Living with HIV, Buffy the Vampire Slayer Style
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There are days when I feel like Buffy the Vampire Slayer except less blonde, with better legs, and no breasts. Nevertheless, there are days when I wake up and feel as if I spend my entire existence fighting demons, attempting to drive stakes through my internal craziness, and doing everything I can to keep the Seal of Darkness from opening and letting all hell break loose.
I am a black, Latino, Native American, white, HIV positive, queer man coming off eight years of Bush and living in the worst recession since the Great Depression. I grew up with a single mother. I watched her be physically abused. I survived mental and physical abuse and somehow I have made it into my early 30s. Did I mention that I am also a recovering meth addict, and my boyfriend lives in New York while I live in Oakland? When I say there are days I feel like Buffy. I am not exaggerating.
Moving and living in a world that has plenty of undead, ghouls, goblins, ghosts, skeletons in closets, skeletons buried in the back yard, and skeletons propped the hell up at the dinner table, is like living in an episode of that late much lauded icon of late 90s/early millennium pop culture. Buffy was a metaphor for modern society. And there are days when I run the gamut of characters. Sometimes I am sassy Willow with a spell or three for bitches that get in my way. Some days I am short bus candidate Zander who wanders around wondering exactly what he is supposed to be doing and why he has no super powers. Other days I am Anya, a reformed revenge demon trying to do right and not quite getting it right. And rarely I am lame, annoying, whining Dawn—-a supposed source of ultimate power that sits in the corner weeping and moaning until she inevitably gets kidnapped by some Hell Beast and has to be rescued by friends.
But most days I am Buffy, feeling as if I have been killed and resurrected on multiple occasions, wielding inner strength with a touch of Paradise lost, and trying my hardest to fight the good fight while really thinking about doing high kicks at the Homecoming game and going home to my husband, Freddie Prinze Junior, and doing some Cirque du Soleil gutterbutt Hugh Heifner Olympic gold winning gymnastics that I can upload to Xtube when I’m finished.
Almost six years ago, the ultimate manifestation of my personal demons came in the form of a positive diagnosis. As I struggled to gain the acceptance of those around me, I began to leave behind, let go, and have pulled from me the little dignity I had managed to carry with me into my fledgling maturity. I made stupid choices all aimed at feeling, if only for a brief moment, that I was loved or desired. I discovered my sexuality and began to understand that through sex, I could gain a measure of acceptance—if only acceptance of the physical offering of my body to meet the needs of someone else. Much like Buffy after she was yanked from heaven by her well-meaning friends, I used sex in order to feel something, anything, even if the end result was a piquant self-loathing.
Testing positive exaggerated and deepened my feelings of isolation and added to it a veneer of untouchability.
Having grown up and come out in Minnesota, my idea of beauty was framed by blonde hair and blue eyes. It was reinforced by being told to my face, time and again, in night clubs and online chat rooms that, “Sorry, I don’t do black people.” Through sex, and ultimately sex and drugs, I was able to rock and roll my way into what I thought was acceptance. After testing positive, the only way I could or would allow myself to be touched or held or fucked was when I was high. When I came out as a queer man, I kicked down the closet door, threw on a feather boa, and marched to a rainbow drum. When I tested positive, I pulled a magic-addicted Willow. I told no one. I retreated so deeply into the closet that I am surprised I didn’t end up in Narnia.
Moving in the world as a queer person of color can be a bitch. Moving through the world as a queer, black man, with HIV felt like I was fighting a Master Vampire with a toothpick. The odds were not looking good for me.
After a complete meth fueled break down in 2005, I went to rehab—and not the warm and fuzzy Wiccan rehab in England to which they sent Willow in Season Six—but a queer rehab space called the Pride Institute in suburban Minneapolis (the same rehab center Augusten Burrough’s made famous in Dry). When I left rehab, riding what is called in the queer recovery community the “pink cloud,” I thought the battle was largely over. Sunnydale had been destroyed but the world had been saved.
Little did I know that filling the gaping hole where Sunnydale had once been would become one of the greatest battles I would have to face.
As I have moved forward with my recovery and with coming to terms with and accepting fully my HIV status, I have come up against the ghosts of demons I had thought I had slain. Fighting the stigma attached to being positive—including the widely accepted terminology of being “clean” as if being positive makes one dirty—in addition to battling addiction and trying to keep myself open to the love and joy that the world has brought me is, at times, a Sisyphian fight. Each time I approach the mountaintop, and I think I see the Promised Land, I realize I am wearing roller skates with no stoppers, and I began sliding backwards down that depressing hill.
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.
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Beautifully written article, mi amor…and crazy enough…I totally understood your feelings for the characters on Buffy (which makes me want to put on season one and watch everything all over again!) Have a wonderful Christmas, we love you!
> Nubia Esparza
what nubia said, and you always have my support hermano. miss ya, and i’ll let the kids beat me up,
for your present.
rsc
> Rodrigo
“I am a black, Latino, Native American, white, HIV positive, queer man coming off eight years of Bush and living in the worst recession since the Great Depression. I grew up with a single mother. I watched her be physically abused. I survived mental and physical abuse and somehow I have made it into my early 30s. Did I mention that I am also a recovering meth addict, and my boyfriend lives in New York while I live in Oakland?” - And you are loved!!!
> Cedric Lawson
Fierce summarization of a filled life by someone who is, by most accounts, still a babe. I am saddened that someone your age is already carrying such a burden but grieve that you thought (still think?) that you bear this alone. Remember that it takes the village (coven?) to not just raise the child but to nurture him through life’s challenges - by all accounts, you have a virtual city of friends and family standing by you.
