Chartrivia- Living with HIV

In this powerful and inspiring episode of Wake Call Show, we sit down with Chartrivia for an honest conversation about living with HIV. Chartrivia shares her personal journey—from diagnosis to finding strength, purpose, and resilience—while breaking down the stigma that still surrounds HIV today.

Through courage and transparency, she discusses the realities of managing her health, building a support system, and reclaiming her voice. This episode highlights the importance of awareness, compassion, and education, reminding listeners that a diagnosis does not define a person’s worth or future.

Tune in for a heartfelt discussion that aims to uplift, inform, and empower anyone navigating similar challenges or seeking to better understand life with HIV.

Transcript

0:07

It's time for your wake-up call. Hello and welcome to the wake up call show. I'm Pastor Annie Salvin. Our scripture for this evening is for comes from Psalms 103, verses 2 through 4. It says, Praise the Lord, my soul, and forget not all his benefits. Who forgives all your sins and heal all your diseases? A crowd with love and perfection. Amen. Amen. I love that. Um tonight we have a special guest. We're going to talk about HIV slash AIDS awareness tonight. And I just want to give you a running definition before we get started. HIV stands for human immunodeficiency virus, which is the virus that causes HIV infection. The acronym HIV can refer to the virus or HIV infection. AIDS stands for acquired immunodeficiency syndrome. So our special guest is Shrivia Nugent. Welcome to the show. Hello, everybody. Thanks for having me. Hello, how are you? I'm doing all right. How are y'all doing this? We are doing wonderful, wonderful. Thank you. And we're excited about having you on. And thanks again for answering the call. A little bit about Shachrivia Nuchin. She's a dynamic advocate and author from Chicago, Illinois. Shut down. She has a powerful voice in HIV awareness and advocacy. Sha Trivia has made significant strides in using her platform to educate and to inspire since 2019. She's a self-published, self-published author of over 45 books across various genres, including Urban Street, Lit, Children's Literature, Poetry, Christian Fiction, and Memoirs. Her work transcends mere storytelling. It empowers, amplifies the voice of the marginalized communities, including those who are incarcerated, reintegrating into society. In her multifacet role, she's the mother, first lady of Loving You for Life Ministry, CEO of Unique Presents, LLC Publishing Company, and the founder of Unique Purpose Inc., a nonprofit organization dedicated to meaningful change in HIV community. She's also certified as an HIV advocate, skilled in HIV testing and counseling, and serves as a teacher in the women's ministry in her church, Loving You for Life Ministry. Awesome. And to add to this long list of accomplishments, Shatrivia works as a certified life and writing coach. Her commitment extends to hosting annual HIV awareness events and leveraging her social media presence to uplift and inspire. Sha Trivia is a renowned advocate and author whose impactful story has been highlighted in the Chicago Tribune. She has garnered recognition in the prestigious Howard University Stigma Contest and Art of Me magazine. Her collaboration book, Dating with HIV, achieved number one best seller status on Amazon. So y'all look that up. In the HIV AIDS category, Shitia was a nominee for the class of 2025 Leading Women's Society 2020 Award from the Sister Love Inc. in Atlanta, Georgia. Welcome everyone and put your listening ears on for this dynamic young lady. Amen. Just a summary of the global HIV epidemic from 2023. A total 39.9 million have been living with HIV. Adults 15 and older, 38.6 million. Women 15 years old and older, 20.5 million, men 15 years old and older, 18.1 million. Children 15 years old, 1.4 million has been affected by this um HIV virus and epidemic. So Katrivi, welcome, welcome. Thank you, thank you again for answering the call. We're ready now to deep dive deep within your experience and your diagnose. And um let's go into that part of the show. Would you be open to share to sharing how and when you learn of your diagnose? Sure. First of all, I'm gonna say thank you again for thinking of me. Thank y'all. Another thing before I before I dab right in, I always get uncomfortable when people read my bio. It's like making me so uncomfortable. And I think the reason why it makes me uncomfortable because I really didn't know nothing about a bio when I became an author. I knew nothing about this. Um and as you progress, people keep adding stuff. I'm like, no, I'm just a girl from Chicago. Just a girl from Chicago trying to figure it out and trying to do what God called me to do. That's really who I am. That's not sound amazing. It sounds cute. I like it. Let's do it. But second from that, I'm just a regular young woman trying to please God and do what God wants me to do. Um, but ask a question. Um, 21 years ago, was diagnosed with HIV. Eight and a half months pregnant, and I had met an amazing guy. We had been dating for I think it was like two, two and a half, three years. He was diagnosed first with AIDS, and then they told me I should get tested for HIV. Um they told me that. When they told me I was HIV first, I'm glad when I really got tested to go back in two weeks. So when I went back, he went