By the time he entered his 20s, Van Ness's drug addiction had advanced to smoking methamphetamine, sending him to rehab twice. After years of high-risk sex and drug use, Van Ness visited a local Planned Parenthood complaining of flulike symptoms. That's when he received a diagnosis of HIV.
“That day was just as devastating as you would think it would be,” he wrote in his memoir, according to theThis is the first time Van Ness has been open about his HIV-positive status, as well as his history with drug addiction., Van Ness is going public now because he wants to help change common stereotypes about HIV."He is healthy and now describes himself as an out-and-proud 'member of the beautiful HIV-positive community,'" wrote Hawgood.
Van Ness also opened up about his status as a sexual abuse survivor. In his interview and in his memoir, he spoke about being"abused by an older boy from church, during what was supposed to be a make-believe play session," he told the. “For a lot of people who are survivors of sexual assault at a young age, we have a lot of compounded trauma,” he said.HIV stands for Human Immunodeficiency Virus and is an infection that can lead to AIDS.
like Charlie Sheen and Magic Johnson who have been vocal about their status and have helped to raise awareness and funding for research.
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