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Nathaniel Hall in adolescence when he learns that he's a young man. he has HIV
The first time Nathaniel Hall had bad, he contracted the HIV-infected virus. He was 16 and had just become homobadual. Out of fear and shame, it took him 14 years to share the diagnosis with his family.
Last year, he "left the closet" for the second time in his life, when he wrote a play about his experience. Nathaniel, a 32-year-old theologian, currently lives in Manchester, England. He hopes that his monologue will provoke a debate on the representations of HIV in popular culture.
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Nathaniel explains how he treated the diagnosis while still a teenager.
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Nathaniel HallImage caption
"He (the partner) told me that he had pbaded exams and that everything was fine"
"Summer romance" with an older man
"I knew I was gay when I was about 13 or 14 years old, but 2003 was a different period.
And then this guy happened – I was 16 years old, he was older, he was 20 years old (in the UK, the age of consent – in which the person is considered legally
Suddenly, this old man listened to me and almost validated my speech – it was very engaging, so we started to meet.
This relationship did not last long – (19659007) When I talked to him (about the diagnosis of HIV), I was not sure if I could do it,), His friends sent me messages – remember that they were older than me – saying that I do not have any. Was that a stupid boy self, who invented and even worse.
So I just wanted him to undergo the test and receive the treatment so that he would not continue have to transmit the virus because most infections come from people who do not know how to carry it.
But I never knew what he knew. He told me that he had already pbaded the exam and that it was clean … at 16, you can not deny it.
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Nathaniel HallLegend of the Image
Nathaniel, photographed in adolescence and more recently; he is now in a stable relationship
"It was as if I had been knocked over by a bus"
I had just turned 17 when I got the diagnosis. I remember you were very, very kind to me at the clinic. Then I remember going home and making 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'd been run over by a bus … because, when I was trying to remember, it was almost a physical sensation of 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 improved, but they gave me the the prognosis that I would live about 37 years old. Having a number as defined at this age was very difficult to manage.
I received professional help during my college years and I received support. I thought everything was fine until the end of last year, when I had a piripac.
"I think that's the shame that has me controlled"
I think shame is the main … it's the only illness to which a moral judgment is attached and even, to a certain extent, a 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. I was overwhelmed by this thought.
Then you hear that kind of warning – "ah, you are going to be punished." So it was like a prophecy that was happening at that time and it was very powerful – and that's the guilt that I put myself in.
When I was in school, the only bad education we received about a gay relationship was a video in which a homobadual man died of AIDS.
It was completely obsolete, but those messages that I received – that I could do without sentences or that I did bad things, immoral or something like that – did not come from my family, they came from all sides.
I absorbed them over time and, suddenly, I became that stereotype. So, I guess guilt really controlled me.
"I did not recognize who I was"
I think the key moment was when I spent two days waking up after a party, without sleeping at all. I looked in the mirror and I did not recognize the person in front of me.
I realized then 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 drove myself independently through alcohol. I was just trying to get rid of the silent anxiety and stress accumulated over the years.
I realized that if I did not do anything at that time, it could become a serious and real problem. Something had to change.
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Nathaniel in his theatrical playRight to the Image
Lee BaxterLegend of the Image
I had to tell my family. He had tried several times, but it had never worked. So I started the writing journey of the play and started articulating ideas through my writing.
Then I decided to write a letter to my parents, brothers and sisters.
I spent an afternoon writing everything I wanted to say. I told myself that I did not necessarily need 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 acted this way because I had tried many times to say it unsuccessfully. I also thought that I would be unable to count four times in a row without becoming emotional ruin at the end of the process.
To be honest, the answer was surprising! 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 about 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 tell them.
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Nathaniel HallImage caption
Nathaniel is hopeful for his future
"I woke up every morning with a knot in my heart"
That's not all that suddenly hit. But writing and working on the piece led me to difficult places – and it was difficult.
But I felt much lighter and much more able to handle certain things and accumulated anxiety. I woke up each morning with a knot in my heart, in my chest.
After telling my family, this knot began to unravel and I thought, "God, you lived with this castrating anxiety." Every morning, the first thing I felt was a fear in my chest, a ridicule – and I can feel it now, as I say about it.
But since I started this trip, accepting that I have suffered this emotional shock and that I have made bad decisions and making peace with it, accept the fact that I am not I did not need to be the perfect person that I was trying to be, it was quite liberating. "
As told to Paul Keaveny
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