with me. And when he called me to the back, you know, to give me my results. I when I went to walk in the back, it was like five people with my midwife. So I already knew I had it. Like I already knew I'm Happy Positive. My midwife, she touched my shoulder, she said, Shrimp, I'm so sorry. You make time positive. I said, I can't have a more kids. And everybody in the room that was was there with her was like I said, I don't want a lot of kids. So they explained to me that you still have kids as long as I take care of myself and my baby. Um, no. What they said was you you would need to take me is because you're pregnant. Okay. Um, your barrel, your cd4 is good, so you take this medication, it will prevent your your baby from happening. Now I just told them I was HIV,000. Y'all tell me about some CD4 and barrel, I have no talking about. I thought I was talking that I still actually did not know what they were talking about that day. And I didn't I didn't understand her saying, you don't need medication, but because you're pregnant, you need to take medication. And when I left them, went and did my own research so that I could understand it because I couldn't understand that was too much at one time. What she really was saying was so regular people, I call not regular, right? Sorry. Regular people, brown low is between, I mean, um, C4 is from 500 to 1500. Maz was already at 700, right? Now the person that I that I was with at the time, his brown level was four. So under under 200, you consider it's having eight. Okay. So above 200, you're okay. So like 700. So they might we know it's it's it's not my it's not my HIV. So you don't have to take medication right now. But since you're pregnant, this medication can prevent the baby from contracting. You already take a untakable meaning. I can't transmit HIV to someone, and I can't give it to my baby. So they're gonna give me this medication, so the medication could help as well. But I got known, I went known for about years. Um he was still sick, pregnant. He didn't want nobody to know, he didn't want to tell nobody. So I carried that with me for years. I tell nobody, but my daughter, um, when I when I uh gave birth to her, they gave what's called AZT to happy. They took the test when she was uh she was born and that negative. Three months later they took another test, negative six months they took another test. I had to give her ACT every 12th hour. Okay. She'll be 21 uh in a few days. Oh wow. So I think kids afterwards as well. All right. Wow. So so you did mention uh your emotions as well during that time, just contemplating uh um the diagnosis that you're trying to experiencing that because of your union. And you were also mentioning how God hid you from it beforehand, perhaps because you weren't strong enough. God is so amazing, just like that. He gave you a provider and a protector, and now that man covers you. Yes, and he's standing there covering you and shielding you from the blunt of the stigma that's coming from the world. So God knew beforehand who you would be and what you would endure, and he handcrafted a partner for you for such a time as this to carry your ministry through. Oh, I thank God, I thank him, I thank him. All things work together for the good of them that love God and that are called, and I love what you said. You can't just renegue on the call because you're tired. You know, we get grace through this race from God when we're overwhelmed, when we are carrying so much. We get grace, you know. He carries us during those times, and God is carrying you. Not only is he carrying you, he's carrying you to a new season of your ministry, and eyes have not seen, yes, ears have not heard, neither has it entered into the heart of man what God is gonna do with you and for you and through your union in this next season. So if you just get ready, honey. Yeah, he wanted to, he wanted to cut your legs out from under you because he knew and he knows what God is about to do through you and through this amazing voice you have and and and your um transparency, you know, everybody don't come up to that standard, everyone is not ready to come up to that level, but you obey that call, and God is gonna do great and mighty things through you. Amen. Amen. Um, okay. Well, what about um health care and treatment? How has your experience been with accessible or accessing uh health care uh and or treatment? Um, I haven't experienced anything. Um, I've always been able to make it um good. Once again, God has protected this from so much. I hear stories about people not being able to get their medications, not being able to um get the get the um resources and stuff that they need. I've heard amazing stories, but that's just not my story. Once again, God has protected me from it. Yes, with Him protecting me from it in this season of my life, I have been learning about resources. Okay, and now I'm able to teach people to get the resources what to do. I've not experienced it, but I can help the people that have. Okay. Like when I sometimes I share my story when I be on platforms with other people, I be like, dang, do I belong here? Because I haven't experienced all of stuff that everybody else has experienced, but I just thank God that I have not. But even though I have not, he's still teaching me, he's still showing me, connecting me to different people that so now I can help. I'll call this my oh we're gonna call them