3rd August 2006
By Susan Noyce
A common thread that seems to be running through the Jane Doe profiles is the knowledge that a boyfriend was cheating, but the decision to stick around and ignore it. The pressure to engage in unprotected sex, coming from someone who supposedly loves you and should have your best interests at heart, is sometimes enough to make even the most intelligent woman give in. A man may have unprotected sex out of lust and a feeling of urgency to possess someone he sees, but a woman will usually follow the path out of the desire to be loved or please the man that she is with. There are other women who feel trapped by financial circumstances. We all play the I-hope-this-doesn’t-happen-if game, like throwing the dice in snakes and ladders and hoping you don’t get bitten and wind up back at square one. That’s fine for snakes and ladders, but if we substitute the consequences for those of contracted HIV, how many of us would step up and roll the dice? And by the way, I’m still waiting to publish the story of the John Doe who knew his woman was cheating with other men but stuck around anyway.
Jane Doe # 7.
I’m the mother of more than three children and I’m HIV positive.
I was infected like many other women through unprotected sex.
My kid’s father never wanted to use a condom.
He accused me of cheating on him.
Each time I told him that he should use one and said it was because I didn’t trust him.
At times he would even beat me if I didn’t want to let him.
I was very fearful because I’d heard so many things about HIV and AIDS, but I thought I couldn’t do any better for we depended a lot on him.
With a lot of mouths to feed, I really needed him around, so I continued the relationship.
During our relationship, I found out he was going with other women.
I knew he wasn’t using a condom because as he said to me when I told him to, when I told him to condoms are for little boys and no, and okay, condoms are for little boys that no know what they may do.
I asked him if he was having affairs and the reply was you can’t eat the same thing every day.
That was his answer and that was also evidence of his infidelity. I should have left him, but I stayed.
I didn’t know another man. No, I didn’t have another man, so I know he gave me this deadly virus.
I found out when my mother was ill and had to have a surgery.
She needed blood, so my other family members and I went to give her.
I was contacted sometime after the blood was tested and called in.
For my blood when it was tested was HIV positive. I was angry. I was counseled, but at that time that didn’t help.
I went home that day and I was alone. As they say, the devil finds work for idle hands to do.
I took up an old cutlass from where I usually kept it in the back of the kitchen cupboard and I ground it on a grinding stone slowly and carefully as the tears dropped to the floor.
As the tears flowed I thought of my children. What would become of them? What would become of them if I committed this ghastly premeditated act against their father and me? What would happen to me?
All those sad thoughts ran through my troubled mind.
What changed my mind a little was a phone call from a friend, a very good friend I had forgotten, and she was going to come over as usual and she was calling to tell me she was on her way.
From the way I answered the phone, according to her, she realized something was wrong.
She asked and all I could do was try to tell her through my tears. She hurried over and after I told her, all she could do was sit beside me and stare at me.
We both didn’t know at the time what to do but after clearing our heads, she got in contact with my boyfriend and told him she wanted to speak with him.
She never really told me what she told him but he did not come home that night.
She probably saved his own life. I got a phone call from him about a week or so after and all he said was that he was very very sorry and I must please find it in my heart to forgive him.
I’m human and I just can’t forgive him right now. He has made me have a different look on life.
I’ve been going to counseling and I have to say thanks to Almighty God that none of my kids has turned out positive.
They all have to have another test done and maybe another so they can be really out of the woods.
Only the oldest of my kids know what’s happening. The others are too small to understand.
Yes, they hear about this disease but they don’t fully understand. Their father took his things when I went to work one day.
The last thing I heard was that he was living with some girl.
Once in a while he would leave some money in an envelope at my working place for the kids but it’s never enough.
Things are hard on me right now. My girlfriend helps me out a lot because most of the time when she goes shopping for groceries she buys for us also.
My kids are growing out of their clothes right now and my eldest girl says her school friends are laughing at her calling her names because she can’t afford the things they are wearing.
She’s such a sweet child and understands that things will get better soon. I’ve gotten a second part-time job so I have to let ends meet somehow.
I have to take care of them and also they take care of me. I’m not in a perfect world so there are times I feel I just can’t take it anymore.
There are times I take my frustration out of my kids and now they try to stay out of my way whenever they know I’m in a bad mood.
I love them even more and treasure them even more now I know I am sick.
I went to the doctor recently with my friend and he told me I must take it easy. My blood count is low and my blood pressure is up.
He told me of some of the complications that this disease has. Many of us who suffer from this disease are in a stage of denial.
Acceptance is easy to say but hard to do. Although they are in denial many will continue to spread the deadly disease knowingly.
I am not since in my kid’s father I am not. Since my kid’s father did me such an injustice I am turned off by men.
As a mother I am telling all women who are reading this to get tested and get out of relationships where your partner is cheating.
If it turns out that you’re positive seek counseling, talk to someone you can trust. Do not be vindictive because it doesn’t help.
It makes things worse after you infect others knowingly. If we continue to infect others perhaps we may become extinct.
If you are a woman who is not positive get out. He may be. Use a condom every time you have sex.
You may not be infected yet but the next person he may have sex with without a condom could be HIV positive. Why take the chance?
And to the young people who feel that sex is all and they can’t get HIV it is usually young people who are afflicted by this disease.
Carnival is going on and I hope that while you party and have other fun that you will remember to wear a condom.
