Table 3.

Quotes from Women and Community Stakeholders

Children and Grandchildren as a Resilience Resource
1	“We play games on the TV, I take my grandkids to the park. Me and my girls [daughters] we sit we talk and have fun, ‘cause all my kids are grown.”
2	“I have three kids. They all grown but sometimes I just lean on them.”
3	“When he hurted me I was in big...I I just didn’t even wanna take my medicines. I did it for my grandson. I was depressed. And my daughter said “are you depressed? What’s wrong, ‘cause he left you? Come on, get up.” My kids really helped me a lot. So I love my kids today. I deeply do. I went through so much.”
4	“Why you cryin’?” and I say, “‘Cause I’m just thinking about how your father used to abuse me and I think about my baby.” I don’t know if it was a boy or a girl. “I’m just coming to see you”, “don’t start crying and don’t start thinking about what happened back in the day.”
5	“Protect and serve has very little shots in it. I call my daughter before I call them. I will keep it real with you. I don’t trust them. Black, White, Asian, I don’t trust them. I call my older sister, I call my children first if anything bad happens to me. Law enforcement? No”
6	“I said, I have the AIDS virus. He said oh, I already knew that. I was like [laughs] Oh Jesus Christ, I was crazy because this child was extremely close to me and I just thought he was gonna think I was such a failure. Because he had stuck with me through my drug addiction and everything. He was like, oh yeah, I knew that. He was like my grandson. It was like so matter a fact. So I’ve actually been very lucky. But it helps me to know that I have people around that support me because it helps me want to stay healthy.”
7	“Like my youngest child, he always remind me. He’s like Mom, don’t forget.”
8	“ My son he calls and tells me Mom, are you alright? Are you taking your medication?”
9	“My oldest daughter, she’s my proxy. She does everything. If I can’t make decisions, she make ‘em for me.”
10	“She said mom, you know you have to take your meds no matter what you do. Still take your medicine. She didn’t agree with what [using substance] I was doing but she wanted me to be safe and she said mom, make sure if you’re gonna have sex have protected sex.”
Family Members as a Resilience Resource
11	“He beat the crap out of me. I grabbed my daughter and the shirt on our back. And I thank God for her [mother] ‘cause she never locked her door on any of her kids. Grabbed my daughter and I ran straight to my mother’s house, legs swollen.”
12	“You deal with what you got to deal with, but I’m going to take care of the baby. She took care of my daughter for a long while. I started at 14 drinking.”
13	“Yes my mother’s my everything. My mother, she was there when I was diagnosed, she came with me to my first women’s group about the HIV. I talk to my mother every single day… Sometimes we sit on the phone and watch shows.”
14	“I just got my son back. He was with my sister. I had sent him over to my sister because I had to clear up a lot of stuff and once I cleared it up I told her I wanted my son back.”
15	“My brothers and sisters. You know they’ll be like, did you take your medicine today and yesterday [laughs].”
16	“My family’s love, my fiancé’s love made me love myself again. So for the past 13, 12 years, I didn’t care about [self], I didn’t care. That’s why they say it’s important to have support. ‘Cause if you don’t have support..I felt so alone. I felt like nobody understood.”
Partners as a Resilience Resource
17	“Sometimes I have to take a minute to take care of me. This man is 9 years younger than me, he has a normal sex drive and here I am saying I don’t have sex. But he said ‘I’m not going anywhere’! He’d been there 20–21 years.”
18	“He knew I was HIV-positive. We talked about everything. He was a good guy. He helped me with everything, that was important to him. All my kids stayed at his house and then they moved out. They didn’t stay there long. Just me and him.”
Friends and Peers as a Resilience Resource
19	“People I work with at [name of nonprofit], was calling me and asking “are you okay, when are you coming back?”
20	“We’re not gonna talk and we all love you, we all treat you the same. Doesn’t matter what you have, you’re the same [name] that we knew a long time ago so that made me feel comfortable. And they kept their word ‘cause nobody has ever come back and told me what they said.”
21	“They cope by trying to do things in the community, I’m sure that they form bonds and friendships with other women who are HIV positive.”
22	“I have a lot of female friends now. Not friends that I call on the phone, but friends I feel really comfortable with socially and in support groups that I can talk and not feel like somebody’s gonna judge me.”
23	“In their group they feel comfortable they have the avenues to open up and talk about stuff without being judged, they feel welcomed.”
24	“They’re very supportive, they give you feedback, people just open their arms up to you and you can feel the love in there because I’m not the only one in there with it [HIV].”
25	“I remember when I first went there [name of nonprofit] when I got diagnosed and I’d just sit there like I ain’t telling people my business, so everybody was there saying they been living with it for 20 years 30 40 years stuff like that. So I’m looking at them and I’m like god. Well if they lived that long, I could live long. And they said as long as you take your medication you could live a longer life. And it took me a while before it sunk in.”
26	“A lot of women, they play the role as a peer so if there’s someone who is new in the community with HIV. They tend to latch on and they tend to show them the ropes. And they’re very supportive, the ones who are okay with their [own] status.”
27	“Being together tones down the intensity of the [HIV-related] discrimination.”
28	“They also have support groups, they do events, and they create a community and I think that’s part of the map. The trick is to let people know you cannot live your life in isolation and live through the stigma.”
29	“So they deal with it [racial discrimination] by coming and talking about it, getting it out. Some of them have been able to confront the person that even discriminated against them.”
