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Stella,
1995.Stella
On the jungle gym in a park in the Upper Haight, near her apartment
April 26, 1995
It was really important at the time to set myself apart from anybody else who would get HIV. I had to stress in myself the fact that I wasn't gross; I hadn't been a slut. I was not homophobic, but I thought, "I'm not gay, I'm not a drug user." The doctors hadn't seen many transmissions through heterosexual sex, and that's not uncommon now. They were like, "are you sure you have not done drugs?"
"I never did drugs, I never shot anything in my arms my whole fucking life!" I did a lot of compensating to let my doctors know that I was intelligent and I came from a good family. I had to make sure that I had people's respect. I knew I had my first doctor's respect and so that's one of the reasons that I stopped seeing a doctor when she left. I was just really scared. I guess all this stuff sounds like really snobby middle class bullshit, but I would walk into General and I was scared to identify with a lot of the people that I saw around me. HIV seemed so scummy to me. I felt really scummy. And that's another reason why I didn't tell my mom, because if my mom had called me a slut or something like that... That's what I was calling myself, every disgusting, mean, horrible thing I could say to myself, so if anybody mirrored it back to me like my doctor not wanting to touch me, I was set up for it. I already felt that way.
Meredyth: So what happened with your mom?
Stella: Well, I finally told her a year and a half ago, after I'd been positive for four years. I had been determined to tell her before but I just couldn't do it. I was home in the summer of 1993 and she was in Europe and she was gonna be back the last couple of days that I was gonna be in town. She came back and she was really happy and I just couldn't do it. I ended up telling her in January of the next year. My brother suggested that I try writing a letter. He's known pretty much from the beginning. I knew I couldn't carry it around anymore so I did. I sent it to him and he went over to my mom's and gave it to her. I have never had anxiety like that. At this point I wasn't afraid of her reaction anymore, I just wanted to get it over with but the fact that I knew it was going on across the country... I talked to her from work because I was closing up and no one was around so I just stayed on the phone with her and she was just beautiful and she's been beautiful ever since.
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