HomeMany fears do not hold up in the cold light of reality. If you fear sickness, find out which symptoms you should see your doctor about and which you should ignore. “I found out what’s what,” said Alan, “and now I don’t worry about every little cough.” If you fear medications, tests, and procedures, educate yourself about them. Read what you can find, ask your doctor, ask people who have had the experience. Learn about drugs like AZT and their side effects. Talk to someone who’s had a bronchoscopy, who’s gone through a scanner, who’s had a lumbar puncture. The fear of such things is often much worse than the things themselves. If you fear dying, talk to a therapist or pastor or other people in your situation or someone you love. Death, whether your own or that of someone you are caring for, seems like a dark thing we cannot talk about. Talking makes the unknown much less frightening. Talk as openly as you can. If you fear rejection and desertion, find out if those you love will in fact stand by you. Try saying, “This is what will happen to me. Can you deal with that?” As it turns out, people are rarely completely abandoned by the people they love. “I know,” said Dean, “that given my resources in life, which are my relatives, I will always have a roof. That’s helped me with anxiety.” Steven said that he quit being afraid when his cousin said she’d come stay with him. Sometimes those people you love cannot offer unqualified support. In that case, you and they will need to negotiate what they feel able to give. People usually know and can be specific about what they can and cannot provide. If you fear what the disease might do to you, ask your doctor, hospital mental health professional, or other people with HIV infection. During a stay in the hospital, Dean roomed with a man who was dying and, like June, Dean was full of fears for the future: “My roommate in the hospital was dying. I asked him lots of specific questions. I asked him, Could he care for himself? He told me that when he got too tired to follow a routine, he didn’t. I wondered, Was he lucid? I found out that things didn’t get bad for him until right before. He was religious—so am I—and that was reassuring to me. His lover was very attentive, and that was reassuring, too.” If you are a caregiver afraid of contagion, inform yourself about how to take the precautions that avoid infection—June said she had “learned to be precautious”. While you are doing this, try not to communicate your fear to the person you are caring for. Make that person feel you are comfortable being around him or her. Put the fear into perspective. Alan said, “I went to a therapist for a while. Then I had a big gigantic turning point. I was taking a shower and realized that all my problems were coming from the fear itself. Fear was creating all the problems, even the fear. Realizing that made the fear dissipate in a gush. Of course, it came back again, but it kept going away again too.”
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