here, or we're gonna talk to this person. So that's that's how I deal with that. I have to deal with it, but I help those that don't deal with it. That's good. That is great. Very good. Wonderful, wonderful. What message would you share with someone newly diagnosed? What message would you share with them? Um share that I always share. It's been 21 years for me, so I try to help uh prevent people from going down uh the the road I went down, the sad and the depressed and and the anxiety, because I believe that say that's what Satan wants to be. You know, so the first thing I always tell people to do is accept your new normal, right? Your new normal who you want before your diagnosis, you're not that person anymore. Amen. You can fight to be that person, you can be a silence to be that person, you can do whatever you want to do to try to be her but him, but it's not a part of who you are no more. When they told you you was HIV positive, you have become a new person. You think different, you're gonna live different, you're gonna see everybody different. That's different. It's different in your eyes right now. So you have to accept your new normal. And it's hard for people to accept their new normal as a person living with HIV. And then the second thing would be to forgive yourself. The reason why I always say forgive yourself because this is a lot of people that live on HIV, they don't want to do this. We look at the person that gave it to us and blame them. You knew you had it, and you do this, you did this, and you don't practice, I'm gonna kill you, and this is so many different things people say. But if you really think about it, you are in control of your own life. And if you laid down and slept with somebody without a comment, that was your choice. Come on. What they knew and what they did and who had with you, that ain't your business. Your business is you supposed to protect yourself. I don't care if you love him and he, your husband, see your wife, whatever. You are in control of your own life. When we lay out with somebody, that's right, take responsibility. One of the most precious things in our life. That's my life. That's good. So you need to forgive yourself for doing that. Now you need to learn how to love yourself. Right. You gotta learn how to love you. Because now you are different. Now you gotta fall in love with you again. You gotta learn what you like, what you don't like, what you can tolerate, who you can tolerate, what you can't tolerate. And then when you learn to love you, you automatically don't learn who God is because God is up. And when you learn who God is, now he's not only going to to to love on you, he's gonna show you how to love yourself. Wow. And when you learn from yourself, you ain't never gonna let nobody hurt you. None of that, because now you love yourself in the right. You love yourself and God loves you. God loves you, and God's showing you, and everything, everything completely new. That's good. And what what people usually do is me, I pay the tool. We try to stay in the normal that we know. And uh and I know I say it's normal stuff, but I can't help it. Like my friends say this years ago when I wasn't like, used to be so mad at me. I just want to be normal. I just want to be normal. I used to see it all the time until I figured out that I am not normal. It's it's I'm just not. I'm not normal, right? And people want to be like me. So if you're gonna keep if you're gonna keep um laying down sleeping with people and y'all are not going to get tested, you don't know your status, they don't know their status, you just round in the room, you gotta go. You might be over here with me, and we we but we we got this unnormal thing going on, right? But think about it. When you become a child of God, you're not telling you no more. Okay. I'm used to not being normal. Come on now. I'm not like the other folk out here. That's me. That's all right. We supposed to be different. Think about it when you when when you learn who God is, you start to change. Absolutely. You don't think the same no more? You won't be around the same thing. Now you're being transformed. Hey, absolutely. Oh, you sort of come on, yes, amen. Girl, you preaching. Yes, yes, yes. That is absolutely right. Wow. Um, is there anything in our wrap-up that um we did not cover that you would like to share at this point? Um, yeah, hold on one second. Okay, good. One thing that I want to um share. So more more women, more black women is HIV positive than any other races. I see that. I saw that. More black women. Um for me, even a woman that's been on HIV, and I had so many friends, aunties, heard so many women talk about he cheated on me. Oh, he did this. It could be a husband boyfriend, maybe they do love me more to college. Oh, he did this, oh, he did that, but you still like well. This is us as women. We still accept um being in our life, in our home, in our bed, and they treat us so bad for whatever reason. Yeah, um, we've been doing this for years. This has been going on since before I've been here. This happened, right? So it's all these women that's HIV being positive, we know that the men got it too. It's just that they're giving it to us and we're gonna go get test because we got kids and we kind of take that by ourselves a little bit more, better. Right, right. So, how do we get women who understand that they should take better care of themselves? Right, right. So