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Living with HIV may change your holidays, but you can still have enjoyable and meaningful celebrations. Although HIV may make some holiday traditions challenging, it doesn't mean you can't enjoy connecting with friends and family during the holiday season. By communicating your limitations due to HIV, being flexible, and adjusting your expectations, you can help make sure the holidays are happy and memorable.
Communicate Your Needs
Let your loved ones know that connecting with them over the holidays is as important as ever to you, but treatment side effects like nausea or conditions you've developed from long-term ART use are making it hard to plan as usual. You need to put your health first or risk worsening your condition.
Be Flexible
Instead of saying "no," say "yes" to something else. If a family tradition no longer works for you since you were diagnosed with HIV, it may be time to suggest an update.
If it's just not possible to get together in one place this year, consider using a video chat service such as Skype, Zoom, or FaceTime to have a special holiday call on a smartphone or laptop. During a video chat, you can:
Adjust Your Expectations
Even without a chronic illness like HIV, holidays often come with high expectations that lead to disappointment and stress. Letting go of the illusion of a "perfect" holiday can help you keep expectations realistic and focus on what's most important about the holidays. For many people, that means connecting with loved ones, being thankful for what you have, and finding hope for the new year.
Here are some mindful tips from Johns Hopkins Medicine for adjusting holiday expectations:
During the holidays and year-round, the members of myHIVteam are here for each other. Joining myHIVteam means gaining a support group of thousands of others with HIV who understand exactly what you're going through.
Here are some conversations from myHIVteam members about navigating the holiday season with hiv:
How do you celebrate the holidays with HIV?
Share in the comments below or post on myHIVteam.
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A myHIVteam Member said:
The last holiday I attended was when my sister insisted on me being there. Everyone was nice and I am now the matriarch. I really enjoyed watching my… read more
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