Why did his parents abandon him as soon as he was born?
I guess they were horrified by my appearance. I have Bart Simpson’s ears, they have not fully formed and I need hearing aids, I have no cheekbones and my eyes fall downward. But I was very lucky.
Luck?
I was adopted by Jean, a single mother who had already adopted other children with disabilities. I found a home full of joy and a loving family for life.
Learning to accept yourself shouldn’t have been easy.
As a child he loved me very much, I remember saying to my friends: “Your dad and mom stayed with you, but mine chose me.” I lost that self-love when I was a teenager.
What happened in adolescence?
I grew up celebrating my life: that my mother had gone to the hospital and of all the babies she had chosen me filled me with joy. And I liked my hearing aids, being able to choose to hear or not. But in adolescence popularity and relationships were important.
Didn’t it fit?
No, I was different, only villains in movies were ugly like me. At times people were not good to me, but in general I had many friends; The person who bullied me the most was myself.
I understand.
He spoke horrible words to me, I isolated myself and, to move forward, I found very unhealthy mechanisms.
What type?
I stopped looking in the mirror, I started drinking, hooking up, dehydrating myself because I trained a lot so that girls would notice my body and not my face. I spent a lot of money on clothes and started having unhealthy relationships because I went out of my way to please others.
What was your recurring idea?
This face is going to prevent me from having a future: a girlfriend, a family, a job… But in life there are moments that change everything. At 20 years old he was deeply in love with a girl and she told me: “I love your face.” And I felt like the sexiest man in the world.
How did you build self-esteem?
I got a job at a gym. I had to leave the dumbbells in front of a large mirror: I noticed my sneakers, I loved them, I kept climbing and I thought: “My little legs aren’t bad either and I have a really cute ass…”.
And it continued to rise?
Normally I stopped at my shoulders, I hadn’t looked at my face in years, but that time I kept going up and I realized that I had super blue eyes and I smiled, and I saw my dimple and I liked it; Since then I haven’t stopped seeing good things in myself.
Did you know anything about your biological parents?
When I felt safe and protected I wrote them a letter. They replied that they did not wish to establish any contact with me and any further attempts would be ignored; They and a lawyer signed it. Since I was mentally well, I was able to overcome it.
Too much rejection in your life?
The truth is that I have a lot of problems with rejection, I recently suffered a breakup that triggered many of my traumas and I had to work through them.
He gives motivational talks around the world.
We are all trying to find some self-love and acceptance. As a child I thought it was something that only happened to me, but we all feel pain, sadness, insecurities, fears and we need to be loved, but it is very difficult for us to talk about it, we repress it.
You bring it to light.
One of the superpowers I have now is being able to talk about all my emotions, and people of all kinds tell me: “I’ve felt that way too.” Being able to connect with a person on this level is something beautiful.
When did it open like this?
I was making a documentary for the BBC and they asked me to go give a talk at a school. I was very nervous, I almost started crying, and I thought it had gone terribly, but at the end more and more children came up: “They bully me,” “I don’t know my parents,” “I have this disability… ”.
I had connected.
Parents of children with my illness call me so that I can get to know them and encourage them, I would have liked it. That’s how I started traveling the world. Many families could not access basic medical care and with friends we created the foundation to help them.
What do you see that I don’t see?
Being born with a visible difference gave me the opportunity to appreciate the beauty we all have within.
What is the essential thing you have learned?
The strength we have inside. I leave the house every day ready to appreciate the beauty of the world and I realize that the most important relationship I have in my life is with myself, and that if I talk to myself with respect, with love and with patience I can endure everything that comes my way. the world wants to give me.