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The first time Nathaniel Hall had bad, he contracted the virus that was infected with HIV. He was 16 and had just become homobadual. Out of fear and shame, it took him 14 years to share the diagnosis with the family.
He "came out of the closet" for the second time in his life last year, when he wrote a play about his experience. Nathaniel, a 32-year-old theologian, currently lives in Manchester, England.
"Summer romance" with one more man
Nathaniel recounts how he treated the diagnosis while he was still a teenager. old
"I knew I was gay when I was about 13 or 14 years old, but 2003 was a different time.] And then this guy is coming – I was 16 years old , he was older, in his twenties (in the UK, the age of consent – in which the person is considered legally fit to consent to badual acts – is 16 years old)
This relationship did not last long – only two months, in fact everything happened in the summer holidays – between high school and college – a summer romance, so
When I spoke to her (about the HIV diagnosis ), I received messages from his friends – remember that they were older than me – saying that I was only an idiot
so I just wanted that He undergoes the test and receives the treatment so that he does not continue to transmit the virus, because most infections come from people who do not know how to To carry him
But I never knew he knew. He told me that he had already pbaded the exam and that he was clean … at 16, one can not dispute it.
"It was like we had been run over by a bus"
I had just finished 17 when I got the diagnosis. I remember you were very, very kind to me at the clinic. Then I remember going home and having to make that decision … I made the decision to go to my room and close the door instead of saying what had happened.
It was as if I had been run over by a bus … because, when I tried to remember, it was almost a physical sensation to be hit hard. I remember crying. What they said was very different from what they say today.
It was not the time of the AIDS epidemic … the remedies were available and they were good, they were better, but they gave me the following prognosis : 37 years old It was very difficult to have a fixed number like that at that age.
I received professional help during my college years and I had support. I thought everything was fine until the end of last year, when I had a piripac.
"I think that's the shame that controlled me"
I think shame is the main … the only illness to which a moral judgment is attached and even, to some extent, self-judgment.
I was gay … but I grew up in a heterobadual world. You hear that it's morally wrong or that what you're doing is dirty and should bother you. This idea overwhelmed me.
You then hear this kind of warning – "ah, you are going to be punished." So it was like a prophecy that was happening at that time and she was very powerful – and that's the guilt that I put myself in myself.
When I was in school, the only bad education we received about a homobadual relationship was a video in which a homobadual man died of AIDS
C & # 39; It was totally out of date, but these messages that I received – that I was trustworthy or that I did bad or immoral things or something – did not come from my family, they came from all sides .
I absorbed them over time and all of a sudden I became that stereotype.
I think the key moment was the moment I stayed awake two days after a party, without even sleeping, because I did not know who I was. I looked in the mirror and I did not recognize the person in front of me.
I realized at the time that drugs and alcohol did not necessarily take control of my life, but that I abused them in a way that was of no use to me.
This was not a serious addiction, but I got self-medicating through alcohol. I was just trying to get rid of this silent anxiety and the stress accumulated over the years.
I realized that if I did not do anything about it at the time, it could become a serious and real problem. Something had to change.
I had to tell my family. He had tried several times, but it had never worked.
Then I decided to write a letter to my parents, brothers and sisters
I spent the afternoon writing all that I wanted to say. . I told myself that I did not necessarily have to send it, I just had to write it and see how I felt about it.
But after I finished, I felt calm and I sent it by mail before I could change my mind.
I did it because I had tried it many times to say it without success. I also thought that I could not count four times in a row without becoming emotional ruin at the end of the process.
The answer was surprising, to be honest! It was a bit like a lot of gays feel it before leaving the closet. This fear of what could happen … but everyone sent me a text message and called me and all was well. They only felt bad for not keeping the secret for so long.
My mother came the next day and we talked. My biggest fear was that they were upset about not having something so important. But my mother said, "I'm just pissed because my son had to handle this alone for so long."
It was fear. It's an internalized homophobia that many homobaduals have, plus a layer of shame and fear, and these things are really powerful. Even when you have a nice family, it's hard to say.
"I got up every morning with a knot in my heart"
It's not that everything suddenly hit. But writing and working on the piece brought me to difficult places – and it was difficult.
But I felt much lighter and much more able to handle certain things and accumulated anxiety. Every morning I woke up with a knot in my heart, in my chest.
After telling my family, this knot began to unravel and I thought, "My God, you lived with this castrating anxiety." Every morning the first thing I felt was a fear in my chest, a ridicule – and I feel it now, as I say about it.
But since I started this trip, I have accepted the fact that I have suffered from this emotional crisis and that I have made decisions. and to reconcile myself, to accept that I do not need to be the perfect person that I was trying to be – it was pretty liberating. "
As told to Paul Keaveny
BBC Canada – All rights reserved – Reproduction is prohibited without the written permission of the BBC
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