Deception In A Marriage, HIV Infection & Importance of Mental Health Services

[N'Zinga Shani]

Deception In A Marriage, HIV Infection & the Importance of Mental Health Services

This is another Good Reason to Get Health Coverage under the Affordable Ccare Act: Mental Health Therapy IS Covered.

Bridget Gordon’s complete article about Intimate Deception, HIV Infection and Mental Health Services is excerpted below, but the complete article is also linked.  Reading it will be very informative.  we can all empower ourselves with good information whether we see ourselves in the specific situation or nor. Having access to good mental health services is very important at all times. Among the 10 Essential Benefits offered under the Affordable Care Act are:

•  Mental health and substance use disorder services, including behavioral health  treatment (this includes counseling and psychotherapy)
•  Prescription drugs

       How therapy helped me cope with HIV - By Bridget Gordon (Feb. 8, 2014)

 (All of the information below was taken from the CNN article written by Bridget Gordon; the complete article is linked below and is really worthwhile reading and sharing with others)

 (CNN) -- I got an urgent call from the doctor. Come to my office immediately, he said. The test results have arrived. A few days earlier, I suddenly felt so ill that I asked the doctor to test for everything and find out why I had been feeling this way.

Two months prior, my new husband and I returned from our honeymoon in the South Pacific. He became severely ill on the 11-hour flight home. His headache and high fever lasted for days but then went away before his doctor could determine the cause.  And now I felt horrible.

Nothing in life prepared me for the test results. Had the doctor said "you have diabetes," that would have made sense. My mother and grandfather had diabetes.

But when he said "you have HIV," it blew my mind! And it made no sense, no sense at all.

“Too many people in our society are grossly uninformed and still cling to misguided beliefs about HIV/AIDS. Consequently, the lack of accurate information about HIV/AIDS increases the risk of transmission and decreases the likelihood for women to escape the downward spiral.

At first, as a working professional and career engineer, I was fortunate to have access and the ability to pay for extensive mental health care. But tending to this crisis eventually cost me my career, and then the money ran out.

It wasn't until I was the subject of a segment on the "Oprah Winfrey Show" in September 2010 that my struggle started to gain more meaning. I found there were many more women out there like me.

According to Kathleen J. Sikkema, a professor of psychology and neuroscience at Duke University, "Persons living with HIV/AIDS have disproportionately high rates of psychiatric disorders, with mood and anxiety disorders being the most common."

Yes. That was me.”

“It was only later that I discovered e-mails that proved my husband had been living life on the "down low" -- secretly having unprotected sex with many men -- and had likely given me the disease.”

“For me, my therapist showed me why mental health care was as important in treating HIV as a knowledgeable, supportive medical doctor. But most others aren't so fortunate.”

Signing up for health coverage through the Affordable Care Marketplace is highly beneficial. We encourage you to review the health insurance that you have, and if you don’t please sign up before March 31, 2014. Learn more here: http://youtu.be/IIKo8DxODGo Help Is Available Signing up for the ACA 18:00

http://www.cnn.com/2014/02/07/opinion/gordon-hiv-mental-health/

 

http://www.bridgetbfoundation.org/   - About Bridget’s Foundation – Please visit

[N'Zinga Shani]

An incredibly enlightening and informative article and series of information (including the State Supreme Court's Decision in California.  It is certainly worth reading.