30	“I do a women’s group. If it creeps up on me, like if I see a little girl or something like that on TV and I’ll just shake my head and be like, dang that was me. I’ll just hurry up and call [name] and talk about it. Instead of acting out, I just talk about it because you know talking about it and crying about it, it makes you feel better.”
31	“Being around other parents…because I have a teenager now. Talking about what they going through with their teenagers… Getting other people’s take on how they handled the situation. ‘Cause maybe they’ve handled it better. Cause me less heartache, stress, and pain. Listen, be open. And I get to share my experience and I can help somebody just like how they help me.”
32	“I get personal. So here’s my life story. So I talk about my life, my struggles, I talk about children. I talk about family. I’ll talk about my relationship. And then they’re like oh, you’re not so different from me because my story is your story.”
Providers as a Resilience Resource
33	“I love my doctor. She’s honest, she listens to me, and she doesn’t judge. She’s not afraid to say you know I’m disappointed in you, I’m proud of you, you’re doing good, because we need that. ‘Oh I’m so proud of you’. She called me on the phone and she cried with me when I got the test to see if I’m undetectable and my numbers are just ‘da bomb diggity’ [very good]. She cried with me. She’s really happy. It’s not a front. She really cares about me. She cares about us.”
34	“She’s showing me the love that I need to learn how to do for myself. She’s there to give me that advice, that motherly advice. Not only that sister-love, but that mother-love. She’s not my mother, she’s my advocate. But she’s a damn good advocate. And trust me, she’s been to more mental institutions with me, sitting there like she was the patient. That’s why I say I love [name of clinic] because that’s my team. They love me. Because they work with me until I, they love me until I could love myself.”
35	“I really love her. You know, because when she first met me even though she knows me, she never heard my story. But then as she gradually heard me and found out my story, and what I’ve been through and my lifetime, she’s like, nobody better not mess with her.”
36	“The importance of building trust and providing information, once I’ve been able to build that trust with them they were willing to work with me. Education and support is huge for our women, for them to know that they can go someplace, and say something and not have it held against them. Showing and guiding them because I think once they get, it’s like OK I got this I can do it.”
37	“The people at the clinic where I went to they gave me a worker, a lot of people came to talk, and there was other people that were here for me, supported me, ‘Don’t be afraid, it happened to me so wait here’. That’s what kept me going the whole time.”
38	“I have a whole team of supportive people that will actually call me on the phone and be like [name] you missed several doctors’ appointments what’s going on with you?”
39	“I talk about everything and I tell her [doctor] when I’m feeling like I don’t wanna take my [medications], I’m tired, my body is tired of taking these medications, and then she’ll be like, ‘did you know that there’s this lady who she’s really crying because she can’t afford medications’ and I be like ugh [makes sighing noises].”
40	“I talk to my medical provider about everything so she connects me [to other providers]. Like I had a issue where my stomach, my belly button was leaking.”
41	“It made me feel good because I know that I got support. I got more support from them than I do my own family. I can go in there right now and tell them I feel depressed. They will clear somebody’s schedule and make an appointment for me to come in and see somebody.”
42	“I would say stay put where you are, if you are at work I’m coming, and I’ll meet with you. Some days they say they cannot take it anymore. They tired of this world and my role is try to keep them from and have them not do something they will regret tomorrow.”
43	“I even go to court with them and then having me standing in court with them, usually make a big difference.”
44	“It’s the medical and the social aspects of being HIV-positive. I have actually went into homes with clients or with my peers and helped them talk to their families where they’ve been positive for ten years twenty years and family members don’t know.”
45	“They’re welcoming. They welcome everybody” and “We have a good time. We be sitting, laughing, and talking.”
46	“They talk to me and they go by first name and…. They give us graham crackers and they even have [collect] donations with some clothes and they give us cards for transportation and I think it’s very nice of them.”
47	“It’s [nonprofit] a safe haven for them. When they feel like they cannot take it out there, they come to [name of nonprofit]. Spending time with other clients, seeing a case manager, watching a movie, and we always try to have food there regardless if it’s a little and they feel comfortable with us.”
48	“When I first came here, I didn’t have housing, so [nonprofit name] offered me a case manager to take me through their enrollment and food and they gave me a room at [housing facility] and helped me through that process so that helps me grow. [It] gives me the opportunity to relate to other people in the groups. It brought out something in me, so I think it does that to other people. They follow up with you, the progress of when you first came in and how far you’ve gone.”
Wider Community as a Resilience Resource
49	“I was on the bus, and I sat back. It was like six people on the bus and the tears starting flowing, so three ladies just came around me and started praying. Lord they prayed for me all the way till [name] street. Yes, until we got to [train station]. By the time I got off there [bus] it was like everything lifted off my shoulders.”
50	“I went outside and I was crying [following racist incident] like really bad, my mom was on the phone with me. And this cab guy, he came and drove me all the way from where I was at, I was an hour away from where I lived. Free of charge, he was like get in I’m taking you home.”
A Combination of Resilience Resources
51	“I remember back last year I stopped taking my medicine. And then when I went to my group I said ‘I’m just tired of taking f****** medicine all the time. I just wanna not take it until I’m ready to take it back again.’ And they said no, you can’t stop your medicine like that for all these days and then when you get back on the meds it may come resistant and it may not work anymore. I said, so what? And then when I thought about it, I said damn, my kids. They probably think I’m taking my medication all along and I’m really not. So I said I better get back on my medicine. I went to go see my doctor and I said I’m gonna be honest I’m not taking my medicine right now. She said well how long you been off of it? I said a month. She said oh no, that’s not good. She said we’re gonna put you on something else and they put me on this new medicine and ever since then I just been taking it every day.”