Last night, my dear friend Dan and I reconnected. He shared something that shook me. He had received a call from one of the people I now call “demons,” and for six excruciating minutes, he listened as they spewed hateful, toxic lies about me—nonstop. He was stunned by the sheer level of venom directed at me, and for the first time, he got a front-row seat to the darkness I’ve faced my entire life.
Hearing him was the final push I needed to sit down and write my story. This isn’t about chasing money or seeking revenge—true power doesn’t come from taking from others. It comes from within. We build, we fall, and we rebuild again. Turning pain into beauty and art is a gift I’ve discovered through my journey.
But this is about more than art. This is about self-justice. It’s about refusing to let silence make me complicit in the lies and manipulations that have tried to define me. I am not a victim. It’s time to stop this toxic cycle. This is my story. My truth. And it’s time the world hears it.
Intro
Yesterday, I also spoke to my aunt Monica for the first time. Meeting her, and hearing her truths, was the final piece I needed to fully understand my parents’ story and, in turn, my own. 2024 has been the year I decided to face everything: my past, my pain, and the lies I was told about who I am.
This year has been a storm of revelations, healing, and rediscovery. It’s been about piecing together my story, facing the painful truths I was forced to hide for decades, and reclaiming my power from the darkness that surrounded me.
A Legacy of Love
My mother told her sister to tell me to “fight like a gallo” and never let the world define me. She didn’t need to say those words for me to feel them—they’ve been the guiding force in my life.
I carry her strength and resilience in my heart. She is the reason I fight, the reason I tell my story, the reason I won’t let the darkness of this world dim my light. This is my truth. It’s messy, painful, and raw. But it’s mine.
A Childhood Shaped by Secrets
I was raised in my father’s family—a family built on secrecy and control. My mother’s story, her very existence, was erased from my life. Her family was cut off from me, and the only narratives I heard about her were hateful, degrading lies.
I grew up believing my parents died in a car accident. That’s what my grandmother told me, and I repeated it to anyone who asked. It wasn’t until 2005, on an ordinary afternoon, that my grandmother casually revealed the truth: my parents died of AIDS. Before she said a word, she made me swear on my life and theirs that I would never tell anyone the truth.
That was how she operated: through control, fear, and manipulation. Even death certificates hid the truth. My father’s was falsified to cover up the cause, and my mother’s wasn’t even given that courtesy.
For years, I believed my father’s family’s version of my mom: a tragic figure who had no real connection to my dad, a “mistake” who brought ruin. But as I pieced the puzzle together, the real story emerged.
The venom with which my grandmother spoke about my mother shaped my understanding of her. According to her, my mom was beneath us, too poor, too unrefined, too “trashy” to ever belong to our family.
What I didn’t know, and what I would only piece together this year, is how deeply in love my parents were and how much they sacrificed for each other.
Discovering the Truth About My Parents: Jessica & Wilson
My mother wasn’t a “fling” or an accident in my father’s life. They were in love—madly, deeply, and passionately. They lived together, fought for each other, and dreamed of a life they couldn’t have.
When my father became ill, my mom stayed by his side, caring for him, holding him, and loving him until his final breath. Even after he passed, she cradled him in her arms, begging him to come back.
She stayed in my family’s home, tending to him, until the very end.
I only learned this truth this year. For decades, my family painted a different picture, one where my mother was the villain, a poor woman who “ruined” my father’s life and “infected” him with her illness. In reality, it was my father who carried the virus. He gave it to her, sealing both their fates.
Two years after my father’s death, my mother fell ill. She had left me with my father’s family in the hope that I would have a better life, and a chance to achieve things she never could. But when she needed them—when she was dying—they abandoned her. The same family that had taken everything from her, including her child, refused to help her in her final moments. I never saw her once or had a chance to say goodbye, but that is a whole story of its own!
The Fight for My Identity
In truth, I was never supposed to survive. My existence wasn’t planned or wanted by my father’s family. My grandmother—who raised me—made that clear. As a child, she would repeat stories from a supposed “shrink” who predicted I’d grow up to be a drug addict or a prostitute, seeding fear and doubt into my subconscious young mind.
Yet here I am. Against the odds, I’ve not only survived but thrived.
This year, after decades of running from my pain through work and constant hustle, my body forced me to stop. A health crisis pulled the brakes on everything, and I was left with no choice but to confront my pain. I grieved. I cried for 32 years of betrayal, manipulation, and loss. And somewhere in the midst of it all, I found home: Myself.
