Intro - Destiny Smith

I've always been one to believe everything happens for a reason. And I do believe, if not anything, God put HIV in my life because he knows I can reach others. He knows how strong I am and how far I can go if I put my all into it.

When I first found out I was at a loss for words. I mean I literally felt like my whole body shut down. My brain went dead, I couldn’t speak when I tried, my body couldn’t move. I didn’t know if I should cry or laugh cause it had to be a joke, right? Growing up you don’t hear any good news about HIV or survivors, you hear about how quick it turns into AIDS and how quick people die from it. You hear all the bad stories, never the good. So once I could speak and begin to think, it’s like, how long do I have to live and what’s going to happen to my children? Mind you I was pregnant when I found out and all I could think of is how is this going to affect this human growing inside of me.

Being 22 years old, I knew having unprotected sex could lead to all kinds of risk, but being young and carefree, I never would have thought I would get checked and be HIV positive. The thing that got to me most is how quick I got it because I had just got tested in September and was negative for everything, but then I get tested in December and I have HIV. Once I found out I began to text the guy I was dealing with at the time to let him know to get checked because that is a serious situation. My boyfriend at the time was who I was pregnant by and though we weren’t together for that long, he did not run like I imagined he would have. He was there for me every step of the way. He tried every day to get me to look at this situation as a positive. He wanted me to understand that God wouldn’t put me through anything I couldn’t handle. For the first two to three months I just shut down. I did what I needed to, went to the doctors and started on the medicine. But I also didn’t talk about it. I began to grow angry at myself asking God why, exactly why, would he do this to me. Why would he allow this to happen? What have I done so badly in my life that I deserved to get HIV?

Why Destiny wants to be part of A Girl Like Me: I feel I can reach others in my same situation and I would love to help the younger people around my age who felt what I felt when I heard the news.