The Emotional Challenges of Living with HIV
Viiv Healthcare - "Science in HIV treatment has travelled long and far, but what about the emotional and stigma related challenges of living with HIV? HIV has changed. Thanks to treatment advances, people living with HIV (PLHIV) now have a longer life expectancy. However, emotional challenges continue to impact many people’s day-to-day lives.
Despite treatment advances, stigma and discrimination remain a part of living with HIV. Having many guises HIV stigma may be perpetuated through our laws and institutions, through communities, between individuals or by oneself in the form of self-stigma.
With these different levels of HIV stigma to deal with, PLHIV can sometimes experience heightened levels of emotional and psychological issues including fear, guilt, abandonment, lack of worth and harrassment. " (Photo: The Stigma Project/flickr, CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)