JUST ME!

MY VISION AND MISSION

My passion is to empower people, parents, adult children with adversity, educators, and leaders to take action and make wiser decisions so that less suffering is created when dealing with childhood adversity.​

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I was about twenty-nine when I asked my grandmother about her childhood, but she couldn't answer. It took days for her to come back to me. She said, and I quote:

"My mother was a terrible person."

I looked at her and could witness a little broken child telling me this. I have often seen this child, this face in my grandmother; I didn't know what it meant until now.

Her fragile being, her lost childhood, and her pain resurfaced.

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She told me clumsily and fragilely that she remembers very little about those days. She didn't mention "childhood" and talked to me about a recurring event that began when she was just eight years old.

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She told me her mother had locked her in the cellar; I'm not talking about the cellars we know today. We're talking about cellars in 1940 in Luxembourg. No heating, no light, no electricity. She was forced there without reason. However, her mother made her feel like she had done something wrong to justify her terrible actions. She told me there was a potty for her needs, water, and bread to help her endure the apparent punishment.

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This continued for years until she became strong enough to fend off her mother and understand that her mother was going on drinking binges, drinking and partying, resulting in 13 estranged children with five different fathers, several of whom died at birth.

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Whenever I met some of her siblings or half-siblings, I was always fascinated by how distant they were from each other. They seemed to have no connection, like strangers having awkward conversations and bad-mouthing each other. There was no respect. Unfortunately, this passed down to my mother and her siblings and my generation.

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I also found out that my grandmother couldn't read or write. Sadly enough, I asked my grandfather why they never hired someone to teach her. There was enough money. But this constant helplessness, this constant turning a blind eye to a problem that had been spreading wisely and long in my family, was death to me because I knew I wasn't helpless. I was and will always be ready to face what I have to face.

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My mother gave birth to me at the age of 17, and six years later, she had my half-sister, followed by my half-brother 17 years after that. Believe me when I say she was not a better mother to any of them. She simply wasn't meant to be a mother.

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My uncle had a child who became addicted to heroin. My aunt gave birth to a boy who struggled with mental issues throughout his life, and nothing was done until he killed himself in 2017 by stabbing himself in the heart because his girlfriend left him.

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Sadly, my sister is addicted to drugs and continues the cycle of abuse with her children, having recently given birth to another little girl while heavily using drugs. This little girl, just like me, my sister, my mother, my grandmother, and most likely my great-grandmother, had no say in this matter. We need to change this and give ourselves a voice. Every new parent should ask themselves, "What can I offer my child, and would my unborn child choose me to be their mom or dad?"

I think now you understand why I'm on this mission.

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I happen to be a gay man, and in my youth, I wouldn't have had a chance to have a child. That was about twenty years ago. Nowadays, it might be possible, but I would have to undergo numerous psychological evaluations, have financial stability, and who knows what else I'd need to meet. I'm not even sure if I would be allowed to, considering I have HIV.

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However, any fertile girl or woman can bring valuable, vulnerable life into this world without preparation or permission. Unfortunately, young women, in many cases, do so without guidance or self-understanding. Unrecognized toxic patterns are passed down to the child, just as their parents did to them and their parents to them.

Most of the time, we witness a tragedy unfold, and we say nothing, or if we do, not enough. We become complicit. Tell me, why is that? And no, the answer cannot be that it's our right! Our right? What about the right of the unborn child?

For years, starting at the age of 17, I've said I wished I was never born because my life has been hard, and at 49, I'm finally on the path to a better place, only because I've fought relentlessly.

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Now, let's imagine a world where there were no dysfunctions, where children could be children, and where we could all choose our lives freely instead of constantly reacting to our lives. Living instead of surviving.

I am one of those children, now adults, who are still trying to survive life rather than living it freely.

After so many years, my mind, soul, and entire being are still fully in fight-or-flight mode. To be honest, I don't believe I will ever be free from my many childhood adversities. I have accepted them and now live in my power as an adult with childhood adversity, instead of being the child victim that continues to exist in my sister, my mother, and the rest of the family.

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Since I left home at 17, I have worked on my personal development. However, I have come close to death and complete despair many times. If I weren't such a fighter, I would have been dead a long time ago.

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I firmly assert that if you want a child, you must first ask yourself this question: What can I offer to my child? And the answer is not financial security; it's something much more precious. It's YOU!

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You are the only thing this child will ever need, and YOU are fully responsible for making this child a wonderful, self-expressing being. Not your mother, no nanny, no other substitute.

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It's not okay to bring a child into this world if you're not willing to work on yourself, to know, understand, and accept yourself, and most certainly, your childhood difficulties and family toxicity. You don't have the right to transfer YOUR desires and lost dreams onto a child and impose YOUR unresolved adversities on them. It's YOUR duty to detach from the adversities of YOUR own childhood, no matter how challenging they were. It's not okay to choose to bring another life into this world just because YOU want to please yourself or hold onto a man. It's not okay to make decisions about another person's life. You don't have the right to bring another being into this life if you're not prepared.

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If it were up to me, I firmly believe that before YOU can become a mom or dad, YOU should have to deal with YOUR own issues and undergo psychological tests to see if YOU are capable of productive parenthood. Parenting tests should become mandatory before YOU can give birth. What good are YOU to someone else if you can't even take a test or don't want to, which only leads to a better understanding of yourself and becoming a better parent? If you don't want to do this, then YOU can't be a parent. It's that simple.

A negative parenting test should invite you to embark on a personal development journey for the sake of YOUR future child and yourself.

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My vision is that we primarily focus on ourselves and the adversities of our childhood, becoming selfless toward childbirth. To break all the patterns of abuse imposed on us so selfishly, I'm sure you wouldn't want your child to be healed by you, as you had to be healed by your parents throughout your life.

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My vision is to prevent harsh childhoods by encouraging adults to make adult decisions, and this starts with education as early as age six. Continuous parenting and environmental education must begin through school at the age of six and embed itself into your soul like our mother tongue. From ages 6 to 18, one hour per week in school.

Becoming a parent is no longer an option, but a privilege through self-work.

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ALEK