Best Posts in Forum: Mental, Medical and Sexual Health

Feelings are overrated. They often get in the way of rational thought. Relying on feelings often gets people into trouble. I urge you to consider a more stoic approach to life. It's a disadvantage to let adversaries know they can get to you emotionally. While it may make you feel better in the short term to cause a scene it's counterproductive in the long-term. Experience has taught that no matter how bad things may seem they can always be worse. Experience has also taught me not to let people know they can easily get a rise out of you.

 

I soooo hear you @DreG . Victims get blamed by attackers and sometimes even by people who are 'just trying to help'.

So I remember The Skinny. Ok. Not the greatest movie around, but I was really affected by the rape scene. The two creeps who raped Sebastian didn't give 2 flying f*cks about him. They slipped him something and then took him to their place, later saying he had been ok with it. Glad Sebastian's friends found him and got him to a hospital.

Has anyone ever talked to a friend after an attack? What was that like for both of you? Did that friend go to the hospital? Or police? I'm curious.

 

All of the above are very good statements indeed...I would like to say that I can/could date someone with HIV. Being honest though this person would have to be special because I would be hesitant at first because of the stigma...I know enough about it to not be scared of it..but you still have to take extra precautions. People with HIV are still human beings that deserve happiness to me so I'm open to the possibility, like @acessential said there's only so many of us around and I wouldn't want to limit my chances of finding the right one over something like this

 

I had an alarming situation back in college. I got a random phone call while I was in English. Something told me to step out and take the call so I did. It was a woman from the health department saying, "hey, someone you have come into contact with has tested positive for an STD and we need you to come in and get tested."

Bwoaaayy, shook wasn't even the word.

She came and picked me up from campus, took me to the clinic, and tested me. It all came back negative but Lord almighty, was that an experience.

It actually happened again a year later, basically in the exact same fashion, and that's when I became much more cautious and inquisitive about the status of people I engaged with.

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Glad you have a piece of mind. @Nick Delmacy

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For those who are positive and may be reading this thread. Please do not feel like you are second-rate or some type of "other". Despite the sensationalism of the thread, overall, it's becoming much more acceptable and there are men who are willing to engage in a sero-discordant relationship.

 

It does amaze me how females can just talk on the phone with their friends all night and day. Sometimes I stare at my mom and sister on the phone and wonder how they do it.

Its fascinating.

 

Part of the problem is victim-shaming.If a guy tells everyone a man raped or molested him in his teens,it turns into "Why didn't you say something? You must've liked it."They aren't aware of the fear,or guilt some people feel.Black people are just bad about addressing mental health in general.We have a get over it,man-up attitude too often.

Then of course,some people aren't aware of their damage,or are in denial.Even without those factors,it's scary to be the one to speak up.Even though i haven't dealt with anything of this magnitude,I'm still likely not to speak on a problem until YEARS later.I think people have to be made to understand reaching out isn't whining,and that we have to embrace those who seek our solace,not judge them.

 

Regarding medicine cabinet searching...

One time we suspected that an individual was searching the cabinet(no meds in it anyway) and snooping. So we had people over and secretly filled the cabinet with marbles(very difficult to do). Well when he eventually went in there we waited and yes, we heard the roar of marbles pouring out into the vanity sink!lol. He stormed out of the bathroom and right out of the house as we laughed and explained what happened to everyone.

I had heard about this and decided to actually try it- and it worked. The person was very angry but eventually got over it and could laugh about it later.

 

The black community seems to have a problem with mental health and seeking professional help. Too many of us think you can pray depression and other mental health problems away. Unfortunately it doesn't work like that. I've found therapy to be helpful and it gives me a chance to vent. As a general rule I don't have a problem or objection to medicine however I'm not a fan of anti-depressants. Many of them slow down your metabolism and cause weight gain. I've found lifting weights to be an excellent stress reliever. In addition to physical benefits. I feel more energetic and less depressed.

 

I would recommend talking to a medical provider. If you have a doctor, tell them about what you're expericing. Erectile dysfunction is growing more common in younger men it could be something more serious that you may want to have checked out.

