic especially as the reason I did not get to the award ceremony that night and therefore had no chance of winning even though I had been told beforehand that it was likely, was that I had at that time been suffering bouts of crippling unexplained sickness and diarrhea and tiredness and was just too ill that evening of the presentations to go - and in retrospect I believe this illness to be due to my HIV that I had indeed been suffering by then for some years from HIV that I did not at that point know I had!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

So perhaps it is fate - and a good thing - that Frances Keane and myself did not meet that night before my diagnosis? As had we met at the Achievement Cornwall Women of Achievement Awards 2006 - it would truly be more embarrassing than I already found it.

Frances Keane won the award for that category............and all I got was HIV!!!!! and all that goes with it!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Life it truly ironic sometimes

Sunday People today - 15th June 2008

God it was in!!

And our picture made the front page!!!!!!!

http://www.people.co.uk/news/tm_headline=my-husband-caught-aids-then-infected-me%26method=full%26objectid=20607784%26siteid=93463-name_page.html

We did not expect that!!

It does not give the story as it appears in full in the paper - or maybe it is because it does not have the pictures or quotes that it seems less extensive?

As I just said to someone on email.........................

It is fathers day today and we were going out - but Barry will not go out now!! He is in hiding!!

He was, of course, part of it going into the papers, and was happy to contribute all along but he did just not expect it to go on the front page - neither did I

So he refuses to go out with me today as planned - Oh well!!! There is always another day!

As he hates being photographed so it was this that has got to him, not the story itself as he was happy to do it as he wanted to warn other men that it really is not worth that 'one night stand 'however tempting it may seem at the time.

I still find him really attractive - despite him not being well - so I just can not understand that he hates the picture ? But.........

• He thinks he looks awful in the picture


• I think I look awful in the picture


• But we both think the other looks great!!


• Shows what love can do as neither of us looks great- but we both think each other look fantastic!!

• But in reality we do not - well certainly not as good as we used to look when young anyway!!!!!

• But we still look wonderful to each other!!


• And that is really all that counts in the end

He wanted to do the story as much as I

Because he learnt a really hard lesson at an age that he really thought he had no other lessons to learn -and I did too as I should have not taken it for granted that he had never had any other sexual partners in all theses years!!!

Well that's the point as he sees it- if he can do it at his age, and after so many years of what truly is a very happy marriage, others can too!!!

But thank you so much for your support on this
I wish it had never happened - but then I also wish PNI had never happened

- life has so many twists and turns doesn't it?

Our Story - Sunday People 15/June 2008

This may be a bit late - but I only heard myself today/ this morning that 'Our HIV Story' was actually going to be published today

I wanted to let you know ( you may not be interested in what such an in-consequential person such as me is doing to raise awareness of issues around HIV/AIDs but I just wanted you to know)

• That I have now began my own 'personal campaign' to raise awareness of HIV and its prevention amongst the UK public
• To this end and as a beginning - My/Our story is published today in the UK Sunday People 15/June 2008

I have made sure that the KPS charity is mentioned: http://www.kernowps.co.uk

Perhaps a less mainstream newspaper than I had hoped - but working class as we are and as a non- celebrity it was the only one I could get in nationally - and I have done my best to make the necessary points - for me about:

• routine HIV testing in the UK
• that older people, over 40 are now very much a risk group for HIV in the UK i.e divorce, changing partners due to death of a partner or moving on after several years etc
• more awareness of the realities of HIV ( I am a qualified youth worker and many young people I have spoken to in the UK think HIV is now curable!!!!)
• safer sex,
• that non consecutive - i.e serial rather than several together - partners is the best way in terms of not getting or passing on HIV,
• telling your partners so they understand the risk and can protect themselves ( controversial I know)
• that the support offered in the UK should be improved - the access to medication is great but the access to support especially if you are heterosexual is shit.
• education in the UK improved - for a 'first world' country like the UK popular knowledge of HIV is appalling. Because most thing it will never affect them!!

Sorry I am VERY opinionated!! And my 'opinions' many not be the same as others or well thought out as yet

But it is early days for me and I have to do this my own way

Wisdom of Whores

I have written, via the Internet, to a woman who wrote the book - Wisdom of Whores - Elizabeth Pisani

http://www.wisdomofwhores.com/


She once did me the honor of talking to me briefly on Skype -

I felt I was bloody honored!!!!!!!!

So if you ever read this - Thank you Elizabeth

- I should not have asked you to give me your time as it was my stuff and I know how busy you are so I really appreciated that you too the time you did .....................as I remember I just talked and did not give you the chance to respond much?

• On the one hand I love her for her book!
• On the other I hate her for her book!

I think the essence of my discomfort reading her book is it makes me feel that I - and everyone else - am responsible for my own infection! which had I been I would gladly take responsibility for

i.e had any real chance or avoiding it through having the information from my husband that he had had sex with another woman at some point in our marriage............................

or I had had risky behaviour for HIV myself

i.e either of us had not used safe sex, except with your partner of over 20 years and then only when you were trying to conceive and after menopause, not had any consecutive partners, you are NOT a sex worker and nor are you an intravenous drug user.

