My Therapist Thinks I Normal

AIDS drugs buy time 30 years in, 'cocktail' makes difference

Peter Gennat’s body stiffens as he recalls the day in 1994 when he learned that his all-important CD4 T-cell count, a key measure of the immune system, had plunged to 27 out of a possible 1,200.

"I looked terrible," he says. "I felt dreadful. But I had accepted it by that point. I knew what was coming. A few days later, I sat down with my therapist and began picking out the songs I wanted played at my funeral."

Today, the title of one of those songs, "And I’m Telling You I’m Not Going" from the Broadway musical "Dreamgirls," brings an awkward smile to his face.

Gennat has now lived with AIDS for 19 years, a milestone he and his doctors attribute to "the cocktail," a potent combination of drugs that has, for many patients, turned AIDS from a death sentence into a chronic but manageable disease.

"That funeral," Gennat says, "has been postponed indefinitely."

Thirty years ago today, the federal Centers for Disease Control reported a strange outbreak among a handful of patients in New York and California. That disease, which soon became known as acquired immune deficiency syndrome, would go on to claim an estimated 25 million lives worldwide.

Currently, more than 33 million people worldwide have AIDS or HIV — the human immunodeficiency virus that causes AIDS — according to the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS. For those with access to the medications that Gennat has been taking since 1996, living a relatively normal life is no longer out of reach.

Highly active anti-retroviral therapy, known to AIDS researchers as HAART and practically everyone else as "the cocktail," turns 15 this year. And, because of it, Gennat says, he is thriving. His T-cells have climbed to normal rates. The viral load in his bloodstream has plummeted to undetectable levels.

And, best of all, he intends on turning 46 on Nov. 4 — a birthday he never thought he’d live to see.

Gennat, a Hackensack resident, says he had lost over a dozen friends to complications of AIDS by the time the cocktail arrived. He feared he would be next.

"I was so weak and exhausted by then," he recalls. "And skeptical when my doctor told me about it. But, after taking the [medications], I felt better almost immediately. It was unbelievable. I didn’t know how long it would last, but I felt I’d been given a second chance. For the first time in years, I felt good enough to plan a vacation.

My therapist says I'm a lesbian - Polyamory.com Forum

I've been talking to this very interesting, very beautiful lesbian on and off for a few months. Sunday, her and I were suppose to go out on a date, and she completely bailed on me. I called, texted, and msged her on facebook, and she never responded. I just hate being in such a good relationship, but feel like I was just broken up with. And I can't talk to my BF. I feel like it's wrong to talk to him about the pain another 'relationship' has caused. I don't understand your therapist's perspective on this, to be honest. Why would the depth and intensity of your feelings for a person have anything to do with your sexual orientation? You describe your current hetero relationship as "wonderful". That (to me) indicates that whatever your orientation is, it does not preclude heterosexual relationships, which means you're not strictly lesbian, you're bisexual or you fall somewhere on that spectrum, depending on how you look at it/which terms you prefer. I'm sorry things aren't going well with your new female interest, though. I would venture a guess (solely based on my own experiences, I'm probably inappropriately generalizing here) and say that yes, the fact that you have never been with a girl before is probably fueling your interest. I had an interest in a very fascinating lesbian girl once, years ago, and I thought she was interested in me, too. She wound up flaking out on me, too, and I guess she wasn't interested in anything remotely serious. I had the same feelings of being broken up with, but being in a good relationship at the same time, and my boyfriend (now fiance) didn't really know how to respond. That situation was part of a messy series of situations that corresponded with a long period of breaking up and getting back together, which I am now thinking might have been avoidable if we were better at communicating and had heard about polyamory. We did end up pulling through it, though, and I think those difficult situations helped us to develop the better communication skills we have now. Most people experience minor fluctuations of sexual orientation during their life course. Since you have no experience of a relationship with a woman, it's totally understandable that you are curious. Also, once you actually experience what it's like to date another woman, you might feel less interest in men in general, or realize that your feelings for women were more bi-curiosity, and once satisfied, don't re-occur as strongly.

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