HOC – Nguyễn Thị Vĩnh 5

I ended up contracting HIV after sharing syringes with friends. The goods that my mother sold at the local market were boycotted by everyone, “Don’t buy from her, her daughter is a junkie, she has ‘sida’” (“sida”: a derogatory word often used as a blanket term for people who use and inject drugs, people living with HIV and AIDS alike). I wanted to change, but heroin would never leave me alone…