Hello everyone,
I am so happy to be here and to finally share a bit about my journey living with HIV. With the year coming to an end, I thought it would be a good time to sit down and reflect—not just on this year, but on how far I have come overall.
So, let me start by introducing myself. I will share a little about how I first found out about my diagnosis, what the road has looked like since then, and how all that feels now, at the end of another year.
Thanks for being here with me—I can't wait to share this with you.
I was born in 1989 and at the age of 6 or 7 my parents discovered that I was one of the 13,000 children living with HIV at that time when my chances of survival were expected to be incredibly low. The cohort of children, the epidemiological accident, the legacy of the communism era.
Me, I found out about my status later, when I was around 11, and for a long time, it was a secret within my family. I felt like I was living a double life, always carrying this fear that someone might find out. Growing up in a small village until I was 18, where everyone knows each other, made that fear even harder to manage. The first time I spoke about it, I was around 20, and I remember the moment so clearly. I told someone I thought was my friend, "I have HIV, but I totally understand if you won't accept me." Looking back, it breaks my heart to think that I felt the need to say those words. I had internalised so much stigma that I honestly believed my diagnosis might make me unworthy of friendship or love. That moment reminds me of just how powerful society's messages about HIV can be, and how they can make you doubt your own value.
I had internalised so much stigma that I honestly believed my diagnosis might make me unworthy of friendship or love.
My parents, with all their love and care, always wanted to protect me. But because they loved me the only way they knew how, I often felt reduced to my medical status, rather than being seen for who I was—my character, intelligence, or the contributions I could make. To them, I was this fragile flower that needed shelter from the outside world. It felt so suffocating. When I enrolled at university in Bucharest without telling them, it came as a big shock. They wanted me to stay close, to keep me safe, and they tried to convince me not to go. But I just wanted to show them, and myself, that I was more than my HIV status, that I could achieve anything if I worked for it. I wanted to prove that HIV wouldn't limit me.
I ended up taking on all sorts of challenges, traveling to different countries, taking my medication with me for months at a time. And every time I left, my parents would ask, "What about your medication?" That's how I ended up living in more than 7 different countries, always pushing myself to prove that nothing, not even HIV, could hold me back.
As I have grown older, I have started to see how much of my life has been shaped by this need to prove that I am more than my diagnosis. I have jumped from one faculty to another, one job to the next, one passion after the other, constantly searching for something that would make me feel whole, like I'd finally shown my parents, and myself, what I was capable of.
I believe that by being open about my experience, I can help dismantle the myths and misconceptions about living with HIV. Every life has those pivotal moments, the ones that change everything.
I believe that by being open about my experience, I can help dismantle the myths and misconceptions about living with HIV.
For me, finding out my HIV status at 11 was one of those days—the first link in a chain that shaped the course of my life. As Charles Dickens wrote, "Imagine one selected day struck out of [your life], and think how different its course would have been[...] think for a moment of the long chain of iron or gold, of thorns or flowers, that would never have bound you, but for the formation of the first link on one memorable day." If that day had not happened, the long chain of experiences—both difficult and beautiful—that followed would have been completely different. If that day had never happened, my life would look completely different. The person I am today, the things I have learned, and the people I have met are all tied to that moment. Living with HIV has not been easy, but it's shaped the way I see the world. It's taught me to care deeply about others, to fight against judgment, and to appreciate every connection I have made along the way.
I often wonder about the people I might never have known if my life had gone a different way. Would I have met the friends who have been there through everything? The people who have made me laugh on days when I needed it the most? Or my partner—the person who loves me for who I am and sees beyond anything else? It's hard to imagine my life without them. They have been a huge part of my journey, and I wouldn't trade that for anything. At the same time, I think about who I would have been. Without this experience, would I still have the same drive to share my story or to speak out against stigma? Would I still feel the same connection to others who are going through hard times? Maybe life would have been easier in some ways, but I am not sure it would have had the same meaning. Looking back, I see how everything connects. That one day set so much in motion. It hasn't all been easy, but it's brought me to where I am now. I have grown in ways I never expected, and I have built a life I am proud of—a life that's not defined by HIV, but one that wouldn't be the same without it.