BTW, there was no mention of the Filipino in you…that blood links you to another 85 million family members/friends.
> Noel
Thank you so much all of you for your kind words. Noel–I am blessed with a powerful community of people that care about me. The horror of HIV is not the disease itself…it is the isolation and loneliness that the disease breeds–whether or not the loneliness is, in fact, real.
And, while I lived in the Phillipines and my siblings are half pinoy…I was not blessed with that ancestry…though I did grow up there as a child. But I feel a distinct connection to those amazing islands, to the people of the Phillipines, and to my pinoy/pinay family.
> Brandon Lacy Campos
Beautifully written and applicable to much.
> dea
Fantastic article. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year, kid. We miss you.
> Pete Mikelson
Sorry for making fun of you and your blog B. Merry Christmas and enjoy Buffy - we just got season 4 on DVD!
Peace Carmen San Diego!
Dave
> David Culver
Hey Brandon, that’s a beautiful article. Thanks for sharing. Hugs, Robert
> Robert Espinoza
i love the title of your article. so often, you hear and read people talking about surviving with HIV. it’s rare in my experience to see, hear, or read anything beautiful or positive about living with HIV. does that make sense? i mean, yes, your article is evocative and beautiful, but more than anything else, it is soul-baring and honest. i’m constantly amazed at your ability and willingness to bare yourself for others…as i re-learn just about every day, speaking truth to power isn’t always about telling the truth to the powers that be. sometimes it’s about telling the truth about yourself to whomever might be listening. thank you, thank you, thank you.
> jerry jones
WOW YOU REALLY PUT IT ALL OUT THERE…YOU ARE BRAVE
> The Gaytekeeper
Another great article written by a fabulous person, Brandon Lacy Campos. I think that this piece helps dismantle the oppression that exist among people that are positive.
> Farheen Hakeem
Thanks for sharing. Very well written and powerful.
> Venton
What a gift you are my friend, and gifted. Thank you for these words and for sharing yourself with Creation in this way. I love you my brother. Vance
> Vance
Great article Brandon, thank you for sharing your story with us. I was never a Buffy fan so I don’t get many of the references but I totally feel you on the identity piece.
> Steven Renderos
Thank you so much for that article. Being another black man surviving/fighting HIV ( diagnosed 15 yrs ago and only been on meds for 2); I understand the concept of feeling like “damaged goods” and sometimes aligning yourself with those of lighter color or blue eyes or whatever the “vanilla” world deems acceptable. No wonder I loved Buffy as much as I did. On some sub-conscious level I guess I felt the same.
> james a means
Recovery is hard when one’s demons have been fed with self-loathing and the perception of hateful rejection by others. This is a trap that can last for years, that can poison the very breath of life that is our gift. But we can change, we can listen, we can learn about hope and passion and joy and love. Be welcome, Brandon, and sing out for all of us.
> Fred Markus
I adore the way you write, and the courage and brutal honesty with which you write.
You are an absolutely FABULOUS human being, Brandon. You have done so much, you are so amazing, you are one of my personal heroes.
> Thomas Leavitt
Brandon, its been a while since I read something that captures so much of your spirit and made me feel like you were present with me. You give me strength knowing I am not alone, nor crazy. If I am crazy, I have company.
You said something that described my feelings to a T lately, which was “Each time I approach the mountaintop, and I think I see the Promised Land, I realize I am wearing roller skates with no stoppers, and I began sliding backwards down that depressing hill.” My skates won’t come off and it seems the bearings are so greased I keep rolling back and forth at the little U at the bottom of that hill.
> Chris Johnson
Great piece, Brandon.
> Eli Ellis Ogburn
that is an awesome article
> Marietta Green
Welp, I’ve sat here awhile trying to come up with something smart or funny to say. And I suck at gravitas. So I shall leave it a this; you make letters talk good. Make Cat go smiley face. You like Santa.
> Cat
great piece, brandon, and great commentary you evoked.
> susan
Awesome Brandon and so immediate and honest. Thanks for sharing your gift!
> David Strand
i always appreciate not just the content of the stories you spin out on the page, but the grace with which your writer’s voice speaks your truth. i am amazed by your capacity to somehow balance the revelation of very challenging personal experiences, which are by no means played down or flinched from, with a clarity of self-reflection, agency and autonomy. you have such an amazing voice!
> carter
What a wonderful essay. Beautifully written. You have captured so much emotion and reality. My wish is that everyone affected by AIDS could reach so high. But as you may know there is a ton of AIDS denialism online, masquerading as ‘dissident science’.
A new book tells the destructive story of AIDS denialism…..Denying AIDS: Conspiracy Theories, Pseudoscience, and Human Tragedy being published by Copernicus / Springer Books. This is the first psychological analysis of the AIDS denialist movement .
All of the royalties from sales of Denying AIDS are being donated to purchase HIV treatments in Africa. I have also created an Author’s blog for readers and others interested in AIDS denialism http://denyingaids.blogspot.com/
> Seth Kalichman
This is so powerful. Your ability to persevere gives us hope.
> Yuval
Love the article….I feel like I had a train run up and down me looking for love…Being Bi or should I say fuck up to some point of time.I have been blessed not to run into that siturations yet.But I have lost a lot of dear freind to HIV and I cry within my self missing them. So I feel the pain too. I thank god that he bless my everyday to get up and see the beautyful light he given us, the chance to see my boys….love you for expressing the feeling you have within.
> The Teacher
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Brandon thank-you for allowing me a glimpse of your life. I am sending you my love….a wet kiss on the forehead and a big squashy hug! your not alone we are all here for you
> LadyByDay
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