With that being said, I cosign with the other commenters here.

 

My reaction...

 

i grew up in a house with a single mum and 4 of my mothers sisters. And i think it did make me a very soft, but it did also teach me how to care for people. I only really started interacting with other boys when i was in high school when went to boarding school. I think the main thing is to try and achieve a balance and interact with both sides. In the end its up to you to keep the traits that you feel define you.

 

Well. Everyone seems to think I'm gay, they can't even understand how I'm single, no girlfriend (no boyfriend either..so idk what they on anyways).

I've never had sex with a woman. Vaginas remind me of the pods from the movie Alien.

My family is kinda religious but loving so it wouldn't be much of a problem. My family is also kinda small to so the fact that I don't plan on having any kids might be cause for concern. My mother currently not in the proper state medically to discuss things with.

Aside from those few times I did experiment with guys years ago, I live a pretty much celibate/ Gray-Ace life.

 

I'm for doing things that make us feel better about ourselves and self esteem.



Nonetheless; its been proven now that hair glues and chemicals Black people (mostly women of course) use for lace fronts, wigs and weaves is extremely harmful to their hair, scalp and their overall health. We've all seen the numerous pictures of burnt up looking edges and scalps online. When asked of these women survivors if they had to do it all over again would they do it, and many stated that looking back, they should've just went bald or natural.

Full disclosure, I'm a dude over 40 who can still grow a large afro and full beard.

 

They dont like dark penes?

sorry but I can't be with a dude unless he has some kind of tan down there lol
black pene is beautiful

 

I was hoping for something easier like beat-off once a day or eat cheesecake...

 

I take truvada and my Dr said I'm a model patient. I'm not even out there like that and he moved me onto the 6 month check up zone.

Zero side effects, no kidney issues, I still use condoms. I didn't get the Rx for bareback sex BUT If someone does use it for that purpose, that's on them. Prep doesn't do jack for the other STIs so it's not a free pass.

 

The biochemical science and technology behind the MRNA "vacs" is mindbogglingly powerful. Long after this pandemic the MRNA Vac technology, if it continues to prove itself, will be looked back on as a miracle breakthrough like antibiotics. This stuff is really is revolutionary and can be used to effectively treat everything from currently incurable cancers, to eliminating viral infections like AIDS......I don't need hoteps and Mangas to point out the obvious, pharma bois are essentially evil parasitic billionaires, that's always been true. The thing is , from time to time, Pharma Inc actually stumbles on useful real things like antibiotics, and Viagra, so for anyone to categorically dismiss their work because they are not nice people seems....foolish.

 

Still haven’t. Don’t like dealing with religious shit so I just let her and all my Mississippi Jeebus Negro relatives carry on with their fantasy that I’m a black male, asexual veteran version of Sheldon Cooper, pre-Amy...

And because I wouldn’t be Me without pissing off religious homophobes

 

I agree with @Ockydub. I think the whole idea of "top and bottom" has grown to be a standard with sex between two men, BUT it shouldn't be. There are things outside of anal penetration that can be just as stimulating based on the individual. Frottage is a good option.

I think it's important to figure out what you like sexually, and then like @Ockydub said, find someone who you are sexually compatible with--probably easier said than done.

This may be a silly question, but are you sexually attracted to the guys who you're going limp for? You don't have to answer that on here if you don't want, but answer it for yourself and that may be a good starting point.

 

Also look at how they handled the heroin crisis in the past-when it was a more black, poor, inner city problem in the 60's and 70's-mass incarceration. A good article Ocky.

*also AIDS/HIV still has the 'gay' stigma, which also is a reason why it took so long for it to be originally addressed seriously also-it impacted whites, but not any whites that really 'mattered' to the government at the time. Some things have not changed. Don't expect an improvement any time soon for the White House is really going to live up to it's moniker.

 

Shit. I must be immortal, then.

 

You gotta left up that sack before you sit down.

 

Something seems very odd or off to me about this dude's "testimony".


I'm not saying I don't believe it can happen but him and his "boyfriend" sound gross. What are the chances of this happening 3 + times in less than a year?

 

Also...

