In a box 290 days.
It was a prefabricated cage, if I extended my arms I would hit the walls, I never saw sunlight and loud music came out of two speakers day and night.
To go crazy.
They gave me violent narco-corruptions so that I wouldn’t hear what was happening outside and I relieved myself in a portable cooler. The last few months I lived naked, without a mattress and with a plate of beans a day, they pressure you to talk and betray the negotiation.
Let’s go back to November 29, 2016.
Before taking my son to school like every day, that day I took five minutes to thank God for how well everything was going for me, I had a good job, a nice house and I was happy with my wife and my children, a boy three years old and a 1 year old baby.
I was grateful to be privileged.
Yes, and 45 minutes later, eight hooded men with a van intercepted me.
What helped you in your captivity?
The first thing I did was remember the talk of a man who had been kidnapped for 257 days, and I discovered that this man had all the qualities that I did not have.
That must have been frustrating.
The man was clear that God was with him. My faith was quite fragile, in fact at that moment I wanted to kill God. One of my first decisions was to talk to God and myself, and I did it out loud.
What else was proposed?
The man insisted on exercising, he was a marathon runner and I got tired climbing five steps, but I started moving like a caged lion and ended up doing 200 squats and 10 km a day.
Those are endorphins for the brain.
And the third pillar that I put into practice was not to obsess over hating my captors. They entered the box three times, once for the life test and twice to hit me, they were wearing bacteriological suits, I never saw their faces.
Could he control his emotions?
Those nine and a half months were like a gestation process for a new human being. I went through all the emotions, anger and despair, but I came out in a state of Zen, although it didn’t last long: I lived a time of great fury.
What has changed in your life?
I don’t see human beings the same. Writing my story was a catharsis, at first I cried and cried, for three years I returned to the box every day. It was such a long confinement that I broke down in there, I had suicidal ideas, but then I got up, got stronger and created an armor that helped me survive.
What have you discovered about yourself?
That I grow in adversity. At the box I had three very powerful anxiety attacks that I had to control with my mind. In me there was the good Beto and the bad Beto, who kept telling me “they are going to kill you, your children will forget you.” My priority was to stop thinking, to stop this dialogue between good and evil.
Who won?
The negative thinking that increased at night and prevented me from sleeping, but suddenly I was able to turn the tables.
As?
I had never meditated, but I began to pray and go within, and I found a whole wonderful world within me and an incredible strength, a self-disciplined Beto who could go wherever he wanted; and I had a moment of lucidity in which I told myself that I was not going to feed on my memories but on the moments that I still have to live.
Do you maintain that strength?
Yes, and now I am much more empathetic. When I came out I needed hugs and now I give them and I interview people who have been kidnapped to tell them that they will get ahead. It hurt me a lot when I was released to find little empathy even from very close people. In Mexico kidnapping is taboo.
What has been your greatest resource: emotion or reason?
The first months in the box I cried 5 hours a day; Then my armor was formed and the rational killed the emotional so that it wouldn’t end me. When I came out I couldn’t cry for months, I recovered my tears by reading the diary my wife wrote during the kidnapping.
Did you survive for your family?
At first yes, but there came a time when I asked myself: what happens to your desire to live? I realized the need to love myself before anything else. For me, I’m going to exercise and clean myself, because I want to live, I want to take on the world. One of my superpowers was being my best friend.
Have you reflected on the human being?
I want to think that there are still more good people than bad people, what happens is that the good ones are poorly organized. Greed and money bring out the worst in us.
What has been your essential learning?
That life is today and you have to live it with intensity; I know the value of time. I no longer ask, I just thank you. I live with a lot of freedom and I am much more enjoyable than before.
