I describe myself as a creative, confidence, rule breaker, leader and happy person, interested in be as genuine as I can, and through my career help people who suffer social discrimination, stigma, exclusion, including me as Venezuelan citizen. I think all this have to be with every decision that I make in my life, it´s about breaking the custom, rules, stigma, expectative, and just be us, me or you.

I was born and raised in San Carlos Cojedes, is not a small town but is almost non-existent town in the middle of Venezuelan, even Venezuelan people don´t know about this place or where it is. It´s a part of the country that we call “Llano”, we have our kind of music, we have our own dishes, that actually, represent the national gastronomic and we have the largest reserve of mango tree, (Yes, San Carlos is the mango city).

My mom also born and raised in this same town too, and my father was from Merida, the coldest city in Venezuela. I have 6 brothers and sisters, older than me, very much. My father died when I was almost 4 years old, because lung cancer, I remember a few things about him, no as much as I would like, nevertheless, all my family say that I am just like him physically and emotionally. However, my mom made her best effort to became a great mom and dad at the same time, her job was so great that she made me study English, so here I am.

During my childhood I became “Famous” by my name (Shuanyek), because the parents of my friends was trying to pronounced in the correct way, and asking Why that name? what it means? I didn´t know what to say. Now, that I’m a grow up, I decided to became it part of my totally presentation, because most of my life I felt shame about it, but not anymore. (As a matter of fact, my boyfriend calls me Shuan). And I like to talk about my name because I think it has something to do with my extravert, spontaneous and happy personality. Actually, I don´t know what it means but I can feel it that way (my mom says that she took it from a Korean novel, but I´m not so sure about that).

Why my hair? I have curly hair and it´s so great because I can walk through the rain, go to the beach and be calm about it, and it´s so spontaneous (If you all most know, here in Venezuela, have a straight hair is the most important thing, even if you have to go out with a supermarket bag in your head, but it has to be straight), the other types of hair, like mine, could be the centre of jokes, people can say that it looks like a carpet, for example.

But going back, my parents made a promise (I don´t know to what Saint for, and yes, we believe in that kind of promises and miracles) I couldn´t cut my hair until my 10 years old, that promise took place because my mother had problems with having another child, which is normal because she had five already, however, she had to go through multiple surgeries to finally get pregnant, and because of that my health was compromise. So they prayed, first, that I could be born, and second, that I could be healthy. I remember my brothers making jokes about cutting my hair as a threat to made me behave. I was a little, fatty girl with a lot of hair, even in my eyebrows, which my mom let me fix after my Quinceañera party.

For studying psychology, I had to move out. Here in Venezuela, the people of small towns (or non-existent towns like mine) have to move out for having a good college education, because the good ones or important Colleges are in the biggest cities of Venezuela, in my case I decided to move in to Barquisimeto, the musical city.

I lived with my sister for a while, a worked in a shop a long time, and I had to learn to move in a new city without my mom and my friends. Things were so different, in my town people only knew about drinking alcohol and go to farms with pool and stuff like that, in this other city people do more city stuff, movie theatre and that kind of stuff. I knew a lot of people who made me easier to adapt.

When I was in High school, I just knew that psychology was my career, thinking that this career was just about reading, big mistake!

I started my college time when I was 18 years old, and I took seven years to finish my 5 years’ career, being the smartest of my class, but that are the biggest problem that public universities have to face in Venezuela. We to be a Venezuelan student is to fight and fight for everything, for our own rights, wishes and goals.

I studied in “Universidad Centroccidental Lisandro Alvarado” (UCLA), place in the eye of the government, a semester can take a year, my last five semesters took me almost 4 years to get it done, and all this have to be with the trouble between the university and the government who wants to control the little autonomy that we have left.

Right now, I struggle with the difficulties of getting a job in my country related to my profession and having some money to buy my things.

It´s hard to become a professional in this country but it´s something that we must do, we learn to live, to grow up and be citizen.

Recently, I knew about an amazing technique, named Mindfulness, is about how meditation can help as to be here and now, I that helped me a lot, to manage my frustration with social y personal crisis and be with my body.

Right now, I´m still studying, I´m studying to become a Gestalt psychotherapist and forensic psychologist, considering how pathologized is the Venezuelan society around the subject of violence, I combine my interest in the study of human behaviour, a clinical psychology with the social needs that my nation has.

Even though, I´m living the dilemma of the young people in Venezuela, Am I should Leave or am I should stay? but that it a matter for another post-