That Bleeding Queen
Welcome one and all.
My name is Mark and yes you guessed it, I am one of the fabulous people and was born with Haemophilia, a rare genetic blood disorder.
I am also one of the few remaining survivors of the global contaminated blood tragedy.
Over the years I have faced many dark days filled with fear, pain and on numerous occasions’ hopelessness. I have been subjected to discrimination, neglect, abuse and stigma, as many of us have, but not only because of my sexuality. The other reason is because I don’t fit into any one particular box. I will stand up for what I believe in and I’m willing to tackle injustice head on which can frighten people.
When you are born “different” people don’t know how to react to your circumstances or even how to treat you. So, they make assumptions and inevitably jump to the wrong conclusion. I’m sure we have all done that at some point, judging a book by its cover and all that? You quickly have to learn how to protect yourself and this in most cases is assisted by putting on an act or wearing an invisible mask. The days when you are in pain or just feel like something the cat dragged in and someone asks how you are and you say, fine.
The medical professionals just see a condition and in their eyes I was automatically deemed to be stupid. Those who made decisions about my education had their own take on my abilities because, “well, he’s disabled and will never amount to much, will he?”
Some people I know saw me as nothing more than a bubbly camp air head, flitting around without a care in the world, who loves Kylie Minogue, “Bless”.
And I know I have definitely been Marmite to plenty of people over the years. Boy, did I have some very long night shifts? But that’s for another day.
Then there’s the relations, friends, work colleagues, acquaintances, those that took the time to get to know me better. The ones I have shared life experiences with, laughed with, cried with, woken up in the morning and thought, what the hell did we do last night? Yep those ones as well.
However, all of these people had an impact on my life and helped to shape the person I have become. I like to think, everything happens for a reason and always try to treat people with respect, exactly how I wish to be treated. Yes I am opinionated but I am also open to listening to other people’s views. I believe in constructive criticism but not knocking people down for personal gain. Compassion and empathy make for a better world over greed and intolerance.
What I am trying to say is let’s attempt to be a bit nicer to one another. Yes there’s bad things that happen in the world but the good things don’t seem to be talked about enough. The memory that always makes you smile. The trailblazers, the real hero’s, the truly decent people in every community that are overlooked because of something negative grabbing more headlines.
Until next time, I will leave you with this quote from the fabulous RuPaul:
Someone told me “be epic today”.
I laughed in their face and said “BITCH I’m epic everyday”.