The Cost of Breaking Free
Breaking free from my family’s toxicity came at a price far heavier than I could have imagined. The manipulation, betrayal, and abuse I endured at their hands didn’t stop when I physically distanced myself. If anything, the attacks intensified as I began to ask questions, seek the truth, and dismantle the lies they built around me.
For most of my life, I believed the narrative they fed me—that I was lucky to have them, that I owed them my gratitude, and that they had my best interests at heart. But the deeper I delved into my past, the clearer it became: their control over me was a web of deceit, woven with intentional malice and greed.
Let’s start with the power of attorney I gave my grandmother when I first moved to Canada. I was young, trusting, and naive. Believing this gesture was about caring for my safety, and a way to ensure my affairs in Ecuador were looked after in my absence. What I didn’t know was that this document would become a tool against me.
Years later, during one of the darkest periods of my life, a friend with access to legal databases uncovered that my shares in one of my grandfather’s companies had been signed away. Signed away by me. Except I hadn’t been in Ecuador for years. My business was thriving and I went to Europe instead of Ecuador those last couple of years. She could only view the last 6 months of movement sadly.
Who could have done this? My grandmother. The same person who assured me I had been left nothing in my grandfather’s estate—the same person who allowed properties to be sold and wealth to be divided without a single cent reaching me.
Then there were the attacks on my character. When I started going to therapy, speaking up, asking questions, and breaking free of their control, they didn’t just try to silence me—they tried to destroy me. They reached out to my friends, my connections, and even my half-brother from my mom’s side, spinning wild lies to discredit me.
They sat my brother down and told him fabricated stories, claiming they were sending me money—$500 a month—to make it seem like I was ungrateful and dishonest.
They called my friends back home, spreading venom about me and planting seeds of doubt about my character, achievements, and integrity.
They even reached out to my professional network, attempting to tarnish the reputation I worked tirelessly to build.
The most gut-wrenching part was their attempts to isolate me. They couldn’t control me directly anymore, so they sought to control my environment. By spreading lies and manipulating those close to me, they tried to turn my own connections against me. Friends I had known for years became disrespectful and cold, poisoned by the whispers of a family desperate to keep their secrets hidden.
But the ultimate betrayal came in 2022, during my aunt Pilar’s final days. Pilar was a guiding light in my life—a maternal figure who showed me love and compassion in a family devoid of both. When she was diagnosed with cancer, I wanted nothing more than to be by her side. But my family, knowing how much she meant to me, denied me access to her. They isolated her in her final moments, refusing to let me say goodbye. I wasn’t even allowed to attend her funeral.
To add to this, when I reached out in the past for help during moments of crisis—whether it was my body giving out in December 2023, or a serious injury while working on jewelry in my studio in 2021—I was always met with cruel indifference. Their response? “Go to a women’s shelter.”
This was a family that claimed to care for me, yet at every turn, they worked to undermine, isolate, and destroy me. They didn’t stop at lies or theft, they weaponized my love and trust, turning it against me in ways that left scars I’ll carry for a lifetime.
The Turning Point
By the end of 2022, I was done. Done with their lies, done with their abuse, done with the toxic cycle that had defined my life for far too long. I cut off every single tie, not just with my family but also with the friends they poisoned against me. I realized that holding onto these connections—no matter how familiar—was holding me back.
The cost of breaking free was immense. I lost people I thought I could trust. I lost the illusion of a family. I lost the comfort of familiarity. But in shedding these toxic ties, I gained something far more valuable: Clarity.
The Emotional Toll
The betrayal wasn’t just financial or social, it was deeply emotional. My grandmother, the woman who raised me, used my love for her as a weapon. She called me daily after I moved to Canada, and I thought this was love. I now see it as control, her way to keep tabs on me, to ensure I never strayed too far from the narrative she crafted.
Her manipulation went beyond lies. She planted seeds of self-doubt and insecurity, repeating cruel and hateful remarks about my mother and me throughout my childhood. She convinced me I was destined to fail, to follow in the fabricated footsteps of my mother—a “prostitute,” a “fling,” someone unworthy of love or respect.
When I finally cut ties, the weight of their absence was both freeing and suffocating. I grieved not just for what they did to me but for the love I thought I had. I grieved for the family I never truly had—a family that could have nurtured, protected, and uplifted me but chose instead to control, betray, and abandon me.
