“I have been living with HIV for 21 years. I hid it out of pain and out of anger »- Corriere.it

“I have been living with HIV for 21 years. I hid it out of pain and out of anger »- Corriere.it

For twenty-one years it was a secret, heavy as a rock. now Elena DiCuccioActress, radio and TV presenter, she decided to free herself from the burden that forced her, so as not to end up crushing, to become a thousand people over time, all this is different from what she really is. In order to finally be satisfied, it was necessary for him to tell his truth: “I am 48 years old and have been HIV positive for 21 years. I have HIV. she told Hyenas, who had been her correspondent for years. He tells it without the slightest deduction, in the book that will be released on April 4, Bad blood (published by Vallardi), in which he summarizes a life full of challenges and pains. “Today I have no regrets and I am no longer angry. But I had to deal with many things,” he explains.

For almost half of his life he tried to hide the fact that he was HIV positive. Now he decided to publish it, and he even wrote a book about it. Why?

After years of being torn between fear and anger, I no longer feel inferior to anything. I am this thing right here and I don’t want to hide it anymore. When I meet each person, I ask myself if, how and when to say I have HIV: leaving my written word now I am de facto, once and for all.”

In recent years, he writes in his book, he hid medicines in the refrigerator behind lettuce so that no one would see them, and told his secret to very few people.

—and I’ve experienced all kinds of reactions to this: flight, empathy, anger. But the problem is leaving, not answering: It’s how I feel about this thing. Help comes today thanks to the medicine that ended the era of the purple aura, and fear, for you and for us too.”

However, he says, the stigma around the disease lingers.

 «Unfortunately yes, because the connection broke down in 1989: we took steps forward with four kisses and passed handshakes and then nothing. But we can’t be like children who pretend nothing is because it scares you.”

But she often wanted to pretend that she was not sick.

â????????????????????????????? I was a meticulous person, even in relationships, and yet it happened. I greatly admire the old ladies I have seen in treatment, in hospitals, in assigned wards: it breaks my heart that they look about me like foreigners in the presence of something which has terrified them. It was not their place, but a place for them as well.”

In the book, she wrote that the illness also affected her desire to become a mother.

“It’s a very painful chapter for me. Today, a woman living with HIV can have sexual intercourse even without a condom and become pregnant. For me it wasn’t like that: becoming a mother can’t be a momentary spur of passion, but there was Needed an artistic move to get another game in, planning. Motherhood was a really sore point, but I really love kids and really enjoy them.”

In the book she also talks about her childhood: she is the daughter of Pfm leader Franz DiCuccio and director Anita Ferrari. She often found herself alone, not knowing who she would wake up with, mired in family squabbles and eventually a mess.

His mother committed suicide after trying in the past. How can this pain be treated?

Pain processing is not a sport for everyone, and my mother had already arranged a large amount of grief, not processed it, in fact. In the end they took her away.”

In a few lines, he also explains that his mother’s son, and therefore his brother, died at the age of three, asphyxiated.

“I wrote it in a few lines because I didn’t want to dwell on this pain but it was really necessary to know who my mother is.”

What did he say to her after the first failed attempt?

“It’s a stumbling block that many take to say to someone who suffers like this: If you love me, stop. The trouble is, they don’t love themselves. At a certain point, I realized I was like her, and one day, at her first tsu, I said to her, ‘I must let you go.'” And she said, “You’re right. When it happened, I was somehow ready. I already said to myself: ‘The day will come when it will come,’ but I can’t stand on the balcony of life waiting for that to happen. In the morning I found all those messages on the phone. I understood everything. before reading it.

In his life he suffered from many addictions.

“Addiction creates a state of well-being for you and, above all, an alternative: it obliges you, even when it turns around and shows you the other side of the coin. It also becomes your obligation to try to get out of the hole ».

Getting out of the world of cocaine wasn’t easy.

 «We were at a wedding, I came out of the shower and found it in front of me: you’re so excited you don’t notice anything but from the outside you can see everything so well. You just told me: No, you don’t either. She was so scared and in so much pain and helpless that she completely passed through me.

Her addiction was also emotional, which led to toxic relationships in which she was also battered.

“It’s always a matter of not protecting yourself, which is something I don’t want to do anymore. If you have emotional anorexia, even someone who raises their voice or worse takes notice of you.”

In those years, I also thought about ending it all. Has more happened?

Not like that. Now I think about the fact that one of the side effects of the medications I’m taking is mood disturbance, so if I happen to wake up with sad thoughts, today I give it a fondle and then I go out and do something else and do something else. Two hours later, when I get back, I’m gone.”

For his father it will not be easy to read this book.

«This time I decided to worry only about myself: worrying about others has been my main occupation all my life, now I just need to be myself. We don’t have relations with my father at the moment, everyone has gone their own way… And if you think about all those who call me for his number or tickets… But there’s always a tomorrow. Something unexpected can always happen tomorrow.

What do you imagine will happen now?

«I think many friends will write to me… Of course, I also expect criticism, but I am ready and understand it. Not everyone understands the good of what you do. But what I wish is to finally be myself »

Will a new chapter begin for her?

“Yes, I hope so.”

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