I was thinking, so you put HIV on anything, people ain't gonna show up. So I was thinking about moving forward, I'm starting to have events that highlights, you know, you gotta use different words like uh self-care day, conversation. Use all these different words and everybody's saying, but when you get there, you teach them some things. I truly believe what's missing and why women, um why women is the highest numbers because we don't love it. We don't know what that looked like because we have not seen it. Oh wow. Or taking your kids to church, or taking your your husband and boyfriend, whatever, and taking them to church sometimes and clap and go home and do something. I ain't talking about that. I'm talking about real. True relationship with God. If we can give women understand who God is, my God is. Wow. We can make some changes in the world. I'm just thinking of women, but this applies to men too. It's just that more women is more in church than it is with men. You know, absolutely. If we get people in general, if we can get people, if we can get more people to fall in love with the idea of serving God, understand who God is and certain God, we can make some changes. Absolutely. And you know, you talk about the high rate of women with HIV and um and African American women being the highest. I often reflect on how we are so prone to take care of the outward man. We get our nails done, we get our hair done, we go get massages, we get the nicest clothing, but we don't take care of ourselves health-wise. So go out and get tested. Do annual testings or however often your health care provider uh states that you should. You know, so just like we get our mammogram and our uh and men get their uh prostate exams and things like that, um, we should look into being tested as often as we should to make sure to be proactive, not reactive after the fact, but proactive to make sure, you know, we go we go get our annual physicals, we make sure the blood pressure is right, the cholesterol is right, get the mammogram and all these other things. But are we asking for for testing on um on these type of issues and on uh different transmitted diseases? You know, if you don't ask for these things, they will not give them to you. You have to actually ask. And it's a lot of testing centers you can actually go to for free to have it done. So that's a great point. Uh it has indeed been a great pleasure. This will not be the last time we're gonna have you back. We're gonna have you back, and your husband, and you are doing a phenomenal job, and we applaud you. So if there is anything that we can do to assist you in your work, please reach out to us, okay? And I can tell you right now, okay. Right here on screen. Come on, come on. Pray for me. Pray for me. I became a first lady, and that's something totally different than I've been doing these last six years, except in another calling. Absolutely. And this is a problem. Um, I just I just need prayer because about this, and so I don't know nothing about this. All right, well, you you've got us in your corner. We can do that right now. Hey, and if you ever need us for anything, in addition, you know, any type of mentoring, anything, you reach out to us. And like my husband stated, we're gonna go ahead and pray and close out. Yes, father, we thank you. Father, we just thank you so much for this angel. And yes, and God, we thank you for this path that you have her on that she's taken. Yes, Lord. Pray for a husband, the congregation. Yes, Lord. And God, we pray for the children. Yes, and Father, we just thank you, God. You know, we we just we just come to you tonight. We we we asking for for guidance, we asking for strength. God, you you you know the end from the beginning, and God, you just just be a light unto our path. And and God, just lead and guide us. And and God, as my wife and I touch and agree on tonight. Um, we thank you, God, for those who are who are maybe listening and maybe watching this this broadcast later, and who's who's living with uh HIV and AIs, that they will reach out. And God, we just thank you for your help. We thank you for your presence. We thank you for First Lady, and God, we just thank you for what you're going to do in her and through her. It is in Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. See, we like to be proactive. So you say prayer, here it is, and we will continue to pray for you and your family and the entire congregation. You have new family now, God has connected us together. Hey, that's right. Hey, we're together. You can believe that. We are stuck in. Hey, we are. So um, we just want to say thank you so much again for as my wife said, for answering the call, and and and for and and your new walk and your new uh uh your walk and your new uh new ministry. Yes, absolutely, absolutely. Because marriage is a ministry by itself, first lady is another ministry. Amen. Amen. So God bless you. We love you much, and we will continue to stay connected. Absolutely. Thank you all for watching on tonight. You too. Thank you all for watching tonight. Continue to like and share these messages. We are God's chosen people, and we want to make sure that every voice be heard and every ministry be undergoured. And that's why we're here. May the Lord continue to keep you and bless you. And remember, this has been your wake-up call. Waking up God's purpose in you. Amen. God bless. Good night.