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The story you tell yourself shapes your resilience.

You are more than your worst experience.

Re-storying means reclaiming your role as the hero of your life.

Resilience is often revealed, not created.

Twenty years ago, I publicly disclosed that I was living with HIV in a first-person essay for The Washington Post. The story had an unusual twist. By then, I had spent two decades reporting on the HIV/AIDS epidemic—as an HIV-negative gay journalist. Suddenly, I was no longer just covering the story. I was living it.

For years I had interviewed people whose lives had been transformed by HIV. I witnessed extraordinary suffering, but also extraordinary love as friends, families, and entire communities stepped forward to care for people with AIDS when too many others turned away.

Now I had to decide what story I would tell about myself.

Would my diagnosis become a story about loss? About shame? About fear? Or could it become something else?

Writing that piece marked the first time in my career that I turned my reporter's eyes toward myself—not in the privacy of my journal, but in public.

Keeping my diagnosis secret didn't feel right. Too many courageous people had trusted me with their stories over the years. I had seen firsthand how honest storytelling can open minds, soften hearts, reduce stigma, and help people heal.

Any discomfort I felt about exposing what many people consider "private business" seemed small compared with the........

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