I was diagnosed with HIV in 2004. By then, I was already very sick, so in a way, the diagnosis was almost inevitable. Still, I was terrified to see a doctor. I remember my friend practically dragging me to the clinic. When they confirmed what I already suspected, it felt surreal, a mix of relief that the guessing was over and the horror of understanding exactly what this would mean for the rest of my life.

The process itself was humiliating. I had to carry around an official document declaring that I was HIV positive, as though I were some hazard. The chief doctor said goodbye to me like he’d already decided I wouldn’t last long.

But I was lucky. My doctor, Dr. Dénes Bánhegyi, was brilliant and progressive. He didn’t believe in waiting around for my CD4 count to drop below 200, as the guidelines suggested. Within a week or two, he put me on treatment. At the time, that was an experimental approach. Now, it’s standard. I’m convinced that decision saved my life.

At the time, I worked as a conference and diplomatic interpreter. I speak English, German, and Hungarian. But once I started treatment, it felt impossible to pretend I could go on as before. I started translating and publishing HIV information in Hungarian. I built a website and a blog, simple things that somehow grew into a community. That work pulled me into activism. I joined ECAB, then the EATG. Eventually, I helped create the chemsex portfolio and went on to become the communications officer, as well as the co-chair of the Civil Society Forum. HIV didn’t just change my health. It redirected every part of me, my politics, my career, and the way I see other people.

My personal life was just as complex. I’ve always identified as bisexual. I was married to a woman for many years, and we have a daughter who will turn 31 this year. I have two granddaughters now. But for decades, I’ve mostly lived as a gay man, and today I’m married to my husband. When I got my diagnosis, my first thought wasn’t even about myself; it was that I couldn’t afford to die because my daughter was nine years old.

It’s strange, the things that shape you. For six years, I was caught up in chemsex nights that bled into days, using drugs to feel connected or to escape or to forget. Eventually, I crawled out of it. I’ve been sober for eight or nine years, apart from an occasional joint or edible. But that chapter still lives in me.

I don’t hide it. I can’t. I’ve relapsed twice, and I’ll never forget the emptiness of it. One of my friends died of an overdose at one of those parties. Since then, I’ve never gone back. Today, intoxication feels like something that happened to another version of me.

That’s why my therapeutic work means so much to me. I’m a trained psychotherapist now, and I specialise in helping gay men navigate chemsex and addiction. When someone sits across from me and says, I can’t stop, I don’t pretend there’s one correct answer. People use drugs for all kinds of reasons: loneliness, trauma, and curiosity. The first thing I want to understand is: What does this give you? What is it costing you? That’s where everything begins.

I don’t believe abstinence is the only way. Some people can find a balance. For me, the switch flips, and I lose control. That’s my reality. But I never impose it on anyone else.

Even now, in a healthier place, the memory of stigma lingers. In Hungary, it was suffocating. I used a pseudonym for years because I was afraid I’d lose work, terrified I’d be shunned. I saw it happen to so many people. Our organisation worked closely with the Hungarian Civil Liberties Union to fight these cases. We usually won. But the fact that we had to fight at all says everything.

In Berlin, it’s better. In the countryside, not so much. Stigma hasn’t disappeared. It’s just shifted into different forms.

People sometimes ask if HIV defines me. The answer isn’t simple. At home, it’s a non-issue. My husband and I don’t even talk about it. I go to the doctor, I pick up my prescription, and we move on. But professionally, it shapes everything. Every paper I write, every survey I design, every lecture I give is grounded in this experience. When I stand up to speak, I always say it first: I am HIV positive. I am a survivor of chemsex addiction. I am here as a patient, not just a professional.

And no, it’s not a prison. It’s a burden I won’t pretend otherwise, but it isn’t something that crushes me. It’s simply the truth of who I am. It changed how I see the world and how I love the people in it.

Earning my PhD wasn’t just academic; it was a declaration that my story belongs in spaces that often exclude me. It was a combination of resistance, healing, and self-respect. I didn’t get here by erasing my past, but by honouring it. Now, when I work with clients, teach, or speak, I carry my journey, not as shame, but as proof that survival leads to purpose, visibility is power, and painful beginnings can forge lives of meaning, connection, and pride.