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There are times when I am fully aware of the mental health impact of being positive, of being brown, of being queer. Those are the times when I am able to see through the phantasms. I can see how shifting and ephemeral they are and how they only have power if I allow them to come fully into this plane.  At other times the spirits break through to this side before I am able to realize that, in reality, they can do no harm unless I allow them to do so.

Falling in love has summoned up a whole new host of demons. Their name is Legion for they are many.

For years, I felt untouchable, unworthy of being touched. My meth/sex binges, when they were finished, deepened my personal feelings of anathema. The duel life I led (responsible/respectable successful during the day—party boy on the weekends), created in me a sense of imbalance and a natural inclination towards subterfuge in my personal relationships. As long as I was alone and only engaged with other queer men in order to meet my sexual needs, I did not have to deal with my true need to be held, loved, desired, celebrated, and wanted in a healthy way.  And then I fell in love.

I have a wonderful man. This man has spun my world upside down and inside out. With him, I feel like Tara and Willow during the Musical Episode of Buffy when they are flitting around, casting butterfly spells and serenading one another. He has opened up my eyes to myself, and cast a spell on me that has let me see my true reflection instead of looking through the eyes of the wounds that I have inflicted on myself and that were legacies of growing up where and when and how I did.  He is my number one fan, and my number one critic. He is my Watcher that helps me keep the demons at bay. He makes me feel touchable. He touches me and holds me both physically and spiritually, literally and metaphorically. He has helped me to welcome touch again into my life. And the fear of losing that, the fear that is created each time a white blood cell succumbs to the HIV invader, is a specter that at times clamps its hands firmly around my throat. There is the standard fear of losing a good thing. But this is a phobia created and multiplied by what it means to walk in the skin of a black positive queer man in the 21^st century. And like any phobia it has a basic root in reality but branches deeply into horrific fantasy and irrationality.

The phobia manifests itself as a succubus called Jealousy. That green eyed monster, so seductive, so cruel, spends so much time running in and around my mind that if I ever catch her, I am going to skin her alive with a rusty butter knife dipped in Ajax and then dribble hot bacon grease in the wounds.

He and I have an open relationship. Open as in, open right up and let that Jealousy wench come right on in. Now, I know myself. Like Buffy, I am a slut. I would happily f&%^ a sexy vampire or two or have a threesome with a hung Hell Beast and Spike. I could do all that and know without a doubt that the Bacchanalia would have no impact on my thoughts, feelings, or love for my partner. Theoretically, I know that the same goes for him. Practically, when I know he has gone out and had sex with someone else, I want to find them both and drive a stake through their conjoined bodies. Unfortunately, human beings don’t burn up into piles of ash when you stick a sharpened Louisville slugger through their necks.

The disconnect between my brain and my heart (or wherever Jealousy happens to reside) is the greatest impact on our relationship right now. In general, we love and support each other like Anya and Zander before Zander left her high and dry at the altar in a room full of demons that had just fireballed in from Hell. I struggle each day to remember that his love for me is not diminished by the trick that may or may not have just left his house or job or theater or wherever he happens to be. 

Living in this society as a gay Black man who truly believes in the multiplicity of loves and ways of loving but has survived so many psychic wounds is a mental juxtaposition that at times is paralyzing at best and approaches minor psychosis at worst.  Self-examination and awareness is the first step in any sort of recovery. But, if I become any more self aware, I may be forced to stake myself.

Learning to love through the demons, love past the skeletons, love around the ghouls, and love in spite of the goblins is one of the hardest adventures that this Buffy has ever had to undertake. Learning to erase the tapes recorded the day I tested positive is a Herculean effort. But the alternative, laying down in a cold grave, alone, wandering the nights looking for a quick juicy fix, is not the +road which I want to walk anymore. This Slayer is out to win the Final Battle. Oh my Goddess.

This story is filed under: Lifestyle