What really threatened my life wasn't HIV, but my mental health

For a month, she contended with fever, flu-like symptoms, and a rash that looked like a severe allergic reaction.

- Jessica Novia

Sarah (not her real name) dismissed this at first, as she was often sickly. But when the symptoms did not fade, she saw a doctor, who immediately advised her to go to the hospital.

It was 2021, when the Covid-19 pandemic was at its peak. The hospital staff kept swabbing her, and she kept testing negative for Covid.

"It didn't occur to the doctors and nurses that it could be HIV," says the 29-year-old, who currently works in the social services sector.

She was sent to the National Centre for Infectious Diseases for more comprehensive tests, and the results showed that she was HIV-positive.

She took it well at first, nodding and smiling while the doctor explained what the diagnosis meant.

Later that day, however, she had a psychological breakdown that lasted for two days.

Time ground to a stop for her, and words on her phone seemed to float, disconnecting her from reality. "I didn't realise how much of a shock it was to my system. I couldn't process it." The hospital asked her if she knew who infected her. After contacting her exes and past sexual partners so that they would get checked and not risk infecting their current partners, she found out who passed the virus to her.

"It was actually from a non-consensual sexual experience." She and her colleagues had gone to a party to celebrate her birthday a year prior, only for a more senior colleague to take advantage of her.

"I was drunk, and I don't remember if I said yes or no," she says.