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4 Disclosure in Other Worlds: Friends, Co-workers, and Going Public
- Johns Hopkins University Press
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Infected individuals must make decisions about disclosure not only in family circles but in the broader social worlds we all inhabit. These individuals must determine which friends, acquaintances, neighbors, coworkers , and employers, if any, to tell. Such choices, like decisions about telling family, must be made within a social climate that many see as hostile. Telling Friends The bonds of friendship, more than those of family, are created—giving them not only special value but fragility. Chosen because of the companionship , affection, pleasure, fun, and shared opportunities they can provide, friendships take on added significance in a society where extended families have become increasingly marginal. In fact, in our study, infected individuals recounted that they would at times open themselves to friends when unable to confide in those to whom they were tied by blood. But friendships differ widely in longevity, depth, and emotional significance. Consequently, infected men and women had to select which friends to tell, and when. Some with HIV waited months, even years. Others told at the very moment of learning their diagnosis. In these decisions, HIV-infected individuals had to assess friends’ trustworthiness as well as capacity to offer understanding, support, and succor. Fears of rejection always lingered. Some chose the security of sharing in intimate circles. Others opened themselves to wide networks, including mere acquaintances. All these decisions had to be made in relationships where expectations of trust were generally less defined than among kin. Friends were sometimes told immediately. Audrey, the Ph.D. student in sociology, disclosed her test result to a friend whom she had planned to meet after her diagnostic appointment. Fr iends, Co-workers, and Going P ublic d i s c l o s u r e i n o t h e r w o r l d s 4 I was supposed to meet her for tea afterward. We’re like, okay we’ll have tea, I have this appointment, and get it out of the way, la-de-da. And so I called her from the office and said, “Can you come and get me?” I was crying. She just held me a lot, and it was weird because I just remember thinking that she seemed so frail. It was the natural thing for her to know. It wasn’t an issue of should I tell her or not tell her. At the time, there was some level of comfort in her knowing immediately and sharing it with me. It certainly has been the case since. Once diagnosed, Audrey became acutely aware of her friend’s frailty, reflecting a heightened sense of the fragility of her own life and of life itself. A few chose to disclose to all their friends. For gay men who lived in communities ravaged by AIDS, such a decision could seem almost natural. “I’ve told everyone in my life except for my family,” said Craig, the hairdresser and former prostitute who had known he was infected for a decade. “It just came about. It was nothing like, ‘Listen I have to tell you something.’ It was never that situation. We always talk about our tests and our medical things. Everyone talks about those things nowadays. I hope so. They should.” In a culture decimated by HIV, discussions about the virus have become normalized. But particularly in the initial aftermath of learning they were infected, most planned very carefully whom to tell, weighing concerns about stigmatization against the need to share their secret. Drug free for about a year, and in a treatment program, Ali looked back at the social climate that prevailed five years earlier, when he learned about his infection. I told my best friend, which was hard. We’ve been friends over forty years. It was hard for me to tell him, because it was something unacceptable then. People didn’t have an understanding of it. If you sat on a toilet bowl, nobody wanted to sit after you. If you ate at a restaurant, they’d throw the spoons out—that kind of mentality in the early ’90s. Although many might readily tell a “best friend,” others gauged their acquaintances , looking for particular characteristics. Some chose to tell first those they believed could be especially helpful and trustworthy, based on special features. Ellen, the journalist who thought she had been infected from a blood transfusion, said, I told a new friend of mine. She’s somewhat older, in her forties, and sort of removed from the rest of...