Thank-you for writing to i-Base. Although I can see that you are having a difficult time there are some very positive points to your story. You sound like you\u2019re very healthy.\u00a0 And it\u2019s great that you have a loving boyfriend who supports you. But sometimes the psychological impact of HIV can be as difficult, or even more difficult, than the physical symptoms.<\/p>\n
You\u2019re not alone in struggling to feel self-confident because of your HIV. Most young women struggle with self-confidence anyway, and adding HIV to this can seem too much to cope with. You say that you don’t understand why your boyfriend wants to be with you when he could be with somebody who is HIV negative. But there are lots of couples out there where one person is positive and the other negative. Although your HIV status might seem like a big negative point to you maybe to your boyfriend its less important than all the reasons why he loves you and wants to be with you. HIV is a virus that you have to live with, but it doesn’t define everything that you are. I’m sure that when your boyfriend looks at you he sees a young woman, not a virus.<\/p>\n