"E minha vida se tornou um retrato em preto-e-branco": O ser-em e a vivência da afetividade permeada pelo diagnóstico de HIV

Abstract

The need for contact with another permeates the social or personal context, reaching an ontic-ontological primordiality; constitutes itself by the search of a body that seeks the other as a body - bodies animated by an ec-sistent consciousness; a desire established by a blind link, beyond mere sexualization. In this aspect, a specific niche has limitations in the instance of connection with others, the individuals living with HIV. Due to technical and medical advances, HIV was adapted to a chronic clinical condition; enabling the possibility of living within the post-diagnosis. The facticity of diagnosis indicates limitations, which are fueled by hygienist policies and by the disinformation of the others. Preventive methods are presented as superficially focused on the dimension of HIV experience, not entering into the existential condition of a disease that directly affects freedom of action within others, the constitutive characteristic of being-there (dasein). The stigma of being in this condition goes beyond the biological or social; it’s being launched as being-in a deliberately hostile environment; a being-in corroborated by the other, by public policy and – occasionally – by the person itself. Therefore, this research aims to comprehend the experience with HIV within their relational contexts, utilizing Martin Heidegger’s and Merleau-Ponty’s theoretical perspectives. To achieve the results, with the participant, it was proposed a self-portrait followed by and semi-structured interview, which was analyzed using Giorgi’s Psychological-phenomenological method. In the end, 7 interviews were made, obtaining 4 categories: 1. And Alice sees herself through the mirror; 2. Entering the rabbit’s hole: the communication of the diagnosis; 3. And the feast is served, welcome, Alice: the experience of affection; 4. Through the mirror: the being-in with the living-with with HIV. Facing the analytical process, it was unveiled that despite the presence of the stigma as a facticity; this isn’t enough to throw this person into a perpetual state of inauthenticity; with those not diminishing themselves towards the thrownness assimilated with the diagnosis, but also as a project arranged by its capability to be perceived as a being with possibilities.