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In the AIDS field for fourteen years, Ric Parish stresses the importance of caring for others but also caring for yourself.
From the Trenches by Noël Alumit
When I tested positive in 1986, my doctor at the time told me that I had two years to live,” said Ric Parish, a fourteen-year veteran in the AIDS fight. “That was the basic belief back then, which was justified. My friends were dropping all around me and there was an overall sense of hopelessness and despair throughout the gay and lesbian community. When I tested positive, I was twenty-six-years-old. I gave up on all of my hopes and dreams and decided to go out in a blaze of booze and crystal meth. When that stopped working I had to find another way. I had to be restored to sanity.”
Ric discovered the Positive Living For Us (PLUS) Weekend Seminar, a self-empowerment workshop for those newly positive. He said, “It really changed my life and I decided to get involved in HIV to give back in some way.” He’d given back by doing volunteer work with AIDS Project Los Angeles, formulating protocols for treatment advocacy services in Los Angeles County, serving as Vice President of Being Alive People with HIV/AIDS Action Coalition, being a member of the California AIDS Fraud Task Force, and consulting for the Rand Corporation.
He cofounded The Life Group L.A., along with executive director Sunnie Rose Berger. Ric serves as the associate director. The Life Group L.A. is a coalition of people dedicated to providing education, empowerment, and support to persons both infected and affected by HIV/AIDS, that they may make informed choices regarding their healthcare and general well-being.
During his time doing AIDS work, he’d certainly had his ups and downs. The business of AIDS can be an ugly one. “I started to get disillusioned when I was faced with the bureaucracy of the HIV services industry. There is this huge machine that has been created and sometimes I’m not sure if it is truly out to serve people living with HIV or to serve itself. For example, when I was at another AIDS service organization, we produced a testing and outreach campaign that we posted all over the city targeting specific venues. Well, one of the posters went up in a tattoo parlor on Melrose Avenue and a government official happened to see it. Do you know she took it down because tattoo parlors were not on the list of ‘approved’ venues in the contract? That is the kind of thing that can really demoralize you if you let it.”
Ric has some very strong advice for those of us working in the AIDS industry. “Find your safe space, find your passion and nurture it. Self-care is critical. In twelve step programs they say ‘you cannot transmit something you haven’t got.’ How can we ask our clients to take care of themselves if we don’t model the behavior?”
For those directors and CEOs of ASOs, he suggests treating employees and volunteers well. “Appreciate the long hours they work and the emotionally charged environment in which they have to navigate. There are some wonderful people working in this field. We have to take care of them.”
Ric does many things personally to make sure he’s not burning out. A big part of it is spiritual maintenance. “I think in order to survive in this or any high performing field, for that matter, we have to take a three pronged approach: mind, body, and spirit. Most people get the mind/body thing but as soon as you say ‘spirit,’ they think ‘religion’ and get put off. That’s not what I’m talking about. I have had to find a power greater than myself to carry me through the disappointments, the losses and also the triumphs. This higher power of mine has no race or gender. It is basically the unconditional love that surrounds our planet, that manifests in one person being kind to another. That really is my strength. It is how I keep going. Faith, love, and service.”
It can be hard working in a stressful environment like AIDS. It is particularly hard if you yourself have a compromised immune system. Ric said, “I am also a strong believer that all life has intelligence. I communicate with my HIV cells. I explain to them that if I die then they die, so don’t take more than you need. We have a symbiotic relationship now. Am I crazy for thinking this way? Maybe, but twenty years and I’m still here.”
Some final words on working in AIDS: “If you are living with HIV, then live your life to the fullest extent of your capability. If you work in HIV, know that the work you are doing is at the core of what it means to be human. That is why we call it Human Services.”
Noël Alumit wrote the novel Letters to Montgomery Clift; Talking to the Moon, his second novel, will be out in February 2007. He has been published in USA Today, The Advocate, OutTraveler, and others. He works for the Asian Pacific AIDS Intervention Team (APAIT) and maintains a literary blog: www.thelastnoel.blogspot.com.
November 2006
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