I lived (fearfully) through the entire AIDS epidemic from the other end, as a really despised junkie subgroup. For over a decade, this was a horrendous death cloud, from, yes, the horrible doomy TV adverts to the half dozen tests I endured over a good few years...which meant travelling to the Royal Free, sitting through the compulsory counselling, a terrifying week of waiting, then the almost unendurable train journey back to get the results (Why they would never just tell me over the phone). Even when I knew there was no chance of infection, I was perpetually worried...and when coupled with the social disapproval, furtive sneaking around and mostly, the endless anxiety about my family, it was a surreal, frightening and deeply isolating period in my life (still feel quite bitter and angry about large swathes of the medical establishment, tbh)...and another depressing statistic to add to ODs and general druggy misadventures. Have had no appetite to renew those memories.
