Living with HIV 

Whether you’ve only recently found out you have HIV or you’ve grown up knowing you have HIV, being a young person living with HIV can be particularly difficult.

Deciding whether or not to tell your friends about being HIV positive is different for everyone. Some people are open about it – perhaps you’ve grown up with it and everyone knows, and it’s not a big issue for you. 

For others, fear of rejection, bullying, or gossip makes telling people difficult. Remember, it’s your choice, and you don’t have to tell people if you don’t want to. You may decide that it’s just not the right time, and that’s fine.

You may worry that you can never have a relationship or sex, or that you won’t be loved. None of these things is true - people living with HIV fall in love, have sex, have fulfilling relationships, marry, have children (without passing on HIV) - all the things that people who don’t have HIV do.

Starting a relationship with someone who doesn’t have HIV raises questions. When should you tell them that you have HIV? How will they react? How can you have sex without passing it on? How do you explain what it means to be undetectable and about PrEP? (What are the responses?)

If you’re going to have sex, using male condoms or female condoms correctly is a very effective way of preventing HIV, sexually transmitted infections (STIs), and unplanned pregnancy.