Tell me about your own personal development.
“I was diagnosed with OCD when I was a 22. The reason for my OCD surrounds the story of my life. It combines very personal emotions from society. Fortunately I was never a victim of violence, my city is the capital of Columbia. The safest place to live in Columbia. But I grew up in probably the most difficult moment of history for my country. Columbia probably still has, but not as much as the past, problems with drug dealers. Very very very powerful drug dealers you’ve never seen. In the movies they show drug dealers with rich people, women, parties, and having fun. That’s only a little part of the problem of what drug trafficking really is. You never know until you feel, see it, until it starts running in your blood. My family is the foundation of my life, it’s all that I have. My demons are coming from within, from the inner part of my heart. I was raised in particularly in a hopeless country. The people who were thinking there was an alternative for having a good quality of life was living. Even though my childhood was very peaceful, with a lovely family, they were the great foundation of my life. My early childhood was in the middle of the war with the government and 2 of the most powerful drug dealers in the history of, I would say humanity. One of them is very famous, Pablo Escobar. The other, is someone who is 10x worse. What makes Escobar different and so famous, he was the leader and he was the richest. But he was not the most dangerous. The other, his nickname was ‘The Mexican’ but he was Columbian. He called himself the Mexican because he was a great fan of the Mexican culture. The United States government basically started pressing Columbia about showing results against the drug dealers. The government of Columbia approved a law, a tradition law, which allows the government of Columbia to send Columbians to jails in the United States. As consequence to that, the drug dealers said that they prefer a grave yard in Columbia than a jail in the states, so come here to take us. So that was a direct threat to the government and to the people, they were defending them selves. They were killing as many people as they wanted to. How my OCD is connected to those things, I never felt those conflicts directly. It began because the drug dealers created private armies in order to defend themselves from several groups. My history with my inner demons began when I was 7, one of the armies of the drug dealers used to attack people. Just for having power and control of the territory, for being able to cultivate cocoa leaves, for being able to have a transit for taking out the cocaine in the country and taking it to the U.S. At some moment one of the villages started to fight and said ‘We are not going to surrender to this group’ so all of them assassinated, their children were beheaded and they were playing soccer with their heads and I saw that when I was 7. This was shown on television, openly. I remember I was alone. And at the age of 7 I began raising hate in my heart. Pure hate. I was feeling that with my own hands I could kill someone, thinking that to make a better society you should kill the people that are affecting it. That was the breaking point in my life, and I feel that hatred for many many years. At the same time I was living a peaceful life with my family, having beautiful moments as well.”
“When I was 9, my dad had an accident. He lost his Job because he was too old. In Latin America, when you’re too old you’re kicked out like garbage. It’s difficult, he had to buy a taxi to feed my brother and I, and to raise us and take us to school. With the money he had left, he bought paint for our house. He was painting on the roof with a scaffold, one of the foundations of the scaffold was a piece of brick. The piece of broke and he fell. He broke his spine in 3 parts. I remember I was with my brother and he was helping me with my homework. We were not there but we heard the noise. It was the scariest noise I have ever heard. We saw him alive, but shouting of pain. My brother tried to help him but he couldn’t move his legs. The picture of my brother and my dad, is something I could never forget. I was running across the neighbourhood asking for help. They came, helped us clean up and took my dad to the hospital. I didn’t see him for 6 months. From the hospital, he was calling us. He would ask how we are and if we were behaving and doing our homework. When he came back home, he was not able to go to the second floor, so we took his bed to the main floor. He never gave up, the doctors told him he was not going to walk again and his life expectancy was going to reduce. But he never gave up, he said ‘I’m going to walk’. When my mom was working, and my brother was at school, we used to go around the neighbourhood and he tried to walk. Our family was there to take him to therapy. We went through a very difficult period in our life. At some moment, I don’t know what motivated him to stand. At that time, he realized my mom was having a very difficult time paying everything. He still had the taxi and he said, ‘I’m gonna drive it’. And he drove it for 15 years.”
“I was raised with a feeling of encouragement from my parents, especially my dad. But frustration and hate towards people. I grew up thinking that people were worthless. And that family is the only people that matter. Several times I had to see my dad cry of pain after work. One of his clients put a knife to his chest trying to steal his money, even if he saw his condition. I was always scared of something happening to my family. I always thought I should have the strength to do something, I raised myself with so much anger. And my family could see it, they were feeling guilty towards those things and they didn’t want me to grow like that. I was deep in my feelings thinking about my life, and justice. We were in contact with drugs all the time, we know who they were, where they were, everyone knew except the police. You couldn’t say a word, sometimes police would be working with them, they would immediately know and we would be assassinated. You couldn’t trust anyone. When you think about the holocaust, it was one of the worst episodes in history, but in Columbia we had something very close. There were very powerful people who created crime just because they could. We also had concentration fields. They were way too powerful. It’s finishing in Columbia now. Columbia now is a much better place for living. The people began to have better hope, a better future to raise their children with different kinds of values. Our Country and quality of life is improving dramatically in comparison to 20 years ago. When people ask me ‘Do you recommend Columbia for tourism?’ Is it safe? I say ‘Yes! You should go and see it for yourself’. People think it’s like watching Narcos on Netflix but it’s not. They will never show the people who created armies, and people who lost their whole family. Columbia had approximately 7 million refugees. You can’t even imagine so much evil and torture. Columbia is one of the most majestic countries, the abundance, nature, variety, amount of food and warmth of people. You will see paradises you’ve never seen in other places. But we made hell inside that paradise. And it’s something very difficult. I’m lucky that I was never a direct victim of those things. When I was studying in University, my OCD was out of control. I was literally falling apart. Anything related to death, it’s scary for me. Those things were affecting me, I had to get psychological assistance. I was having nightmares all the time. All my demons were internal. My external life was very peaceful. I went to a psychologist, and I was diagnosed and medicated.”
“I learned how to control myself. Observing the life of my brother, the life of my dad, meeting people in Canada and Columbia willing to live a very decent life, I started releasing my hate and my anger. The greatest achievement of my life was being able to release that anger and hate. To dignify, and give value to the human life. The human life is priceless, no matter who the person is, every life has a meaning and no one as the right to take it. Right now my life is full of hope and light. Happiness was always part of my life because of my parents and my brother, they always gave me happiness. But now I feel hope and light. I found the love of my life here in Canada and we are expecting a baby, my dad is stronger than ever, and the society is improving. I saw a poster of a woman saying she was forced to be part of the guerillas when she was a kid. She was living on a farm in a region in Columbia and they came to her farm. They shot her father in the head and said to her mother, if you don’t want you or your children to die, we are going to take your children and they will be militants. Her brother died fighting against the war in Columbia but she survived. I read about her history. She went to a plaza and came to the city to ask for forgiveness. I could see the process of purification of my soul when I went directly to her and I hugged her. In that moment we both started crying. In the moment many other people came and no one tried to attack her. All of them were hugging her. That’s my biggest achievement in life, I was able to forgive, recover hope, and see there is a future and light in life. I was so careless, and part of my recovery was learning how to respect feelings much more. And learning from her, I’m committed to having one single relationship until the end of my days and I found her. I always thought my own life was worthless, but the life of my family is priceless. It’s something I will protect even with my life.”
