UG Digital: I really appreciate you for your time. Surely, we’ve been
wanting to connect for close to a year now. You have such a great story, and it’s something people need to hear. There’s so much happening
in terms of safe sex, and the full gamete, so it’s amazing to see how
you’ve shifted it all into something positive. Thank you for taking the
time.
UG Digital: Now, I personally think your story is inspiring on multiple
levels. A diagnosis such as yours is an end for so many people. So
many get that diagnosis, and they take it to the extreme. I think of people I know who have been diagnosed with HIV, and how they went to
the extreme with not taking care of themselves. Things blew way more
out of control than how they may have been if the knowledge was
there. Talk about your story and how you ultimately were diagnosed?
Brenden Ortiz: Basically, I actually had what I considered a regular
childhood. I hung out with friends, went to school, and things of that
nature. Around 15 or 16, my mother was diagnosed with cervical cancer.
Within that year, she died. I had been trying to find my sexuality, and
really figure out if I was heterosexual, bi-sexual, or homosexual. At the
end of the day, I told my mom before she passed, and she basically
said to go with my heart and always be a boy. That was her main quote:
always be a boy. She didn’t want me to be flamboyant, but she just
wanted me to be me. Who I slept with was my choice. I lived a promiscuous lifestyle once she passed away, and during that time, I met this
dude. He and I built a relationship where I felt comfortable enough to
explore threesomes and unprotected sex. He had the virus before we
actually got into a relationship. I contracted the virus from him, and was
diagnosed in 2010. I’m speaking of HIV. I chose to express my story
because going through everything from losing my mother to cervical
cancer to my father committing suicide when i was 19, I was left alone.
I had my grandparents, but my immediate family was gone. My brother
and sister had passed away as well. My brother died in a motorcycle
accident, and my sister passed in a car accident when I was 14. My immediate family was gone, and I was lost.
UG Digital: That’s a lot to lose your entire family within 5 years.
Brenden Ortiz: Exactly. It continued from there when I lost my grandparents. As of now, I only have my maternal grandmother, and I have
some of my father’s side of the family. After being diagnosed, I went to
an HIV specialist, who referred me to a therapist. Through therapy, she
was telling me to write down how I felt. My high school teacher would
tell me the same thing. I wrote a lot, and that’s how my book, “The Pretty Boy with the House in Virginia: The Resurrection” came about.
UG Digital: You speak about the fact that you were promiscuous, and
I think a lot of people would relate that to you losing so much at one
time, but what do you think led you to that point of promiscuity, and
what ultimately pulled you away?
Brenden Ortiz: It was yearning for love that I was losing. The love I
wanted from my parents; I confused it with lust. Being lustful, and out in
the streets, and ultimately coming to the realization after being diagnosed with a sex addiction, the lifestyle somewhat subsided the feeling
of love that I was looking for. Now, in my lifestyle, I’ve been married,
which didn’t last because of my partner’s infidelities. I now know how
to love correctly, and I know what love is. At this point in life, that’s what
I’m looking for. If it happens, it happens. Love is love. At 26, I feel like I
would like
“ I TRY NOT TO BE CLOSED MINDED. YOU HAVE TO BE OPEN MINDED
WITH STUDENTS...
Brenden Ortiz: No problem…