Illness and other assaults on self: the relative impact of HIV/AIDS on women's lives

Based on interviews with 37 women with HIV infection, this paper explores women's perceptions of HIV/AIDS in relation to other traumatic life events. Employing a biographical disruption framework, this paper demonstrates how women reconstruct the meaning of HIV infection in light of other disruptive life situations. Findings indicate that despite initial disruption, in retrospect, many of the sample women did not consider HIV to be the most devastating event in their lives. Rather, violence, mother-child separation, and drug use were deemed more disruptive than HIV infection. Several factors, including race, drug use and abuse histories, social support and diagnosis, were central to women's differential assessment of HIV in relation to other disruptive events. Results are discussed in terms of the practical and theoretical implications of the analysis.