So the book makes me feel guilty and blamed - yet what could I have done to avoid my HIV infection? ( if I do not have the right information, from my husband in this case, this is impossible)

My personal projection is I am guessing she is a lot younger than I am?

Sorry my ageist crap I guess????


..............and yet her book is so wonderfully full of great stuff/insights/information/knowledge and and so right in ways - as I was once about my own subjects!!! And she still has the energy to try to disseminate her knowledge? I envy her energy.



But at the same time her experience of the issue is second hand as a professional - just as mine was ...............................


This does not mean she does not know her subject - as she does entirely
BUT it is all so totally different when you actually HAVE HIV!!!


My comment to her on her blog - I changed it a bit to post on her blog :http://www.wisdomofwhores.com/2008/06/05/invitation/
______________________________________________
She said:


Please come along to agree, disagree, make me think, change my mind, or entrench me in my opinions. Or even just to hear some cracking good tales about interesting people.


I said:


We have been in contact briefly before - On Skype - maybe I should not have tried to talk to you as it was all my stuff ?


And I so wish I COULD have a chance to be there and argue with you face to face!! As while I agree with so much you say I also do have some real difficulties with it too. So I wish I could make it to the US but I can not.

I am now a volunteer for a HIV charity in the UK and in my ‘very small’ way I am campaigning for more awareness, routine HIV testing etc
I am such small fry compared to you - but I so hope to make some impact!!





I may be in the Sunday People UK this Sunday- I have a blog here: http://hiv-and-us.blogspot.com/





I do in fact have a cracking good life story - that I think you may well enjoy….and I can at times be VERY interesting!!!!!!!!

But then so do you and so are you and you do not have HIV!!!


Lucky for you!!!!!!!!!! and every one else who does not have it but works with it!!!!!!!!


But I feel I HAVE to point out - It is actually really so VERY different when you do have HIV yourself!!!


Something I do truly so hope you never discover - i.e how different it is to have HIV from the mostly academic perspective of working with people with HIV you now have.

I am now unfortunate to have done both!!!
I have worked with people with HIV - not at all as extensively as you, and me only from a caring/personal/educative perspective - but I now have HIV at an age I thought it could NEVER happen to me!!!!!

- please believe me it is VERY different when you have it yourself!! As I have been so very unfortunate to discover


Anyway I rant.............................

I am VERY good at ranting since I have HIV - HIV can make you rant - bloody virus has no care about who you are or how much you know about HIV, You only have to make one mistake or have sex with someone who did and you are .....................................totally fucked!!!!



I did however love and hate your book
it made many points that needed to be said


And someone brave enough to say it!!


Thanks for talking to me - Skype - and I wish I could meet you



Veritee

Off to the clinic today

Well I am off now to my monthly visit to see the HIV consultant I will let you know how it goes later

But I just hate I hate going to that clinic . I just always get so angry that my treatment is done in a STD/GU clinic!!

My daughter says this is my problem because even though I feel I did not take any sexual risks to get HIV, it is transmitted sexually??

But I just can not accept that with a lifelong illness that has affected everything in my life and may eventually kill me ......................( HIV meds only 'delay' AIDs not prevent it. You may be lucky and it delays it for many years but you can never be sure!!)

....................that I have to turn up a STD clinic at least once a month -although it will get less as time progresses, unless/or when I am ill


...............................and sit sometimes with giggly 'mostly' quite young girls who cope with having picked up an STI/STD by making a joke of it

• or worst still grumpy 'mostly' young men with itchy or drippy pricks, who are obviously feeling, if they are heterosexual that if they had not had sex with that Slag, Slut whatever I have heard it all from young men.................................. they would not be there i.e blaming the woman as always I can see it on their faces and also on their faces what is that old woman doing here - dirty old person, people my age ( their parents age ) do not have sex !! And if they do then they must be a sex worker to have to be in a STD clinic at my age ( 55)
  

I know this is my stuff - and could be just my assumptions and not so at all - but my stuff is my stuff and this is how I feel because I have to get treatment for HIV in a sub standard STD clinic !!!!!
And I am not certain it is only just my stuff at all??

After all I was a youth worker working professionally with the age group of the majority of people , men and women, that are at that clinic when I go....................

And believe me I have had to direct both young women and young men to STD clinics as a youth worker and what I have said above was the main attitude .......girls made a joke of it and often brought a couple of friends for support and sat and giggled their way through the consultation ( or in fact me sometimes as their youth worker)

The young women I do not really mind sitting with them and not all of coruse treat it as a joke. Some look very upset and I just then wish I could go to them and try to support them through it

but I can see on their faces sometimes a question about what an old woman like me is doing there!! But on the whole I am OK with sitting in the waiting room when it is only women.


In fact I just wish I was there for an STD and not HIV!!!!The STD woud be cured after a course of antibiotics



- but I still do not think an STD clinic is where people with HIV should be going for their treatment, and I especialy do not like that if you have an STD your clinic time as a woman is seperate so you never attend with men - but if you have HIV you can often find yourself as a woman in a waiting room of men with STDs or visa versa

• but the lads!!
  
