Why I DON'T CARE HOW YOU THINK YOU GOT HCV.

[Tpropane]

Who the heck knows? really? No, you don't. Your girlfriend and you pierced your ears in in 1975 and didn't sterilize the needle. You got a tattoo in Thailand during R&R in the Vietnam war. You had dental work done when your tooth was knocked out on a beach in Greece. You got bit by a rattlesnake that also bit your crack head friend in back woods Florida. You snorted coke (once) from a bill with 20 other people in a a bathroom at Studio 54, you got a blood transfusion as a result of a surgery or an accident. You think your air gun cholera vaccine gave you HCV as a GI. You had sex with a man that unbeknownst to you was a total slut and screwed anyone and everything that moved. You brushed your teeth with Grandpa's toothbrush on accident, you became part of the YA YA sisterhood of Louisiana blood sisters and Teensie was secretly a junkie WHAT DOES IT MATTER? NOT ONE BIT. IT'S BLOOD BORN. PERIOD, ANY NUMBER OF THINGS CAN CAUSE HCV.
Please... I beg you stop justifying how you got HCV. No one cares. No one is judging you certainly shouldn't be judging yourself.
There is no possible way to determine exactly how you got HCV> None whatsoever. So just stop. It doesn't matter.
Now what? should be more important than making up justifications to make yourself feel better and others worse. It makes no difference whatsoever to the outcome of this particular tale. I DON'T CARE HOW YOU GOT HCV.
Just Sayin'
Still in a bad mood. My back hurts.
TPROPANE

[Red Hen]

Great rant! I just caught up with this subject on another post. People can be so insensitive. Many years ago I had a miscarriage at 4 months. It was traumatic enough but I'll never forget one "friend" saying, "Well, you must have been ambivalent about having a baby and that was why it happened." Wow! When people make remarks like that it says a lot about them, nothing about me.

[joe49]

Tpropane -- Great post!  Who gives a rat's ass how anyone — including myself  — contacted HCV.  The people that are concerned including anyone who feels compelled to share this info need to just focus on their own treatment and use this forum for mutual support not sharing past events over which no one has control.

[Tpropane]

  Thanks peeps. I really am bothered by I got HCV it in 77 from a xyz. Today, now, the present is what I try (it's hard and takes practice) to stay in. Especially growing up in a family of blame placers. Nothing was an accident. Not spilled milk or a ill timed flu. It was always about finding out whose fault it was. Get over it! Or more to the point. I'm over it.
Tpropane

[motor]

Amen to all the above! and entertaining,too.
    I really appreciate people taking the time to create their signature.  I think it adds to gravitas of their post for me.  But noting how they got infected is irrelevant info. Save it for a thread on the subject.

[KimInTheForest]

I agree Tpropane. Well said!

Also worth noting is that everyone who goes out of their way to disclose how they think/believe/guess they got HCV, is citing some source other than IV drug use. I have yet to see a single person with a sig file saying: "Infected 1980 from IV drug use". So really, the disclosers are unfortunately just reinforcing the widespread stigma and judgment associated with this illness by going out of their way to assert that they didn't get it "that" way. It's unfortunate, for sure. But we are all at different stages in our thinking and our awareness and our understanding of this illness and the broader cultural context in which this illness exists.

Source of infection is irrelevant (unless you're part of a lawsuit or a student of epidemiology). All that is relevant for any of us is that we have it and want to get rid of it. Everyone deserves to be cured.

Wellness to all,
Kim

[joe49]

KimInTheForest -- Could not say it any better. 

Joe