The Unspeakable Truth
Dear Helen,
It’s been a while. A very long while. What year is it now? Oh the nurse says it 2021. The year you predicted I’d be doomed or maybe not so. How are you doing? Are you married? Do you have a life or it turns out that we both didn’t make it? It would be a shame if you didn’t. You were perfect. You were complete or so I thought. Or so you made yourself seem. Nonetheless, I wish you what you dreamed of even though your dreams for me were that of doom.
I now lay in the general hospital of my hometown. Actually, I’ve been laying for a while now. If my brain will be right today, if my fragile hands correctly punched the year I was admitted in here to this present year which the nurse said was 2021 on the calculator correctly, if my eyes did read carefully, it would be five years now. A year before our convocation ceremony. A year before we’d have graduated together as one and perhaps become one.
I remember our first year together in the university’s premises. We were young, shy and innocent of the world ahead. We did as we were told and had the goal of making our parents proud. Do you remember our first meeting in the school library? I still wonder how those same legs took us to those places we would never had dreamed of going back then.
And in our sophomore year we became friends. We became the nerdy nurses. Loving every moment, reading every minute, chatting every now and then. I taught that was love. We believed that love to be true until the true test of love came then our love’s scale fell and we did realize what true love was.
I loved you. I love you and I still do but maybe your love wasn’t real. Maybe your love couldn’t stand my flaws but I always hoped our love was good enough.
Helen, the queen. You remember that was what I always called you right? My intention was to treat you as one and I did to the best of my abilities, but you only looked at my flaws and often push me to the limits.
I loved sex. I loved it frequently. It was my addiction. It was what helped me cope in various situations. I did try to change. I wanted to be better not for you but for the life I planned out in my head for us. I wanted to live the dream life but I never got to.
Why did you give up on me so easily? Why did you crucify me on your own cross of perfection? I was only human. I was a youth who felt sex was something to make one feel good, but the more I went after feeling good, the deeper I got into it. When I met you, I did conclude to change but it wasn’t easy. Not especially when you openly called me a sex addict in front of our friends. Was that even necessary? We only had an argument about something so simple and all you needed to say was a Yes or a No and I would have definitely respected your decision but you felt you were self-righteous and I was the bad egg.
Are you aware of the logic that “Only white get black, black can’t get darker than it already is?” You knew my only weakness. You had every right to leave me if you deemed fit but you had no right to destroy my dignity. This thing was beyond me and you know it. I just love the feeling and it didn’t matter how much I spent to get it, it didn’t matter to me what I’d lose. All I wanted was to feel all right.
You didn’t believe someone could be addicted to sex. You didn’t believe that someone could lose control and just want sex over and over again. You called me a whore, a filth, what were the other names you and your friends used on me again? Oh a ‘scum of earth’ who was unfit to be in the gatherings of the pious. You and your friends were virgins and I wasn’t and that became our only conflict. What of those days I was good to you? What of those times I’d go out of my way to help you even when your pious friends were aware that you were in dire need? You forgot all those and the only thing you had on your lips about me was that I was a dog.
You had every right to quit being friends with me. Were you even a friend? You only made ridicule of me in private and public and even though I wanted to live like you, you didn’t teach me how to. The perfection you showed was an illusion. You didn’t reach out, you didn’t offer help, you only called me what I was but you didn’t do a thing about it. What was so pious about you then?
And the last time we saw was in 300l when you invited me to a program and I out of good will dressed and applied makeup. You didn’t specify the type of gathering, you just called that I should meet you at the venue. I got there only for it to be a religious gathering. That didn’t hurt, I believed you forgot. Then you mounted the podium to give a speech on sexual purity and I instantly felt uneasy. I know what you were capable of saying and it did turn out that I was right. You crucified rather than offer solution. You described me or you used my lifestyle as an example and even went as far as saying ‘my friend’ you have no moral right to say that word Helen! A sex addict says you lack the moral right to say the word friend. You declared that day that people living in that path will die a worthless death in less than five years if they do not change because of the alarming rate of STD’s. How do they change? How do we change? How could one change an addiction of years? Were you willing to walk through the process with that person to ensure they were better? Did you call me a whore out of love so I could change? Did you say those mean things to me so I could be a better person or so you could exert superiority over me as the better person that you always played? Did you and your pious friend gossip about me out of love or comparison? If you were my friend then such program will have me as a testimony or a work in progress which will accord you respect, but you wanted to emphasize your chastity rather than help the fallen ones.
It is well Prophet of Doom, indeed It is. The fact that you show people their ailment, you made known to them the consequence and you only gave a tablet to cure it. The tablet you gave was fear. Fear changes nothing it. Rather it pushes and teaches how to pretend. Fear destroys dear Helen. It did and I am a living testimony.
After that day I vowed to never reach out to you, I decided to lead the life of fear. I began to be pious on the outside and bad on the inside. I did try for a week before I overcame the fear tablet you gave me. I didn’t care anymore. I didn’t just care what you’d say or call me this time and I became a sex addict who earned money from it but it wasn’t long till I became doomed. No I did not have any STD not even the HIV you kept clamoring about, I have a ovarian cancer a result of the numerous pills and injections I took to prevent pregnancies.
I discovered it too late and now I am going through chemotherapy, hopefully I’d be fine. It’s painful I must confess. This is my second session and I believe I’d be fine. After chemo, I will be having a seminar with various people who are like me and gladly I believe I will be of help to them. Sexual addiction is real Helen. Not everyone can control their urges. And some don’t even know they are addicted to it. Some can’t say they are addicted because of criticism. Some don’t even care about what people say. Those people are long gone and calling them back would take a long time. Nonetheless, any type of addiction is fatal.
If I survive or not, I know I have touched you and my only goal now is to have an impact on people. I know you are human and as one, you are flawed. I know you must have realized what your flaw is now and that’s my aim in this letter. I brought the truth to you and now the only solution to your problem is love. Just as I am showing love to you by reaching out to you after these years, to point to you your flaws, just as God out of love constantly forgives us our sins, I wish you’d love people the way they are. Accept their flaws and be instrumental to the positive changes in their lives. The joy you get when someone changes because of you and the reward you get from the creator for doing so is so immense.
Helen, I hope we meet again. Till then, please reach out to those in need of help because every human are casualties. And as a trained nurse, you know casualties have different treatments as well as different response to treatment. All we have to do is try and keep trying before it becomes too late.
Your