Confronting the Past: My Grandmother, the Power of Attorney, and the Betrayal
My grandmother is a complex figure in my life. Despite everything, I hold love for her. I don’t feel hate, even knowing the pain she has caused me. She, like all of us, is a victim of her own story, shaped by her trauma and circumstances. I truly believe she did her best with what she had. But love and understanding don’t erase the harm done.
When I began asking questions about my family’s actions and the truth about my past, her response was not clarity but silence—and often verbal and emotional abuse. No answers, no explanations, just a wall of resistance and screams directed at me.
The breaking point came when I discovered that my grandmother had misused the power of attorney I entrusted to her. I flew to Ecuador to void it, but even that wasn’t simple. My family made the first document disappear—likely leveraging their connections in the notary’s office—forcing me to void it a second time. Throughout this harrowing week, my friend Bolek stood by me, offering me a place to stay and supporting me through the chaos.
What hit me hardest wasn’t just the betrayal but the fear. For the first time in my life, I genuinely felt unsafe. In Ecuador, having someone hurt—or even killed—is terrifyingly cheap, and I couldn’t shake the feeling that my family’s actions had put me at risk. PTSD hit me like a wave as I grappled with the realization of just how far they might go to protect their secrets.
And yet, through it all, one truth kept me grounded: my father’s love and hard work. I grew up hearing from my grandmother herself how my dad was a brilliant businessman, how he worked tirelessly until his dying breath to ensure his children were cared for. His business was absorbed into my grandfather’s business after his death, and my grandmother spent years collecting the debts and profits he left behind for her.
But now, knowing what I know, I see the hypocrisy. They stole from me—denying me my father’s legacy while benefiting from his labour and sacrifices. This isn’t just about money; it’s about dignity, justice, and honouring the truth of my parents’ lives. This betrayal, as painful as it is, fuels my fight for justice. Because my father’s legacy, and my story, deserve better.
The Truth Is Out!
Last night, I uncovered the final piece of the puzzle—the truth about my life, my parents, and the lies that have been my reality for decades. It turns out that everyone knew who had infected whom, and yet my entire life was shrouded in manipulation and deceit.
My grandmother and adoptive family knew the truth but thought they could control it—and me. Their plan wasn’t just to erase my mother but to erase me as well. After all, they took me in believing I, too, would die from AIDS. Little did they know I would grow up healthy, AIDS-free, and joyful, defying every grim expectation they had.
I also learned the heartbreaking reality of my parent’s relationship. My dad was abusive to my mom, leading to their separation. He began dating another woman, who tragically passed away and seemed to be at the root of this nightmare. When my mom found out she was pregnant with me, they reconciled. Yet my father didn’t want me—my mom couldn’t understand why until one day, my grandmother and aunt arrived at her home while she was away. They told her family that my father had AIDS and demanded to know what they planned to do about me. This was the 90s and AIDS was very rare.
When my mom returned home and learned what had been said, her world collapsed. She finally understood why my father didn’t want me. Her partner had lied to her, and she was now carrying his child under the shadow of a death sentence. She was so overcome with grief that she physically harmed herself, slamming into walls in an attempt to escape the crushing reality.
My father’s family never wanted me to exist. But here I am—a testament to life’s greater plan. Because as much as human minds believe they have control over life, they do not. What God has prepared for someone, not even the devil himself can take away. My life stands as a powerful message of love, resilience, and justice in the face of separation and hatred. This is not just my story—it is a fight against the injustices we all face in one form or another.
A New Beginning
Today, I am no longer the person my family tried to shape me into. I am no longer a victim of their lies, their manipulation, or their hate. Breaking free from their control has allowed me to see my own worth, reclaim my story, and honour the legacy of my parents in a way they never could.
Yes, the cost of freedom was high. But the price of staying silent, staying trapped, would have been far greater. And if sharing my story inspires even one person to break free from their own darkness, it will have been worth it.
Turning Pain Into Purpose
This year has been about reclaiming my power, rewriting my story, and honouring my parents’ legacy. My mother’s strength, my father’s resilience—they live in me. I’m channelling this journey into my next jewelry collection "Love Legacy" for my label @epicodesigns. Each piece will be a tribute to the battles fought, the truths uncovered, and the light found in the darkest of places.
To anyone reading this: Don’t let the darkness of this world dim your light. Your story is yours to tell, your power yours to claim. Speak up. Live authentically. And never, ever let anyone else dictate your worth. Today, I live by a simple truth: No one has the right to define who you are but you. This is my truth. And I will never be silent again.
With love and resilience,
Andy
A Proud Trailblazer and Weirdo
Comments