Crisis Text Line

Text HOME to 741741 from anywhere in the USA, anytime, about any type of crisis.

A live, trained Crisis Counselor receives the text and responds quickly.

The volunteer Crisis Counselor will help you move from a hot moment to a cool moment.

 

This was one of the initial concerns and fears first identified when PReP was introduced. HIV is a virus, and like the flu virus for example, every year it mutates and the flu vaccine from lets say 2 years ago would not be effective since the antibodies changed during the mutation. I knew it would be a matter of time for something like this to happen since there are multiple strains out there and this pill cannot possibly cover them all. I am a proponent of PReP, but this is something serious - as PReP has been used by some as an alternative to condoms, even though it states that it should be an addition to a safe sex practice.

After all things are considered, I would still advise anyone who is having unprotected sex with strangers to use something. I still think PReP is better than nothing at all...

 

132 people out of more than 96,000. That's less than 0.1%. And some of those people might have gotten cancer anyway making the estimate even lower. Not saying there isn't a risk, but I'm sure most people will take their chances.

 

For me,it's about having certain go-to people who I know I can depend on.Those are the people who share their lives with me,the good and the bad.If someone is open enough to share their load with you,it usually means they are receptive to your needs as well.

 

To my understanding (not Googling) there is a difference between chronic and situational depression. You stated "past few years", so it may seem for you it may be chronic or long term situational (by all means correct me if I'm wrong with my terminology here).

Anywho...I have said to myself "do I want to be happy and what am I willing to do to make myself happy because I deserve it?" That is what started me down my path. The only recent "depression" that I had was with my job and I quite that bitch 2 months ago.

 

If white men were being infected at the horrifying rate that African-Americans are, it would be front-page news


Photo: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
By Steven W Thrasher

There is an epidemic of HIV/AIDS in the United States, and the reason you may not have heard about it is because of who it harms: black men who have sex with other men.

When I give lectures on AIDS, I will often tell incredulous audiences early in my presentation that one in every two gay and bisexual men in the US are projected to become HIV positive in their lifetime.

Later, I tell them that, more specifically, the Centers for Disease Controlpredicts one in every two black gay and bisexual men is projected to become HIV positive in his lifetime if current trends continue. I do this not to deceive, but to point out how Americans imagine men who have sex with men to be white — and to highlight how invisible black gay and bisexual men are in the American zeitgeist even while facing existential suffering.

If one of every two straight white men were projected to become HIV positive, nothing else would be covered in the news. Ever. MSNBC, covering the pandemic 24/7, would rebrand itself MSHIV.

But, as only one in every 2,500 heterosexual white men are projected to become HIV positive — and as many white Americans imagine themselves immune to the kind of virus black gay and bisexual men would bring upon themselves — the black plague of HIV is not considered newsworthy.

In conducting doctoral research on the criminalisation of HIV over the past four years, it has pained me to learn that lack of interest in the ongoing plight of HIV/AIDS in black queer America is not confined to heterosexuals, but affects powerful white gay men and the organisations they run too.

AIDS was a unifying force in gay politics from the early 1980s until the mid 1990s. Then, effective antiretroviral (ARV) drugs came to market that not only saved the lives of the millions of people who took them but — because ARVs can suppress HIV so effectively that virus levels become “undetectable” and thus “untransmittable” to others — they dramatically slowed rates of HIV transmission within certain communities.

However, these ARVs only helped the individual and communal bodies who got the drugs. And in the US, this largely meant that white gay men got the drugs early and often, while black gay America largely never got them. The inability to end HIV/AIDS isn’t a failure of medicine, but a failure of racial capitalism.

Hence, as AIDS deaths and rates of new HIV infections declined among white gay activists, many invested their social capital in fighting for causes such as marriage equality or “corporate equality” — positioning gay identity ever closer to middle-class ideals and imagining gay life as white, upwardly mobile, homonormative and HIV negative.

Over the same period, the epidemiology of HIV got worse in black America. But just as how the estimated 35 million people who have died of AIDS, the 37 million people currently living with HIV, and the million people who still die from AIDS every year globally are guilty of no moral failure, the half of black queer American men who are becoming HIV positive are not doing so due to particularly risky behaviour.