  Their attitudes when I was a youth worker were always so basically crap.....by this I mean the attitudes of heterosexual young men - the gay young men were great!!.
  
  But if heterosexual young men got an STD it was almost always seen as the woman's fault for being a slut and picking it up - never theirs for not using a condom etc
  
  And believe me I have worked with hundreds of young men as a youth worker on issues around sexuality
  
  So while I can just about cope when my appointment with the GU clinic coincides with the woman's STD clinic
  
  I bloody hate it when I am seen as a HIV patient when the mens STD clinic is going on - I know the attitudes of younger ( and often older) men towards STD only too well!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
  
  

An appointment at that clinic always does this to me - makes me rave!!!

People living with HIV need somewhere else for just HIV people to go to for treatment other than a STD clinic, or if they do have to go to a STD clinic the HIV clinic should have its own slot

or if soemone with HIV does not want to be recognised/identified as HIV ( I do personalty not care about this ) then HIV people just have appointments all thought the day at a time that suits them , not the doctor, and hopefully that they do not have to wait in the waiting room with anyone if they do not want to i.e a seperate room to wait in !!!

And not have to attend a HIV clinic that is tagged onto a STD clinic that only is available once or at most twice a week and on a certain day!!

Sorry just having an offload about the clinic ...as usual

Veritee

Sunday Mirror have not run my story

The Sunday Mirror have not run my story and are not interested in it for the daily Mirror- only the Sunday Mirror

And articles in the Sunday Mirror are undeniably more 'salacious ' in content

I am told they still may - but only I guess if there is no celeb or other more 'interesting' news that week

And I feel that their interest is only because HIV is a sexually transmitted Illness for most in the UK - and that is why they only will run it if they do in the Sunday Mirror as they prefer stories in there, where your sexual habits have caused the situation?

Yet I can count on my hands the amounts of times I have had sex in many years and then only with my husband.

Yet they ran a story in the Daily Mirror the other day of a woman who uses our Post Natal Illness support forum .

http://www.mirror.co.uk/showbiz/yourlife/2008/06/03/real-life-exclusive-post-natal-depression-brought-me-close-to-killing-my-baby-89520-20593545/

Hats off to her for getting it published

But her story is not very different from mine and many others when we/I had Post Natal Illness

-In fact it could have been my story except I attacked my husband and not my mother and he was too confused to tell anyone

And I NEVER received any treatment for PNI as because I was too scared to tell anyone at the time about my hallucinations and the plans to kill my daughter with knives - I did not get any medical treatment, and my husband was at sea, so I had to see the whole thing though alone.

Some of my experiences I have with PNI I have written here: http://veritee.proboards7.com/index.cgi?board=pp&action=display&thread=5115&page=1

I too, saw my baby as evil, had thoughts or hallucinations that she was somehow deformed and evil and had thoughts that I would kill her with knives!! And over the years on the PNI ORG UK web site http://www.pni.org.uk/ I have listened and supported so many women with the same thoughts and experiences.

I did not get any help because PNI was so little understood then and if you were not actually depressed and had not yet committed a voilent act that was known about - they thought you were not ill - and I was not depressed but manic !! And far too scared to tell anyone of my hallucinations and thoughts - so I battled through it entirely on my own - and many women still do!!!!

• The media seems to think her story is rare
• But unfortunately for many her story is NOT the exception - her story is the rule for a lot of women I speak to with PNI

I had the same kinds of experiences and I hear it almost every day while running the charity I founded!!! see our support forum: http://veritee.proboards7.com/

Many do not write the total details of their thoughts and experiences on the forum but email it to me privately - I hear stories like this all the time!!


I am not trying to minimise hers, others or my experience of Post Natal Illness - it is truly horrendous !! And hats off for her for getting the publicity

But the ignorance of the media, the medical profession and general public that they still think her experience is unusual for many hundreds or even thousands of women who suffer PNI appalls me !!!!!

And does not make my trust that the Media EVER get anything right!!!!

I also feel that a story about PNI has been published more easily than the message I want to get out about HIV as the person with it can be seen as an and innocent victim who did nothing to get or cause PNI

And of course this is true - but are not we with HIV in the same position??

What have those with HIV done beyond what thousands of people do every day -

i.e sex without a condom!!!!!!

And I have had both PNI and now HIV

It is all idiotic to me - the attitudes of the media!!

As doesn't PNI ultimately have a sexual cause originally too ? That is if you apply the logic of the Media!!!!

i.e we would not have babies or thus PNI if we did not have sex!!!

I am a bit angry - as what is the bloody difference

If we do not have sex - and sex unprotected by condoms - we can not get HIV or PNI or in fact cervical cancer !!!!

I am mad right now - as unfortunately for me I have now had both!! And my sexual 'habits' are really so ordinary and in fact only with my husband

Bloody media!!!!

I am so happy that her story was published - but why not my HIV story too?and why is mine only thought to be suitable for the Sunday Mirror!!!