Chris
Chris is a true individual. He’s the type of guy you notice in public because he’s either wearing magenta from head to toe or he’s matched his jacket to his purse, and both are mesh. And his look perfectly reflects his personality; he’s the kind of talker who will literally jump out of his chair to demonstrate his point. You won’t meet another person like Chris if you lived until the end of time.
But in some ways, Chris’ story is a familiar one. It’s one we hear way too often, and way too often from people like Chris—in other words, young gay Black men.
Starting with the messages he got about what it means to be a Black man.
“There are things we have to do to meet the obligation of being a Black male,” he says. “Don’t show no weakness. Don’t cry. Don’t be sensitive. That means you’re like a woman.”
That also meant don’t be gay. When Chris came out, he was asked to take classes at church to cure him of his homosexuality. And even though he’s out and proud now, there’s a part of Chris that still feels he let his late mother down by being gay.
Chris was diagnosed while he was living in Atlanta. It was 2013, a time when the single-pill regimen had been introduced and overall HIV rates had been stabilizing; we were in a new era of HIV care and a long way from the ’80s, when a diagnosis was a death sentence.
But Chris grew up knowing very little about HIV—another thing he has in common with many in his community. So when he was diagnosed, he was terrified. He thought he was going to die.
“When they gave me that reactive test, the minute he told me, I told him I wanted to kill myself,” he says. “I told him, ‘If I leave this room, you ain’t gotta worry about seeing me again.’”
Chris managed to walk out of that room, and by some miracle he managed to survive the next year. A year where he describes feeling like he was passed from one organization to another without ever feeling like he got the resources or information he needed. A year where he scratched and clawed his way through each day, educating himself on HIV and learning to advocate for himself. A year where he was scared and alone.
And things didn’t really change for Chris until 2017, when he first discovered Vivent Health. He had moved from Atlanta to Kansas City and had access to Vivent Health for the first time. And he remembers knowing right away this was the place for him.
“Other places, people treated me like a statistic,” he says. “But from my first appointment at Vivent I was like, ‘I like it here better,’ ” he says.
And in this way, Chris’ story diverges from that of many Black men, who are more likely to be untreated and progress to AIDS, making HIV the eighth leading cause of death among young Black men.
But Chris is still here, still healthy, and he’s been undetectable since 201X. And it’s because he’s got Vivent Health by his side.
He still has his challenges. Shifts in the economy have made it hard for him to remain stably employed, which also makes maintaining secure housing difficult. But his team at Vivent Health has always come through, making sure Chris has a place to sleep, whether it’s temporary housing in a hotel or a longer-term home like an apartment. The food pantry has also been critical for ensuring Chris has healthy food to eat. (“Groceries are so expensive right now,” Chris says.)
In fact, Chris has become so connected to Vivent Health that when he wanted to move out of Kansas City, he started by checking what other locations Vivent Health had and targeting those cities. That’s how he ended up in Milwaukee.
“It’s so welcoming,” he says. “It’s so encouraging. The staff and the resources … I just know I’m never alone.”
And because of the support he gets from Vivent Health, Chris feels like he’s better able to show up for others in his life.
“My greatest gratitude is when I’m self-sufficient, I’m able to pay it forward,” he says. “I’m able to say, ‘Don’t give up. You still can be yourself and you still got it. HIV doesn’t have to define your life. You can live with HIV and still be loved. You can be the person you’re meant to be today.’ And that’s what I plan on doing.”
Starting with himself.
“Whatever expectations are of me, just know I’m not your expectation,” says Chris. “I’m Christopher Lincoln. I’m a Black gay male. I’m a survivor. And I’m myself.”