- The 25-year-old was the victim of two thugs during a shooting in 2019
- Today he ‘accepted’ the wheelchair, but there are difficult moments
- He also talked about love and what he looks for in a relationship
Manuel Bortuzzo he explained that he had accepted the wheelchair. Processing what happened to him, however, was worse than mourning.
He told it to ‘The Corriere della Sera’also saying that he is not currently linked to any girl.
The 25-year-old swimmer, who was left paralyzed from the legs down after two thugs shot him on the outskirts of Rome in 2019, wrote a book, “Alone in the storm”.
“No matter how mature you may be, you are never ready to find yourself disabled overnight. It’s not comparable to anything, it’s worse than mourningbecause mourning does not affect one’s body, it is like mourning oneself”he explained to the newspaper.
“I miss myself, I have to mourn myself, say goodbye to a part of me that has died. And I always have to deal with this, every moment of the dayfrom the morning when I get up, to the evening when I go to sleep”he added.
“It’s not easy to say goodbye to a part of yourself in the flower of youth. Whoever understands this will always be able to stay by my side. Today I am more serene and realistic. I know I can be happy, but also completely desperate, I accept myself in every facet, for who I am.”has continued.
He was asked if he accepted the wheelchair: “Yes, I also accept the chair, because I have done many more things with the chair than I had done before. Of course I feel different, but it’s normal, in every context everyone is standing and I’m the only one sitting in the wheelchair, but I’m also the first to make irony and jokes about myself”.
Manuel, who was linked to Lulu Selassieknown in the house of Big Brother VIPa reality show in which he took part a few years ago, is not currently engaged.
“I’m not in love right now. But I don’t want to have the anxiety of looking for love. Maybe in half an hour I’ll go out and meet the woman of my life… I’m calm, she’ll come at the right time”has explained.
Speaking about his romantic relationships he added: “I don’t care about superficial things and I don’t want them. This is why I have few friends, few bonds, but very deep ones, they have become a beautiful family for me. I seek simplicity in friendship as in love and I seek depth”.
Finally he underlined that he had not talked about the GF in his book: “I deliberately didn’t give space to Big Brother, everything that needed to be said was already told by the cameras, we saw everything. And then I don’t want to be remembered as the guy from Big Brother, I would like to be considered the athlete who achieves his goals”.
