Suicide as a way out

The stigmatizing nature of AIDS compounded Lulama’s traumatic experience of the double HIV diagnosis. As noted above, testing for HIV was ‘forced’ on her after her sickly daughter tested positive:

So, it means that the child got it from me. So, immediately when I heard that, I went and told my husband and he didn’t accept it. Then I came here and I told my family about the results. My family was very upset. But I started getting insults in the community, and even my sisters used to swear at me about it.

Lulama, 48 years old, Grahamstown

Before she even experienced stigma from others, she was already blaming herself for passing this disease onto her child. As discussed in section 2.3.3, AIDS is an illness which is socially viewed as self-inflicted through immoral sexual behaviour. This perception causes the individual living with AIDS to internalise her/himself as having “a

‘spoilt identity’, a feeling of being inferior, degraded, deviant, and shamefully different”

(Goffman, 1963 in Kleinman, 1988: 159). We can see from Lulama’s story that AIDS stigma may cause an individual to see suicide as the only way out. When the burden of

the ‘insults from the community and her own sisters’ as well as her own internalisation of a ‘spoilt identity’ was too much, she attempted to commit suicide.

I decided to take my own life by drinking car petrol that I got from next door.

Before drinking it, I realised that I could not stand its smell. So I decided to take the pills my disabled sister was taking, and I drank all of them. I just wanted to sleep and never wake up. But before I got to my bed, I fell at the door and they saw me and called an ambulance. I told them that I was not going to get inside that ambulance and when the ambulance arrived, I told them that I was not going to get in because they say I am HIV positive so I don’t see the point of being taken to the hospital.

Lulama, 48 years old, Grahamstown

We can only attempt to understand the emotional pain that Lulama must have been experiencing. Her previously held notions of an unspoilt identity were devastatingly shattered by the experience of the social stigma attached to her being HIV positive. The devastation was such that she refused to acknowledge her family’s help in calling an ambulance. In her anguished state she effectively denied to see her family’s care and concern. Her focus was only on the insults. As she reasoned, “I was not going to get in because they say I am HIV positive so I don’t see the point of being taken to the hospital”. For Lulama, it was not only pointless to be taken to the hospital, significantly, it was pointless to continue living with a ‘spoilt identity’ (Goffman, 1963 in Kleinman, 1988: 159). In light of her family’s poverty, one can assume that an HIV positive result caused Lulama to simply want to “sleep and never wake up”. This assumption is supported by her mother’s eloquently expressed dire circumstances of this family’s tribulations grounded in generational poverty. As I have noted earlier, Lulama understandably centred her life story on her AIDS experiences. She said little about her other lived experiences.

5.5.2 ‘Sitting by myself at school’: a daughter’s cry

The emotional trauma related to the stigma of AIDS went beyond Lulama, as it was also experienced by her eldest daughter. When asked if she had experienced stigma regarding her mother’s HIV status, she said:

I can say, yes. When we found out that my mother was HIV positive, I was still in high school. Afterwards, whenever a group of friends discussed HIV/AIDS, I would move away from there and sit by myself. Then they would ask me why I was sitting alone, and I would tell them that I was not enjoying the conversation.

Then another one would ask if there was a problem with what they were talking about and I would just say I didn’t like talking about that thing. Then they would call me and say they have stopped talking about it because it bothers me. So as a result, they ended up not talking about it.

Zintle, 23 years old, Grahamstown

Zintle’s initial experience of the stigma associated with AIDS, like her mother’s, was self-induced shame and maybe anger at her mother for having contracted “that thing”.

She elected to isolate herself from any discussion on HIV/AIDS as it was a painful topic for her. This, no doubt added to her emotional suffering. Like her mother, she also experienced overt AIDS stigma, though to a lesser degree:

There were others who would go from one class and tell the others in another class that my mother is HIV positive and then they would start pointing fingers at me. But by the time I finished school, they had stopped doing that because I told them that anyone who makes fun without knowing his or her own status or that of their family members, is stupid.

Zintle, 23 years old, Grahamstown

Standing up to those who ‘pointed fingers at her’ may indicate an acceptance of her mother’s condition. More importantly, she uses it to educate her friends about the prudence of taking an HIV test, instead of ‘stupidly making fun’ of those who are HIV positive.

5.5.3 ‘HIV as a weapon’: a grandmother fights back

Zintle’s grandmother was also emotionally traumatised by the AIDS stigma directed at her two HIV positive daughters. On occasion, she also stood up for her daughters:

Some other people use HIV as a weapon to bring my daughters down, especially those people they fight with. They call them names because of HIV. I once heard on the radio that name-calling of HIV positive people can land you into trouble, you can even be sued. So I told my daughters to sue these people. A lady who Lulama had borrowed money from once came here and started shouting at her.

She kept on referring to her HIV positive in her insults. This lady was very disrespectful and I got annoyed and told her to go away before I beat her up.

Nonceba, 77 years old, Grahamstown

Fighting for her children’s dignity, for Nonceba, included chastising one of her daughters who ‘used HIV as a verbal weapon’ against her HIV positive sister:

Nosipho [pseudonym, the other HIV positive daughter. Not a participant] used to be very mean to Lulama as well, with regard to her HIV positive status. Whenever the two had a fight she always brought up the HIV issue and used it as a weapon.

This was before she herself tested HIV positive. I remember the day she knew that she was positive she was very ashamed and shocked. I reminded her how she used to be horrible to the sister, in a way I was being vindictive. I couldn’t help myself, because Nosipho used to be very mean and used to laugh at her sister’s HIV positive status.

Nonceba, 77 years old, Grahamstown