Content warning: This post deals with trauma and abuse, and may be upsetting. Be kind to yourself and read this when you're ready

I talk about finding love online in my past blogs as if it was the easiest thing in the world for me to do. But believe me, it wasn’t.

I’ve talked about my self-worth being affected by my HIV status, and yes those are significant reasons that love for me is miraculous but there is also a dark side to that story.

It’s time to get dark while remaining sexy as hell! Hold on to your G-Strings!!!

I will demonstrate by using my own personal story as a reference, but anecdotally and with some researched evidence, that I am sadly a statistic of many Indigenous women around the world that love is either a miracle or it completely evades us all together. HIV became the catalyst for me to address my own personal trauma around sex and love. It is also the foundation that I am able to help others who have also experienced trauma around sex and love.

“ HIV became the catalyst for me to address my own personal trauma around sex and love.”

Generational trauma is evident in many Indigenous peoples’ families, with systemic racism, incarceration, poverty, mental health, and addictions playing a significant role in our ‘not so’ privileged lives. Colonisation, and the impact of colonisation, has affected my family for generations. The loss of land, resources, and language was devastating for my people. With the ramifications still echoing now through time and space, even today, we still hurt. One of the common effects is the significantly high number of sexual abuse incidents for males and females; they are within our Indigenous stories globally.

In my own pathway of healing, it has helped me to study—through anthropology, sociology, psychology, and philosophy—the long-term generational impact of colonisation. How we became vulnerable to sexual abuse, and, therefore, ultimately HIV.

The dark part is no one likes talking about these issues. I can only speak for myself. I had those condoms on me, and I didn’t insist on them being used, which would have saved me a lot of pain in the long run. So, why didn’t I insist?

Trauma affects our body, mind, spirit and relationships. Add the stigma of being an Indigenous woman living with HIV, and it amplifies.

Love and sex was such a pipe dream for me. I let go of my dream of being a mother and a grandmother when I was diagnosed with HIV in the 90’s and we were encouraged to not have children. You may as well have shot me dead then. I didn’t want to live life without love or sex. I’m a woman! I want to be loved and to feel love. I want to express myself sexually. That’s what I was born to do.

Yet my personal experiences with trauma made sex dangerous for me. The old cliché of “looking for love in all the wrong places,” was happening before I got HIV, and led me to that door as well. I was reckless in my youth, forever searching for the elusive ‘One’, but due to my self-esteem, the impact of colonisation, and my marginal standing within society, I was doomed before I could ever begin to start. I was raped at 12. I denied it and lived life as if it never happened. It was only until I was staring down the barrel of the shotgun of mortality that I had to admit that I was damaged goods. Thanks, HIV, love you for that!

So, my journey of self-discovery began, which included the intimate self-discovery as well. I made some serious mistakes along the way, married a couple of men that were not good for me. All this happening before I met the love of my life at 45 years old.

Today, I’m proud to say I know ‘Who I Am’, not what I am or what I have been. Knowing who I am, also includes knowing where I came from. A lot of Indigenous people who have been colonised lose their genealogy and their sense of where they stand and belong. I found when I knew who I was and where I had descended from, it made me walk a bit straighter, with my head held up.

“Today, I’m proud to say I know ‘Who I Am’, not what I am or what I have been. Knowing who I am, also includes knowing where I came from.”

I also realised that as women we have been victimised and abused for generations, I found out that I descended from a Matriarchal people, that the women owned the land, were the leaders and fought in wars alongside their men. They were also sexually astute, and in touch with their power. I have a place in society, and it has strong Indigenous women leaders.

I learnt that a lot of my self-defeatism and attitudes were learnt behaviours, that I could change them and through the power of the mind completely rewrite the messages given to me, passed down to me and handed to me by patriarchy. I could rewrite my destiny and my children's destiny. HIV didn’t define me, and I was more than Bio-Medical.

I found that personal philosophy was very important—standing strong in your values and beliefs were the foundations to good sex and good love. I love my body today. I love my sexuality today. I am proud to want to express love and sex in a healthy manner, something that evaded me for such a long time. The U=U message is so important to people living with HIV. We must embrace U=U=Love. We can be loved regardless of our race, religion, sexuality, HIV status, background and bank balance. Kia kaha Wahine maa.

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