I Hid My HIV Status for Three Years. My Family Still Does Not Know.

This was back in 2021, during that period after lockdown when everything was still shaky. I was 28, living in Enugu, working as a sales rep for a beverage company. I had a girlfriend I was serious about, and we were planning to get married the following year.

I went for a routine medical checkup before our traditional wedding. The doctor called me back alone. He said the words and I felt the floor leave my feet. I was HIV positive. I remember sitting in that hospital corridor for three hours, just staring at the wall. I did not call my girlfriend. I did not call my mother. I went home and locked myself in my room.

For three years, I hid it. I told my girlfriend we needed to postpone the wedding because of work. She cried, she accused me of not loving her. I let her believe it. I could not tell her because I did not know how I got it. I never did drugs, I never slept around. The only person I had been with before her was a girl in 2018, and she ghosted me after three months. Maybe she knew. Maybe she did not care.

I started treatment secretly. I would hide my pills in an old shoe box under my bed. Every morning before work, I would swallow them with water, then brush my teeth twice to remove any smell. My mother visited once and asked why I had so many paracetamol packets. I said it was for headaches.

My girlfriend eventually left me last year. She said I was not serious. She married someone else three months ago. I attended the wedding. I smiled. I danced. I gave 10,000 naira as my gift. Nobody knew I was standing there with a secret that could have destroyed her life too.

I am still on medication. My viral load is undetectable now. The doctor says I can live a normal life, have children, everything. But the loneliness of carrying this alone , that is the part nobody prepares you for. I have not told a single soul. Not my siblings. Not my friends. Not even my pastor.

If you are reading this and you are hiding something similar, I want you to know that shame is a heavier burden than the truth. I am still learning to tell it myself. But at least here, on this app where nobody knows my face, I have finally said it out loud. That is progress.