My name’s Michael. I was one of the first Positive Voices speakers for Terrence Higgins Trust.

Looking back, I can still remember the exact moment my life changed. 

It was 1992. I hadn’t been feeling great, so I went to the doctor. After a set of blood tests came back fine, he suggested I have an HIV test. When the results came back, he told me it was positive. 

That was devastating on many levels, not least because it meant I had to give up my job. I’d been working abroad, and one of the reasons I’d come home was because I needed a yellow fever jab. But as my doctor explained, the vaccine was live, and I couldn’t have it. That meant the end of my working life as I’d known it.

At the same time, I was trying to process the loss of my partner. He had gone on holiday and passed away while he was there. In those days, without mobile phones or the internet, everything was done by landline or letters. It actually took six months before his sister replied to one of my letters, simply with one line: 'Dominic died.' That was all I knew. I was reeling from grief, and now I had to face life with HIV, with little information and a huge amount of fear.

When I was first diagnosed, I only told two people, friends I’d known for years. But their attitudes surprised me. They wanted proof for everything I said about HIV and doubted whether I knew for sure. At a dinner I’d brought food for, one of them said, 'You’re not going to cook though, are you?' They set aside my own cup, glass, and crockery, and at the end of the night handed everything I’d touched back to me by the door. That was a real shock. I no longer have any association with those people, but it opened my eyes to the stigma that came even from people you thought you could trust. 

Living in a small village, I kept my status secret. I thought it would only take one person saying something, and I’d be run out of town. That fear hung over me like a cloud.

Telling my parents was different, though not in the way I had hoped. I drove down to see them, and after my mum had prepared lunch, I told them I had something important to say. My dad looked me straight in the eye and said, 'You’ve got AIDS.' I explained that I didn’t have AIDS, but that I was HIV positive. That floored him and, strangely, empowered me. But nothing else was said. There were no hugs, no comfort, nothing. I left shortly afterwards, and HIV was never spoken of in our family again. 

What saved me in those early years was knowledge. I found a flyer for the Sussex Aid Centre, which ran information weekends. I booked onto one, and it was incredible. The trainer created an environment where everyone knew why they were there, even if diagnoses weren’t discussed. We all shared a thirst for knowledge, and the way it was taught was phenomenal.

Part of the weekend included a session called Positive Voice. A speaker came in and told his life story. Hearing that made everything I’d been learning suddenly feel real. I went back for another weekend a few months later, this time with a different speaker offering a completely different perspective. Those sessions were a lifeline, because they gave me hope.

Eventually, I started helping with the weekends myself, sometimes just making tea, other times introducing training segments. One weekend, the scheduled speaker didn’t turn up, and there was a gap to fill. I decided to share my own story for the first time. No one there had known I was positive, so it came as a shock. But I’d heard others do it, and I felt ready. That was the start of my journey as a Positive Voice speaker. A couple of years later, Sussex AIDS Centre merged with Terrence Higgins Trust, and we formally became Positive Voices. 

Over time, I noticed how people’s attitudes towards HIV began to change. For me, moving to Brighton was life changing. In the village, I carried a heavy secret, always fearing exposure. Moving to Brighton lifted that weight entirely. I didn’t care if the neighbours knew. I felt free. 

The clinic I’d attended back in my village only had three people. I’m the only one still alive. In Brighton, it was different. I could live without constantly thinking about my status, except when going to the clinic. That shift gave me a sense of freedom I’d never imagined. 

Being a Positive Voices speaker has taken me into many different settings, and each one has taught me something new. I once spoke at a primary school to a class of seven-year-olds. Everything had been carefully planned, with parents and governors involved, and some parents even sat in. The children listened carefully, asked questions, and some were moved to tears. 

At the end, one little girl came up to me and thanked me, saying she had heard her parents talking about her uncle being HIV positive but hadn’t known what it meant. That moment was powerful, and I made sure her words were passed on to the school so they could support her and her family.

Speaking has always provided a safe environment for questions, and that has mattered to me as much as anything. There has never been a time when no one wanted to ask something. People need that space to voice their thoughts.

I often think about stigma and how it’s shaped my life. Personally, since moving to Brighton, I haven’t really experienced it. I don’t shout about my status, but I don’t hide it either. 

I’ve learned to frame HIV as something that’s part of me, but not all of me. In the early days, it felt like it was everything every waking thought, every fear, every decision. But now, decades later, I see it differently. Living in Brighton, with its large gay community, I found that stigma simply wasn’t part of my experience anymore. I was free to live my life. 

Looking back, I see two halves of my story. There was the time of fear, secrecy, and stigma, when I thought one word could destroy my life. And then there is the time of knowledge, community, and openness, when I discovered that telling my story could change people’s minds and help them understand. 

I didn’t choose to become HIV positive. But I did choose to stand up and say: 'This is who I am. I’m the same person I always was, I just happen to have HIV.' And that choice has given me not just freedom, but purpose.