Life has taught me to be cautious, to be vigilant, always on my guard; but more than life itself, it has been the situations I have experienced since childhood that made me mature quickly, transforming me from a child into an adult in a short space of time.
I think I spoke of him once, a long time ago, but perhaps not in the way I will today. A dangerous person in another’s life can cause many dangerous situations in which one cannot live in peace and in which one must be on guard as if something bad were always lurking.
From childhood I learnt to live with or cope with this, and I am talking about one person in particular: my father. Before, I couldn’t speak of him without bursting into tears; today I can.
My father is an evil, dark, dangerous man; he inflicts psychological abuse and can inflict indirect physical violence. I shall try to be brief, though it is difficult. When I was little, the psychiatrist told my mother that my father had a split personality disorder. Outside the house he was a gentleman, but inside he was a demon. He also told her to lock away the knives and to leave him, saying he would testify against him in court.
He abandoned his parents and let them die, and he did the same to his aunt, my godmother. He is a murderer by omission, through neglect, and his god is money.
But having experienced it first-hand, I can tell you that he is an evil person and loves being so; he loves seeing others unhappy, tormenting and hurting people in every way possible.
The first dangerous situation I remember was when I was five years old. He cornered me against the wall, shouting at me because he wanted to know where my mother was, and she was at a nursery school meeting. He shouted at me terribly and called me a liar. I think that’s why I detest shouting, abuse and lies.
That day, at the age of 5, I became an adult; I talked back to him, I stood up to him… and my father is 1.90 metres tall and I was so small, I wasn’t afraid of him, I was just defending my mother and myself from that demon. That incident, like others I experienced, such as when he tried to hit my mother with a chair, made me grow up quickly, to be strong, to be alert, to be wary and cautious. I was never afraid of him; I felt that something was watching over me.
When my mother managed to separate from my father and obtain full custody, he disappeared because my mother never asked him for money and he never gave any. But he kept a watchful eye on us. Phone calls with terrifying breathing, harassing us with people who called us, and much more. That’s how my whole life was. But I was never afraid of him.
It’s true, I had neither a childhood nor a teenagehood; I went straight into adulthood without going through those stages. I had to stay alert and look after my little brother.
Just over eight years ago, my godmother, my father’s aunt, the woman who raised him, passed away. Whilst she was still alive, she had drawn up a will in which I was named as the heir to half of her estate. When her Alzheimer’s was not yet advanced, my mother begged her to remove me from the will, for my own good, to protect my life. Because my father considered everything my godmother owned to be his; she had land. And if he found out that I was to inherit, my life would be in grave danger. But I wasn’t afraid; my family was.
My brother told me: ‘If you’re an heir, you won’t be able to go out on your own,’ and my mother said, ‘I’d rather you were on your own in Spain than here in such danger’ (the plan to leave Argentina was already in place, but for financial reasons, not because of my father). All this because we didn’t know what my godmother had done. Fortunately, she listened to my mother and annulled the will; we only found that out after going through the paperwork and making enquiries.
All these situations made me strong, brave and self-confident, and although it was difficult at first, it later helped me overcome many things in life and face whatever might happen, because my father always picked on the weak and the cowards; if you stood up to him, it was a different story. That’s how I learnt to face life and stand up for myself.
This is the topic I’ve chosen from among the fascinating topics 
Thank you all so much for joining me today. I hope you have a lovely weekend. See you soon.
Amonet.
Used translator Deepl.com free version.
