The story of stigma....

Yesterday my heart broke. I was staring at a mother lying in bed and her 10 year old child lying beside her with his arms around her.
The story of this mother and child is such a dreadful one. The child had TB meningitis, had to have surgery and after the surgery he ended up having a stroke which left him a hemiplegic. Not long after the 31 year old mother had a stroke, found out she was immune-compromised and then had a second stroke. She now sits in such a deep depression; I’m not quite sure how to get her out of it. She lies in bed all day and rarely leaves the house. And her son just loves her as much as he can and wipes the endless stream of tears from her face. At ten years old, he is disabled and now is taking on the role of a carer to his mother.
The stigma of HIV is so powerful. She has completely isolated herself from family and her community from fear of them knowing about her illness and the implication of this. As an outsider it’s so frustrating because I can see what she is doing to herself and her family and all I want to do is scream at her  ITS NOT THAT bad!!! You can be healthy! You can live! Look at what you are doing to your poor child!..... but I don’t understand what it really feels to be like in her position. In her mind what she is doing now is the better option.
I feel so compelled to help her but at the same time I feel completely powerless. This is not depression where we go for walks and do fun things to make the person feel better. This is going to be a huge huge challenge for me….
As I left her house one of her neighbours approached me. He is so concerned about her and can’t understand why she is not getting better. I tried to explain that she is depressed etc etc without revealing what really lay beneath it all. He then said to me “Can I ask you a secret question? Does she not have HIV/Aids?”…. My heart dropped as I said no she does not. Obviously I cannot reveal that kind of information. It was hard though because this neighbour really is concerned and wants to help, he wants to pay to take her to the doctor because he wants her to get better and can’t understand why she is not. But this is half the problem now, people are starting to question because she has been in bed for 3 months. Is she could get up and start living her life most people would be non the wiser of her illness…. I wish she could understand and realise this…



watch this video which discusses the stigma of HIV. something that stood out for me: "While HIV is life changing it is not life defining"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZIhFcjcc568