Question for older guys about the AIDS Crisis and lingering trauma

Now approaching 60, I lived through the whole AIDS Crisis of the 80s and 90s. I remember how terrifying it was back then when a diagnosis was still mostly a death sentence. Had I been ten years older, I might have been among the casualties myself. I knew people who died. I'm wondering how many of us feel like we're still carrying the trauma of those years.

I just got results of a routine HIV test yesterday. I shouldn't have been worried at all, but I was. As I was waiting for my doctor's appointment, my mind went back to my first HIV test at a public health department. That was back when results took 30 days and conventional wisdom told you to give a fake name so that there wouldn't be a paper trail leading to you. I remember digging my fingernails into my wrist to try to stay calm. I remember the awful things people said about how we deserved it.

I feel like there is a kind of division between those of us who lived through it and younger gay men for whom HIV has always been a manageable condition. I'm definitely still carrying the effects of those years around with me. Reading about it as history isn't the same.