Bridgette Picou, a licensed vocational nurse (LVN), shares her journey with HIV — from diagnosis and treatment to caring and supporting others with the condition.
Editor’s note: This story has been edited for brevity, length, and clarity.
A certified AIDS Care Nurse in Palm Springs, California, Bridgette works as the stakeholder liaison for The Well Project, a nonprofit organization that provides information and support to women living with HIV.
Bridgette was 40 years old when she learned she had HIV. She had gone in for a routine women’s health checkup and was surprised by the diagnosis.
“I went in to have a Pap smear done, and the clinician asked if I needed STI testing,” she told Healthline. “I told her, ‘Not really, but we can go ahead and do it while I’m here,’ and lo and behold, I got an HIV diagnosis.”
Bridgette knew enough about HIV to know that treatment was available.
Today’s antiretroviral therapies can reduce HIV to undetectable levels in the blood, which helps prevent complications and stops the virus from passing from one person to another. Some people need to take only a single pill per day or a long-acting injection every month or every other month to treat HIV, while others may be prescribed multiple pills a day.
Even with advancements in treatment, adjusting to life with HIV can be challenging.
“There was still a process of letting go of old stigmas, like the idea that I’m going to get sick and I’m going to die. My brain knew better, but my spirit needed the lesson,” Bridgette said.
“I had to figure out how to navigate what felt like a new life while re-evaluating who I was and who I thought I was.”
One of the first challenges that Bridgette faced was finding treatment and support that fit her needs as a Black woman with HIV. She didn’t feel supported by the first doctor she saw for treatment and switched to another clinic.
“Even after I started going to a clinic where I felt like I was getting the care I needed, it was still a predominantly white gay space,” she said. “There was nobody that looks like me, that walks like me, that talks like me, that has my experiences. You know that saying, you can be lonely in a room full of people? That’s what it felt like.”
Bridgette knew there were other Black women living with HIV, but she had to go online to find them through social media and The Well Project. Finding women with similar life experiences was important for creating a sense of trust and mutual understanding.
“Because of all of the structural, institutional racial systems that Black women face, there’s a core that we recognize in each other,” she explained. “When you use that as a foundation to build on, it opens up trust, and it opens up the kinds of tough conversations that you can’t have with other people.”
Bridgette also found a growing sense of connection with other people who were getting care at her HIV clinic. She found that despite their different life histories, they could relate over the shared challenges and frustrations of adapting to life with HIV.
“My built community is not just Black women. It’s also gay Black men, gay white men, the clinicians that take care of me, the people that I’m able to educate,” she said. “That community has expanded my world tremendously and expanded my ability to cope and feel seen.”
“The onus is always on the person living with HIV to explain and educate, and it’s exhausting. Folks who are not living with HIV could take some of the responsibility off of us.”
Bridgette is an Air Force veteran who later worked for years in customer service.
After learning she had HIV, she went back to school to become a licensed vocational nurse. She originally hoped to work in hospice care but soon found herself employed at the same HIV clinic where she was getting treatment.
“When the opportunity came up to work at the clinic, I took it thinking, ‘OK, I’ll do 6 months and get this experience,’” she recalled, “and that’s an example of how God, fate, or the universe works — because that’s where I got planted, that’s where I grew, and that’s where I continue to grow from.”
Bridgette worked at the HIV clinic for almost 8 years and is now employed as the stakeholder liaison for The Well Project. She described her role there as “standing in the gap between clinicians and people living with HIV,” particularly women with HIV.
“I understand a little bit about both sides, and I try to make sure that they understand each other. That’s the piece of my job that I love the most.”
Gaining knowledge about HIV has helped Bridgette live well with this condition, and sharing knowledge with others has been a meaningful part of her journey, too.
She said that people without HIV also have a responsibility to educate themselves about the condition and help fight the stigma that surrounds it.
“The onus is always on the person living with HIV to explain and educate, and it’s exhausting,” she said. “Folks who are not living with HIV could take some of the responsibility off of us.”
Bridgette recently passed her twelfth “seroversary,” or the anniversary of the day on which she received her HIV diagnosis. It’s the first year that the day has passed her by unnoticed.
“I was so busy living that I didn’t realize it had happened until 2 days later,” she said.
Bridgette said that she still finds the challenges of managing HIV feel “exhausting” some days.
“A lot of times, HIV is not the first time that I think of when I wake up in the morning,” she explained. “I have bills to pay, I have a job, I have a son, I have a grandson. I have all the things that everyone has.”
“I just have HIV on top of it, which is another little layer,” she continued. “Sometimes that layer is pancake thin, and sometimes it’s a king-size mattress.”
Finding an outlet to vent negative feelings about HIV is important, she said. She’s a “fan of therapy,” but she also believes that talking with a trusted friend, journaling, or doing other things to release pent-up emotions can help people move forward when they’re feeling stuck.
She also emphasized the value of making time for things that have nothing to do with HIV. For example, she paints, makes jewelry, roller skates, and continues to find joy in the hobbies that she loves.
“Sometimes you forget there are spaces where you were happy before you got the diagnosis, but if you can find your way back to those spaces, it makes the rest of it so much easier to deal with,” she said.
“People tell you you’re not going to die, they tell you to take your pills, but they don’t tell you how to live with HIV,” she added. “And I’ve realized that you just do. I’ve gone from being terrified and feeling othered to knowing that I just need to put one foot in front of the other. Stop worrying about what the steps are — and just live.”
Bridgette Picou, LVN, ACLPN, is a licensed vocational nurse and certified AIDS Care Nurse in Palm Springs, California. She works for The Well Project as the stakeholder liaison, representing the interests of women living with and affected by HIV in medical, research, policy, and advocacy spaces. Bridgette is a director at large for the Association of Nurses in AIDS Care and a sitting member of the board of directors for HIV & Aging Research Project-Palm Springs. Sitting at the intersections of being Black, a woman, and living with HIV, her goal is to remind people that there are lives being lived behind a three-or four-letter acronym.