I went into the doctor's office and sat with the doctor for what seemed to me like a really long time. He finally spoke up and said, 'You have tested positive for HIV.' Not once did I think I'd hear those words until I actually did hear them. It was just like my whole world stopped.

I just sat there just absolutely horrified that this was happening in my life. I thought that no one would ever want anything to do with me again, and no one would ever want to hang around with me. And no one would want to touch me or have anything to do with me at all in any sense. I was never going to have a boyfriend again, I was never going to get married and I was never going to have children. I was not going to grow old and I wasn't going to have any normalcy in my life ever again.

All photos ©2010, Dan Habib