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tezandersoncom
4d
I was on the Research Advisory Board for ROAH 2.0. As a person living with HIV for 35 and will be 60 in April. I can tell you the journey to old age is damned hard. But there is a side that stories like this never show. The resilience and strength it took to live this long. This article is typical of many of the pieces I see. ALL lousy news and nothing positive nor celebratory about being an old person. It is hard but is also amazing. I found the first group to focus on HIV long-term survivors. Most of the experience has been uplifting and empowering. I would love to see that story now and then. Because all this gloom feeds the hopelessness that plagues too many of older adults with HIV. Someone asked, "since when is 50 old?" Since long-term HIV infection (most especially pre-1997 when combination therapy and protease inhibitors brought many us back from the brink of death) means we are aging at an accelerated rate. WIth long-term HIV 50 is the 65. What is detrimental to changing the narrative is the indifference caused by an overenthusiastic focus on "ending AIDS" and an "AIDS-free generation" especially when a cure is probably decades away and the will to end it is not there. We live in a country where 60% of all people with HIV are over 50. By 2020 it will be 70%. The majority of all people living with HIV in the US are over age 50. But ageism contributes to an idea that AIDS is no big deal and that it only affects youth.
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RICHARD
5d
That's sad. Perhaps we need an Over 65 Club. Where us elders are evaluated for contributory employment. Getting paid for valid work in a work environment, even if part time on a bedroom computer, can do wonders to alleviate loneliness and depression.
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pjm1Influencer
5d
Since when is some in their 50s considered "older"? Buy many definitions (though it is not clinical) 45 to 65 is middle age. You can quible about when middle age begins and ends but calling someone in their 50s older? Really. Haven't you heard 60 is the new 40!
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- STUART
  5dEdited
  And when people were eating fast food, no one thought they were going to get diabetes. Or when people worked around chemicals they didn't know were toxic, no one thought they would get cancer, just like those who started smoking before the tobacco industry admitted the danger. Or when someone went for a joyride with no helmet or skied down a slope a little more steep than expected, no one thought they would end up with debilitating head and back injuries. When people worked too long at their jobs with no exercise and too much stress, no one thought they would have heart attacks and strokes. When someone got pregnant without realizing they were not able to raise a child who ended up having psychological and social problems, no one thought of the expense of putting them in jail or paying for lifelong care. Just about every major illness can trace back to choices made when no one had any idea of the consequences, or thought those consequences would ever happen to them. If you start blaming the victims (with the implication that they don't deserve compassion) there aren't a whole lot of people left.
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- AMoBLeader
  4dEdited
  There are many left yet who are eclipsed by a mentally and physically diseased minority colorfully parading around in la belle indifference.
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