Indeed, black gay men have “fewer partners and lower rates of recreational drug use than other gay men”. It’s just that not enough of us got the drugs, and the things that structurally make people most at risk for HIV — homelessness, incarceration, and a lack of access to good education, employment and medical care — are experienced at high rates by black people.

In a landmark article published by the New York Times magazine last year, America’s Hidden HIV Epidemic, the journalist Linda Villarosa put the dire nature of the plague in perspective, noting that if gay and bisexual African-American men made up a country, its rate of HIV would be more than “all other nations” on earth. But as she explained in a subsequent keynote address at a conference on AIDS at the City University of New York, it would be a mistake to think that this plague is really hidden. Black Americans living with HIV — and the forces which cause black Americans to contract HIV — are all around us. To not notice is wilful ignorance.

And, while celebrated works of American art such as Angels in Americaimagine AIDS to be white and in the past, black gay poets from Craig Harrisand Essex Hemphill to Danez Smith and Justin Phillip Reed have been sounding a clarion call about this scourge for decades.

Hiding this epidemic is a choice, and Mike Pence and Donald Trump have made it worse. Denial, stigma and shame don’t help. This crisis requires using treatment as prevention, increasing sexual education, and undoing the homophobic health disparities caused by racial capitalism in general and the apartheid-like US healthcare system in particular.

Steven W Thrasher is a PhD candidate in American studies at New York University. He contributed to the recently published book The Unfinished Queer Agenda After Marriage Equality and was formerly writer-at-large for Guardian US. Twitter @thrasherxy

 

Apparently some dudes from my past tryna say I gave them throat babies and take me on the Maury Show...imma show them this video as proof them babies aint mine.



and Maury gonna be like, "When it comes to 12 year old, throat baby DeShawn Johnson, Ocky; You are NOT the father!" and imma be like...

 

The way you are self-sabotaging: Going back to the same person who broke you.
What your subconscious mind wants you to know: Evaluate your childhood relationships. If you find something comforting or appealing about someone who hurts you, there’s usually a reason.

The way you are self-sabotaging: Attracting people who are too broken to commit in a real way.
What your subconscious mind wants you to know: You are not too broken to find someone who actually wants you.

The way you are self-sabotaging: Being unhappy even when nothing is wrong.
What your subconscious mind wants you to know: You keep expecting outside things to make you feel good, rather than relying on changing how you think and what you focus on.

The way you are self-sabotaging: Pushing people away.
What your subconscious mind wants you to know: You want people to love and accept you so much that the stress of it all makes you isolate yourself away from the pain, effectively creating the reality you’re trying to avoid.

The way you are self-sabotaging: Automatically believing what you think and feel is true.
What your subconscious mind wants you to know: You want to worry because it feels comfortable, therefore safer.

The way you are self-sabotaging: Eating poorly when you don’t want to be.
What your subconscious mind wants you to know: You are doing too much, or not giving yourself enough rest and nourishment. You are being too extreme.

The way you are self-sabotaging: Not doing the work you know would help move your career forward.
What your subconscious mind wants you to know: You’re not as clear as you think you are on what you want to be doing. If it isn’t flowing, there is a reason.

The way you are self-sabotaging: Overworking.
What your subconscious mind wants you to know: You do not have to prove your value. You do, however, have to stop running from the discomfort of being alone with your feelings.

The way you are self-sabotaging: Caring too much about what other people think.
What your subconscious mind wants you to know: You are not as happy as you think you are. The happier you are with something, the less you need other people to be.

The way you are self-sabotaging: Spending too much money.
What your subconscious mind wants you to know: Things will not make you feel more secure.

The way you are self-sabotaging: Dwelling on past relationships, or continually checking up on exes.
What your subconscious mind wants you to know: This relationship affected you more than you were letting yourself believe. The ending hurt you more than you acknowledged, and you need to process that.

The way you are self-sabotaging: Choosing friends who always make you feel like you’re in competition with them.
What your subconscious mind wants you to know: Wanting to feel “better” than people is not a replacement for needing to feel connected to them. The common denominator is you.

