Precious Chilaka Uloma Okekea is a 24 years old lady who tested positive to HIV and enrolled into treatment and care at FMC Owerri in October, 2019 after several sessions of counseling.
She passed through the agony and difficulties of disclosure. For fear of stigmatization by friends and family, with her greatest fear being what could happen to her mother if by any means she got to know that she was HIV+. She became reclusive, dejected and depressed. Subsequently battling the challenge for a while, and following counseling sessions at the ART clinic, she decided to disclose her status to her confidant and boyfriend of over 2 years.
Shortly after disclosing to her boyfriend, who promised to keep her health status confidential and be supportive to her; her story began to gradually take a new turn. The boyfriend started picking on issues, until the last straw that broke the Carmel’s back, when the boyfriend laid an accusation on her, and decided he was no longer interested in the relationship. He went ahead to betray her by calling her mother and elder sister to tell them his decision about the relationship, and exposed her HIV status to them.
The situation made her miserable so much that at a point, according to her, she contemplated suicide, despite the willingness of her family to support. She said that her greatest fear was that her mother could die on hearing about her status, given that she and her sister are the only children of her mother. Furthermore, whenever she thought about how she was going to be stigmatized and perhaps ostracized by her loved ones according to her, all that came into her mind was to commit suicide. .
Following the fallout with her boyfriend, which was a huge disappointment to her, CFHI and Caritas Nigeria got involved in the month of August 2020, during routine home visits. On hearing her story and all that has happened, her consent was requested to proceed with other necessary actions that could caution her boyfriend, but she declined.
However, counseling support was intensified to ensure, that she stayed psychologically balanced enough to continue her treatment. Several visits, monitoring and counseling sessions ensued, until she got the courage to move on with her life and continue her treatment. At one of the counseling sessions at her sister’s house, she said “I‘ve left everything to God, including the false accusation from my ex-boyfriend”
Nevertheless, since she had already been well counseled and coping well with it, she is ready to move on with her treatment and life. At present she is very balanced, she has accepted her status and doing well with her treatment, and she has gone home to spend time with her mother in Mbaise.
Most importantly, CFHI and Caritas Nigeria still reach out to her via phone calls for support and counseling sessions on a routine basis.The truth is that there is always a life after an HIV-positive diagnosis and this precept has been inculcated in her psyche.Living with HIV undoubtedly has its calm waters and turbulent storms; but it doesn’t define who you are.