Lifestyle

Disclosure to Friends and Family

The decision to tell someone about your HIV positive status is never an easy one to make. It may be helpful to think through a few issues before you decide to tell someone. If you want to talk to someone about disclosure you can also contact any of the support services listed on our clinic/support services page.

While it is not easy to tell someone about your HIV status; It may help you to think about what you want to say and how you want to say it. Try practising what you want to say and think through some of the questions may be asked when you tell others. If you do this you will have an idea of some of the answers to these questions and it will give you the opportunity to be clear about your response.

It may be helpful to fill in a pros and cons chart similar to the one shown below to check out whether you wish to tell people about your status. We have started this one for you with some of the things that people regularly say about disclosing their status. Some of them may be the same for you if not put your own in. Try this exercise and see how you feel afterwards.

Some of the reasons to tell people about my HIV status:

It may be more difficult to tell a sexual partner about your HIV status than others. It may feel like you're in an impossible situation, if you tell someone they might not want to have sex with you, if you don't and they become aware later they may be confused and angry about why you didn't tell them sooner.

If you do disclose to a sexual partner and they decide that they no longer want to have sex with you because of your status, it may be very harmful to your sense of self worth. It is important in these cases to remember that it is the other person's problem. It may be that they have a misunderstanding and fear of HIV transmission that stops them from knowing that there are many safer sexual activities that you can do that do not risk transmission. We understand that this is much more difficult to do in reality.

Remember that if you are going to tell someone about your HIV status it is best to keep a clear head, do it at a time when you and the person you are speaking to has enough time to talk through the issues. Don't do it when you have been drinking or taking drugs, it might seem a great idea at the time but chances are it will all come out wrong. If you don't feel that you can face the person you want to tell you might want to write them a letter. Even just writing the letter may clear your thoughts and give you the confidence to talk to them face to face. Remember if you do write a letter you are not in control of when they here the news from you and you may not be prepared for their response or questions. This means that you will not be in control of when a response is made and also what they may do with the letter.

However and whenever you choose to tell people remember that you can always talk to someone about your experience free and confidentially by contacting the office on 0800 075 1 057.