The way you are self-sabotaging: Having self-defeating thoughts that hold you back from doing what you want.
What your subconscious mind wants you to know: Being mean to yourself first will not make it hurt less if other people judge or reject you.

The way you are self-sabotaging: Not promoting your work in a way that would help move you forward.
What your subconscious mind wants you to know: You’re not putting your all into what you’re doing each day. Create things you are proud to share.

The way you are self-sabotaging: Ascribing intent, or worrying that things are about you when they aren’t.
What your subconscious mind wants you to know: You think about yourself too often.

The way you are self-sabotaging: Ending relationships you “should” have stayed in.
What your subconscious mind wants you to know: You’re choosing relationships based on society’s standards, not your own.

The way you are self-sabotaging: Staying in a city you claim to dislike.
What your subconscious mind wants you to know: Home is where you make it, not where you find it.

The way you are self-sabotaging: Denying the obvious in order to “win” the argument.
What your subconscious mind wants you to know: Your ego is fragile. Conversations are not about “winning,” they’re about learning.

The way you are self-sabotaging: Wanting to be more attractive (read: thinner) than other people, because you think it makes you “better” than them.
What your subconscious mind wants you to know: You are insecure about the ways you perceive other people to be superior to you – trying to be more physically appealing is the most basic way to remedy that feeling, because you think it’s the one thing that you can solely control and everyone else can see.

The way you are self-sabotaging: Procrastinating.
What your subconscious mind wants you to know: Re-think what you’re doing. If it’s not coming to you naturally, it is not the right thing for you to be doing.

The way you are self-sabotaging: Focusing on fear thoughts and irrational ideas.
What your subconscious mind wants you to know: You’re misusing the power of your mind.

The way you are self-sabotaging: Mindlessly scrolling through social media as a way to pass the time.
What your subconscious mind wants you to know: You need to address the inherent discomfort you have when you don’t have something to distract you.

Here’s What Your Subconscious Mind Wants You To Know, Based On The Way You Keep Self-Sabotaging Your Life

 

When Carol Marak was in her 30s, she asked herself whose life she wanted: her brother's – the life of a successful and well-traveled businessman – or his wife's – the life of a woman whose career better accommodated raising three children.

The answer was a no-brainer: "My brother was in a position I wanted," says Marak, now a 64-year-old editor at SeniorCare.com who lives in Waco, Texas. Although she had been married and divorced earlier in life, at that point she had no kids and "made a very conscious decision" to keep it that way, she says.

Plenty of Marak's peers did the same thing. According to a 2012 study in The Gerontologist, about one-third of 45- to 63-year-olds are single, most of whom never married or are divorced. That's a whopping 50 percent increase since 1980, the study found. What's more, about 15 percent of 40- to 44-year-old women had no children in 2012 – up from about 10 percent in 1980, U.S. Census data shows. "My career was No. 1 in my life," says Marak, who worked in the technology industry for years.

But today, Marak and her single, childless contemporaries are facing a repercussion of their decision that never crossed their minds as 30-somethings: "How in the world will we take care of ourselves?" she asks.

Dr. Maria Torroella Carney, chief of geriatrics and palliative medicine at North Shore-LIJ Health System in New York, is asking the same thing. In research presented this year at The American Geriatric Society's annual meeting, Carney and her colleagues found that nearly one-quarter of Americans over age 65 are or may become physically or socially isolated and lack someone like a family member to care for them. Carney calls them "elder orphans."


"The risk of potentially finding yourself without a support system – because the majority of care provided as we get older is provided by family – may be increasing," she says.


The consequences are profound. According to Carney's work, older adults who consider themselves lonely are more likely to have trouble completing daily tasks, experiencecognitive decline, develop coronary heart disease and even die. Those who are socially isolated are also at risk for medical complications, mental illness, mobility issues and health care access problems.

"You could be at a hospital setting at a time of crisis and could delay your treatment or care, and your wishes may not be respected [if you can't communicate them]," says Carney, also an associate professor at Hofstra North Shore-LIJ School of Medicine.

