‘I’m Here to Carry a Message’ : A former businesswoman recalls the losses, gains and roller coaster of emotions she has experienced after learning she is HIV-positive.

Dora Gallagher, 33, will be a volunteer group leader at Women for Positive Living, a free seminar Feb. 19-20 for women infected with HIV. Her involvement with the Los Angeles Shanti Foundation, sponsor of the event at T.H.E. Clinic for Women in the Crenshaw area, began in 1992 when she attended a Shanti-run HIV seminar. She was interviewed by Mike Wyma.

I was diagnosed as HIV-positive in 1987, but I say it’s been 12 years because it was back then that I was using IV drugs and was having sex with what I would call bisexual men, but that I guess were really gay. One has died of AIDS, so I could have been infected there, and the people I was using with, sharing needles with, I don’t know of anyone who has AIDS. But one supposedly has hepatitis and has all the symptoms of being HIV-positive, so maybe they’re just not telling the truth, because I didn’t tell the truth for a long time either.

I took the test because I wasn’t feeling well. A friend of mine said he should go with me to get the results and I said OK. He was a client of mine in the hair business. Long story short, he spread a rumor that I had AIDS, which was not true and still isn’t. I don’t have AIDS all these years later. But my business dropped from about $60,000 a year to about $8,000 a year over the following five years.

Then a year ago I realized I was in a deep depression. I realized I had had small seizures all that time. I went to a doctor and they tested me and said that probably was happening because I was in a deep depression. I had decided to give up my hair and nail business and I’d started working in someone else’s shop, and this last February the owner was uncomfortable with the fact that I (had tested) positive.

I want to stress that people have to give up being scared of someone who’s positive. I went into a nervous breakdown and it pretty much destroyed me for several months. I went onto disability and I’m pretty much in financial limbo now, getting ready to move to the Antelope Valley.

I’m not able to handle anything with three components. If I’m washing dishes and the stove is next to me and I have water boiling for something, I’m pretty much OK. But if the phone rings I just freak out. So it’s not really good for me to be in a work environment, because there’s stress almost all the time.

After being diagnosed, at first I was married, but we didn’t have much of a sex life. He had a lot of problems and I finally got out of the relationship because I couldn’t deal with it anymore. He really didn’t care to use a condom but we had to, so he did when he had to, but that wasn’t enough for me. I was young, I was in my mid-20s, and frankly I came into my prime at about 28, and you know, I gotta have it hormone-wise, and I decided to get out of the relationship. I had an affair and I told that person in the heat of passion, and he said, “That’s what condoms are for,” and I never saw him again after that.

I met someone else and was afraid I wouldn’t be able to have what I was looking for. I wanted to be loved, and so I didn’t tell him. I tried to tell him many times but didn’t deal with it. What happened is I felt suicidal every morning in the shower. We were practicing unprotected sex. We had a relationship for two years. He’s tested negative twice and it’s been about 19 months since we broke up.

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When I went to the Shanti seminar I met the man I’m in the relationship with now. We started out as friends and fell in love. He has progressed to AIDS. Our sex life has been very healthy for the most part. We’re both in lots of different kinds of therapy.

I’ve been diagnosed as having deep depression, HIV-related. I had held all this in for so long and hid it. I was a prominent businesswoman in Venice Beach and couldn’t tell anyone about it. It really messes up a person. I really understand what it is to be gay and not be able to tell someone, or whatever secret you have. And I really know what the rewards of coming out are. Who knows where I’d be now if I was still having to hold all this in? It would be even worse.

I look at it that I don’t know what’s going to happen. I ride a Harley because I’m not going to die of this disease; I’m going to go down on my bike. There’s so many mixed emotions.

Shanti has changed my life. The seminar Women for Positive Living, it changes lives.

Because I’m sober I’m able to enjoy the fullest life I can while being positive. I don’t think Shanti would have me as a facilitator at their seminar if I wasn’t sober. I have spirituality, which to me is being awake.

I’ve always been close to God. I’ve always had God in my life. I used to have Him in my pocket and when I wanted I’d pull Him out. Now I have a conscious contact on a daily basis, and I’m in tune. I know that I’m alive because I’m here to carry a message. I really believe that. And I believe that it’s a message from God that you can live with this. You don’t have to look skinny and decrepit. You can have a life.