‘I Am Alone with my Sickness’: Voicing the Experience Of HIV- And AIDS-Related Stigma with Psalm 88.

Abstract

Sometimes referred to as a ‘sickness lament’, Psalm 88 gives a particularly dark and despairing voice to suffering through illness and powerfully evokes the hopelessness and loneliness that have invaded the lamenter’s relationship with the world around him and with his God. One of the features of the psalmist’s experience of illness given voice in this lament is that of social isolation and abandonment by friends and companions. Using insights from both cultural and psychological theories of stigma and disease, I wish to explore this feature of the psalm through the contextual lens of social stigma and discrimination experienced by people living with HIV and AIDS in Sub-Saharan Africa. The lamenter’s voice may thus speak alongside those living with HIV and AIDS, his words reflecting their experiences of social distress and rejection, while their own voices offer new considerations of the experience of suffering within this psalm.