Take "Mr. HB," a 76-year-old New York man described in Carney's research as "a prototypical elder orphan." After attempting suicide, he arrived at a hospital with cuts on his wrist, bed sores, dehydration, malnutrition and depression. He lived alone and hadn't been in contact with any relatives in over a year. His treatment was complicated, the researchers report, in part because he was too delirious to make clear decisions or understand his options. He wound up at a nursing facility with plans to eventually be placed in long-term care.


But growing older without kids or a partner doesn't mean you're doomed – just as agingwith kids and a partner doesn't mean all's clear. "We're all at risk for becoming isolated and becoming elder orphans," Carney says. You could outlive your spouse or even your children, find yourself living far from your family or wind up in the caretaker role yourself if a family member gets sick. Keep in mind that 69 percent of Americans will need long-term care, even though only 37 percent think they will, according to SeniorCare.com.


Plus, there's no way around the natural physical and mental declines that come with age. "Everybody has to prepare to live as independently as possible," Carney says. Here's how:

1. Speak up.

Marak wishes she had talked more with her friends and colleagues about her decision not to become a mom early on. That may have given her a jump-start on anticipating various problems and developing solutions to growing older while childless. She advises younger generations to discuss their options openly with friends – married and single, men and women – before making a firm decision.

"We discuss our psychological issues with professionals. We discuss our money strategies with financial experts," Marak says. "Why not talk openly about family concerns and what it means to have or not have children? So many of us go into it with blinders on."

2. Act early.

How early you start planning for your future health depends partly on your current condition – and your genes, says Bert Rahl, director of mental health services at theBenjamin Rose Institute on Aging. "If your ancestry is that people die early, you have to plan sooner and faster," he says.

But whether you come from a family of supercentenarians or people who have shorter life spans, it's never too soon to save for long-term care, whether it's by investing in a home, putting aside a stash for medical emergencies or "whatever you can do to have a nest egg," Marak says. "Life is serious, especially when you get old. Don't get to [a point] when you're 60 and now you're having to scramble to catch up."


Still not motivated? "Everybody wants some control in [their] life," Rahl says. "If you don't plan, what you're choosing to do is cede that control to somebody else – and the likelihood that they're going to have your best interests at heart is a losing proposition."



3. Make new friends and keep the old.

Your social connections can help with practical health care needs, like driving you to the doctor when you're unable. But they also do something powerful: keep you alive, research suggests. In a 2012 study of over 2,100 adults age 50 and older, researchers found that the loneliest older adults were nearly twice as likely to die within six years than the least lonely – regardless of their health behaviors or social status.

Connections can also help ward off depression, which affects nearly 20 percent of the 65-and-older population, according the National Alliance on Mental Illness. "One of the things that keeps people from being depressed is to be connected," Rahl says. "The more social activities you have, the more friends, the more things you can do to keep your body and mind active – that's the best protection you have against mental illness."

4. Appoint a proxy.

Who is your most trusted friend or relative? "Identify somebody to help you if you're in a time of crisis, and revisit that periodically over your life," Carney suggests. Make sure that person knows your Social Security number, where you keep your insurance card, which medications you take – "the whole list of things somebody needs to know if they're going to help you," advises Dr. Robert Kane, director of the University of Minnesota’s Center on Aging.



Before you start losing any cognitive capacities, consider designating that person as your durable power of attorney for health care, or the person who makes health care decisions for you when you're no longer able.


If no one comes to mind, hire an attorney who specializes in elder care law by asking around for recommendations or searching online for highly rated professionals. Unlike your friends, they have a license to defend and are well-versed in elder care issues. Most of the time, Rahl's found, "they're trustworthy and will do a good job for you."

5. Consider moving.

Marak is on a mission: "to create my life where I'm not transportation-dependent," she says. She's looking to move to a more walkable city, perhaps a college town where she's surrounded by young people and can stay engaged with activities like mentoring. She also hopes her future community is filled with other like-minded older adults who can look out for one another. "I want to … set up my life where I'm not living alone and isolated," she says.

