My Journey of How I Learned to Live and Love Myself as a HIV-Positive Gay Man

By Marc Oldland

Did you know that the most recent UK-wide estimate is that 106,890 people received HIV care in the UK in 2019? My name is Marc (He/Him), and I am one of them. I am also a Programme Office Lead within BBC Technology Group and BBC Pride Network’s Community Outreach Officer and Board Member. This is my story of living with HIV, how I came to terms with my diagnosis, how I told my family and friends, and how I found hope and truth in the face of stigma and discrimination.

The Flu

Have you ever had one of those ‘fleeting bugs?’ I have. It was 16 years ago; I felt somewhat ill for a couple of days. I put it down to a bit of a cold or ‘man flu’ as we commonly call it. I was young, fit, and healthy and it didn’t phase me, so I brushed it off. I took a day off work sick, but let it pass. I would come to realise a couple of months later that this wasn’t a bug, it wasn’t the flu. It was something much, much more. It was Seroconversion.

The Diagnosis

It was a sunny Friday afternoon in June in 2007 when I headed to the sexual health clinic at my local hospital. I was twenty-four, out, proud, and never in a million years thought I would be told three words which would go on to change my life, forever.

As I waited impatiently for my sexual health screening results, I can remember daydreaming thinking what I was going to be wearing that night as I was heading out for a night out on Canal Street. I think as with most people back then, HIV was never something that would ‘happen to them.’ As my daze lifted, ‘Marc Oldland’ was called by a frosty faced woman, ‘this way,’ as I was called to a small room. I had not even got to the other side of the 8ft box room and sat down before she clearly said, “you’re HIV Positive”. I was handed a leaflet, told to take my time, and left in that room, alone, which had now closed in on top of me. Still in absolute utter shock, my throat dry, feeling completely numb, I wiped a tear and left the hospital.

The Denial

Meanwhile, I felt like a broken vase, shattered into pieces, and damaged beyond repair. For me it was like life was over and all that was left was a dark and empty void where no one would want to know me. People didn’t get HIV, which was an 80’s and 90’s thing, my naive and uneducated head said. ‘Why is this happening to me?’ I had my one-way flight booked to Sydney only 3 months later for my working holiday year out. After a difficult personal year, I had chosen to give my job up, pack up my life and go in search of ‘finding myself.’ And nothing, not even being diagnosed with HIV, was going to stop that.

After that, I left Manchester and it couldn’t be timelier for someone hiding a deep dark secret, I flew to Oz…. and did not say a word, sitting in a cloud of disbelief when my plane took off, thinking that it ‘would just go away.’

I knew I had seroconverted, but I was ashamed to that I ignored my newfound status, I was determined to have an experience which I would never have again. I had placed my diagnosis in a small box, sealed it and put it on a shelf in the back of my mind that would continue to open itself and spill its contents over the floor. I really did make the best of my year and had a fantastic time. It was difficult, I won't lie, but my resilience was steadfast, and I swept up the contents, put it back in the box, and ceiled it back on that shelf time and time again.