'Trinchera'

During a period when I couldn't process what was happening to me, I built mechanisms to continue existing without being completely overwhelmed. I didn't do it consciously. The body and mind know how to protect themselves even when you don't know you need protection.

The blows are evidence that my trench did its job.

But protection comes at a cost that isn't always immediately visible. Over time, the refuge becomes a habit. The "I don't know" that was initially honest becomes automatic. And what began as a shield ends up becoming the distance between who you are and yourself.

Today I recognize that as the silent cunning of someone who doesn't know how to ask for help, but does know how not to disappear completely. Although, paradoxically, in that attempt to survive, I became invisible, first to others, then to myself.

This work opens the series because it represents the origin. Not the problem, but the mechanism that sustained it. Everything that comes after is born from here, from this refuge that kept me alive and that, at the same time, extinguished me.

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