How a Harm Reduction Advocate Turned Shame Into Power
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How did Sequan first discover her HIV diagnosis and keep it hidden?
Living with HIV was something I didn't want to talk about. I kept it a secret for five years from my family. I didn't even tell my family. And I was suffering in silence. But once I got into recovery and I wrapped my brain around it, I used that as my new platform to advocate. People with lived experience are very valuable.
Sequin Calabas is an award-winning harm reduction advocate and executive director of HOPE on TTAPP, where she leads HIV and hepatitis C outreach while working to break stigma and improve health care access.
Whatever you need to improve your quality of life, we're there for. Specifically with hepatitis C and HIV. Because 65% of new infections in Utah of hepatitis C are injection drug users. But being a religiously run state and being very conservative, nobody in the state does drugs. And nobody has sex until they're married. We don't talk about it, it's not happening. Newsflash!
Newsflash, yes, it is happening. Can we talk about it so we can address the issue? Exactly.
It spans the globe like a super high school internet.
Today, Apple is going to reinvent the phone. It's not over until I win. The Living Your Legacy podcast. For those who live to leave a legacy.
That's extraordinary. The impossible.
Oh, that is sensational.
Welcome back everybody to another episode of the Living Your Legacy podcast.
I am your host for today, Jason Tyler. And today I am joined by Saquon. Welcome to the show. How are you feeling?
I'm feeling excited.
Excited.
And blessed. Very blessed and grateful to be here.
God is good all the time. Now, you just finished recording your episode. How do you feel now on the other side of it? relieved i i feel i feel like that's uh that's some feedback we get pretty often is once you get it off your chest now you're like yep um but very excited very excited got you so what would you say is like the number one thing you want people to be able to take away from your story the number one lesson that they can learn
Number one lesson would be, oh boy, I just have to pick one.
I mean, if there's multiple, if there's multiple, give them all to me.
A big one would be to not keep your story to yourself. That's our whole ethos is make sure, make sure you share the traumas, the, the night spent crying. if you share those with other people, you will find the people who need to hear it. The people who felt alone. Oh my God, I'm the only one going through this. Well, now I'm not the only one. And it sparks a light inside of them. And there's so much power in that with connection and not feeling alone.
And it gives permission too, right? It gives permission for other people to share. So you create, you create a ripple effect.
Exactly. That's actually something that I spoke about was the ripple effect.
I love that. I love that. So tell me a little bit about, you know, we want to just give the opportunity for the audience to get to know Saquon. So bring me up to speed. What bring, what may, what, how do, how does Saquon get in this chair? How do we get here?
Well, it all started as a fetus.
We don't need to go that far back.
Just growing up in addiction. I've lived the life, man. Been to prison, lifelong addiction. You know, I was involved in sex work for a little while. Huge criminal background. And 14 years ago in that lifestyle and the decisions that I was making led me to a relationship where I contracted HIV. And that obviously was a great reason to stay addicted, um, to cover up the shame and the guilt and the embarrassment and the self stigma, you know?
And to just kind of like create an escape path.
Exactly. Yeah. Numb it out, keep it hidden. And then when I finally got into recovery seven years ago today, actually,
Seven years. Congratulations.
Thank you. Wow.
Seven years, seven years today. Yeah.
Today.
On April Fool's Day of all days.
It was actually my mom's birthday. Oh, wow. Yeah. I checked myself into treatment. It was like the, I think eighth or ninth treatment that I've done over my life. But this time was different because it wasn't court ordered. I didn't have a probation or a parole officer making me, you know, it wasn't big for the court.
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