Yeah, well ... I didn't see that coming.
Two videos I saw yesterday evening, in direct succession, threw me off track completely. And the rest of the day was dark. Literally.
Don't get me wrong: Both videos are excellent and important. And the two people who posted them did a very good job with what they wanted to express. The respective messages are good, are more than necessary to be heard, and I am totally on board with and proud of these two people for what they did.
It were the repercussions and side effects that these videos had on me as an individual, and the connections to my past and my present that hit me like two freight trains in a row and drove all the wind out of me.
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The videos I'm talking about are:
- Kasapamese's latest video that she made in regard to World AIDS Day on December 1st, and that is a very good explanatory video about this dreadful topic - compact, but in depth, with the basic facts and the necessary messages ... and yet ...
- "Parents Ruin Society Not Gay People" by YouTuber rOsewhip137 that I had already seen some time ago for the first time, and that impressed and moved me back then. I saw this video as a post in a blog I follow; I was impressed again, by the video itself and by the gesture the blogger had made by embedding it ... I was moved ... and yet ...
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AIDS came up some time after I had had my coming out in the beginning of the 1980's and had finally managed to get along with what I was and what I wanted.Enter: A disease that, back then, was labelled as the "Gay Disease", making the homosexual community all of a sudden the focus of a completely new spotlight of attention that was devastating on all accounts and really shook my whole world.
While watching Kasapamese's video, I remembered the famous / notorious edition of DER SPIEGEL from the year 1983 where AIDS was reported about publicly for the first time.Back then, I was on my way to PE class in the afternoon and had just halted for a short moment to buy the latest SPIEGEL, as I did every week - and I was beside myself.No, not shocked. Kind of numb.Unable to do anything else before, sitting in my car, parking in front of the gymnasium, I had finished reading every last word of the (quite in depth) reports they had issued there.The inner earthquake that shook me began already with each and every detail on the cover picture.It was a negative. Although obviously used for aesthetic reasons, this processing of the picture created connotations that were crushing - two men, sharing intimacy, and the picture is a negative. The opposite of positive. Inverted ... twisted ... weird ... ... wrong.The faces were cut off - gay sex obviously was something that was purely physical; no mind, no soul, heart or expression involved, no two male persons, individuals making love, but faceless studs that were making out.And the place where the one guy's hand was touching was, obviously, the source of all evil, as the expanded microscopic picture of some ghostly-malevolently glowing germs / viruses / whatever demonstrated - death lurks here.Dare to touch, and you're done for.This cover motive already, together with the headline "Lethal Disease AIDS The mysterious Illness" had an effect on me like a massive punch in the belly. And after I had finished the articles, my whole self-esteem, my "gay pride", had been shattered to the very core.A disease, exclusively for "us". Sexual intercourse as means of infection. No treatment, no cure. The highway to hell.All of this was more effective to kind of annihilate all sense for me, all meaning of life - more than any parental disapproval, any religious mumbo-jumbo or anti-gay "jokes" of a few of my fellow pupils (the more ape-like ones) would have inflicted on me.I've had my share of these, no doubt. But I could cope with that, because I was sure of what I was and what I wanted, and I had lots of friends who accepted me for what I was, and, over the years back then, I had made first erotic and romantic experiences, and they had been wonderful.All of that somehow ended that day when I read these articles; all my memories and my perspectives began to wither.It was terrible. PE class that day saw me achieving not too much, although we were playing Badminton, which I loved and still love ...
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All these memories came flooding back to me while watching Kasapamese's video. I wrote a comment on it, where, in condensed form, I sketched some of that; the 500 characters limitation preventing me from digging in too deep.
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As we all know now (and for quite some time already), AIDS, the alleged "Gay Disease" is something that is not at all exclusive to gays. But ... does that take the terrible strain out of AIDS?
It doesn't.
AIDS is still, after 25 years that passed since this edition of DER SPIEGEL, some of the most violent and lethal threats to humankind. And research is being done, yes, and treatments / medications (to help at least prolong the life of infected people) are there.
But we also know that these treatments and medications are accessible only for a fraction of all men, women and children all over the world that are infected with AIDS - homosexuals and heterosexuals alike.
Basically, I should be over my trauma from back in 1983. Basically, I am. AIDS is not "God's" answer to "a problem" that needs to be "extinct" - AIDS hits all alike and no one is safe ...
... Poetic injustice.
But how could this thought soothe my devastation by the least bit?
I'm gay, yes. But first and foremost, I'm a human being.
And so my heart goes out to ALL my fellow human beings who have to suffer from a dreadful illness that (and this is the real shame and blow that still is alive and is burning in me!) research is BY FAR not done intensively enough, and results that lead to possible forms of treatment are NOT being delivered equally to all that are in dire need of them.
I don't want to go into details here. May it suffice to say that ...
... May it suffice.
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The video that I discovered in the above stated blog also has a very personal connection to me. It relates to recent events that have tortured me over the past weeks. Dear reader of this blog, you really should watch the video. It is important.The guy who posted it in his blog, by all means, did not intend to hit me with this. So much I know, of course. I hereby declare that I am deeply impressed by his fervent statement (that he illustrates with an excellent vlog). And I am deeply moved by the compassion and sentiment the blogger showed.I got all that, and I really, really love him for that.... and yet ...The thoughts and connections that welled up, the direct link to my personal Ground Zero of late, the associations that came with a vengeance and that I could not stop ... All of that kicked me back into the Darkzone that I have been in for the better part of the past weeks and that I'm trying every day to stay out of.The latter did not work out for the evening, and it took until way into the early morning hours that I was finally able to think of writing about it.Which I now did. ______________________________
My soul still hurts. A lot. And this will not change, until finally the situation will start to clear up. Any signs for that already? No. Nothing.Well ... not entirely nothing.One marvellous spark illuminated my Darkzone in the very early morning hours of November 21st. It was the first moment when I was able to breathe a bit more freely, and when happiness returned, albeit only for a brief moment.This spark was overshadowed only minutes later that night. Big time.But due to this spark, the shadow did not overwhelm me and bring me to react in a way that I would have deeply regretted the very same moment.The light sufficed to prevent the worst ... The Fire of the Dragon was halted in its tracks - but only just.The spark was strong enough to keep me going, feel better and not lose hope.But as the basic situation has not changed, and the tension for me and someone I care about A LOT has still not dissolved yet, two mighty blows (that no one delivered!) in succession were enough. All ripped open again, and the Darkness was back. Listening to and making music was a vital necessity again ... (as it has been on other evenings and during nights when the whole situation was not only too much, but started to become somewhat life threatening. No joke intended here. All that numbs you ... )... leaving the light on in my room here was no necessity - on the contrary.Yesterday evening, when already being in the Darkzone, I was invited to a Skype conference call with two people that are very dear to me. But I couldn't. It was outrageous. I would have so loved to join them. It would have been so much fun ... But I couldn't. I'm sorry. I did basically nothing that would be "normal" for a Saturday evening. Not even things that are normal for me.My sincere and heartfelt apologies to everyone who I piss of these days, by acting weird (and not in a good way!) ...
Again: I'm sorry.My life has been intense in so many ways during these last weeks - with tremendously good things happening (the best!), but also with making me live through terrible times.I should have been moving on, I suppose. But I'll see it through - like some kind of fool.I still believe.It indeed has become too much this evening. But I'm good again.For now.