Adjusting your living situation so that you can stay connected to others and get to, say, the grocery store or doctor's office is the right idea, says Carney, who cares for a group of nuns who live communally and has seen other adults create communities that act like "surrogate families," she says. "Think: Where do you want to live? What's most easy? How do you access things? How do you have a support system?"

6. Live well.

Marak is lucky: She's always loved eating healthy foods and walking – two ways to stay as healthy as possible at all ages. "Some of the foods that we eat are really, really bad for the body," she says. "That's one of the major causes of chronic conditions – and not exercising."


Keeping your brain sharp is also critical if you want to be able to make informed decisions about your health care, Rahl says. He suggests doing activities that challenge you – math problems if numbers trip you up, or crossword puzzles if words aren't your forte. "The old adage, 'If you don't use it, you lose it,' is 100 percent correct," he says.

 

I saw this on my facebook feed this morning what do you guys think? Is there a bigger uptake of African Americans going to therapy or is it just wishfully thinking

Therapists say African Americans are increasingly seeking help for mental illness

 

Health Issues, Medical Conditions, Aches and Pains are so very common yet people often think they are the only ones silently having to deal with them… it can seriously affect confidence, especially with socializing and dating.

From asthma and respiratory issues to digestive disorders to living with HIV, the “severity” of the affliction is subjective and in the eye of the beholder.

One of my single close friends presents her life on social media as “perfect” yet she suffers with Sickle Cell Anemia and often has to be hospitalized.

My own younger brother, who’s married with children, has had a weak immune system his entire life. He’s constantly sick and is often taking off work to either go to the doctor or check in to the hospital. He’s taken off work so much that they think he’s faking it at this point.

Another friend of mine suffers from the sleep disorder insomnia, which affects his energy level during the day.

Even myself, a man getting up there in age, I’ve started to notice that my body isn’t as well-oiled of a machine anymore. My gut can’t so easily digest any and every type of food that I shove into it like it used to (an issue shared by over 20% of Americans)… In the grand scheme of things, this is nothing debilitating or major, but at times it can be so annoyingly inconvenient that I’ve cancelled social activities pre-planned with friends.

Do I talk about this on social media, nope. Not many people do.

Unless its something mundane like having a cold or flu, many of us keep chronic or recurring health issues to ourselves because A) they’re personal and between us and our doctor only, B) they can be embarrassing, and C) they could affect how others view us.

Also, no one wants to be a negative “Debbie Downer,” lowering the moods of other people by constantly discussing/complaining about their issues.



But in reality, more people would probably relate to and identify with social media posts about health issues than less downer posts about your favorite TV Show or Musician.

Herpes is another very common lifelong (but manageable) medical condition, affecting 67% of the global population under 50 years old and roughly 16% of United States citizens aged 14-49 years old. This doesn’t even include the people who don’t know they have the infection. But living with Herpes is rarely ever spoken about in “polite society.”

Many of the gay men who proudly discuss their HIV status on social media rarely go into details about the complications that can come with living with the virus. True, it takes courage to publicly disclose your status to others, but it can be equally informative and reassuring if the details of what life is like after being diagnosed is discussed as well.

The ironic thing about all this is just about everyone has something they’re silently dealing or living with…or had to live with in the past and finally recovered from.

This misguided sense of being “the only one” with a chronic illness or medical affliction, coupled with the low self esteem from being gay/bisexual in a less-than-welcoming society, can drive some people to extremes.

Like a perfect storm, Depression can result in this toxic cocktail, leading to isolation in socializing with other people and sometimes even suicide.

The invention of the Internet has helped greatly with this. There are now many forum support communities online just for people living with certain illnesses. On top of that, a quick Google search can easily lead you to dating sites specifically for people to find others who are either just like them or willing to look past a medical condition to get to know the person inside.

Admittedly, shedding the fear and embarrassment can come from discussing your health issues with others is easier said than done. But reminding yourself that no one is perfect and that many of the people that you meet will likely share your experience (in some form or another) can make it a lot better.

 

I am going to let Xavier do all the talking this time. I have said enough-lol. Hopefully, this will bless if you have any sort of belief system. Alright, I'm out.