Discover the path at Hestia's Hearth presents

A Survivor's Series

Stories of extraordinary events lived by ordinary women.

Atoctli’s story

In this century, since 1932, the Aboriginal people of El Salvador have become a voice demanding basic human rights. The ‘Rich’ who were concerned about their property and rights called this uprising communism. To support their ideology they constructed a picture of what a communist might look like. And so, if you wore jeans, or sneakers or long hair or short hair, or sang songs of freedom or asked for justice you could be taken from your home, held, questioned, tortured, murdered and disposed of without ever seeing your family again.

I grew up in El Salvador. The civil war was a backdrop to my life. It shaped the way I thought and eventually helped me become the person that I am today. Much of the credit for my survival goes to my mother. Many times she apologized to me for not protecting me more at home from the events of the war. I told her that my life began the day she kicked my father out of the house!

I was the youngest of 6 children, five still living. By the time I was a young girl my brothers and sisters were not living at home. They were really of a different generation from me because of the age differences. When they were still at home and my parents were fighting as they often did when my Father was home, they would take me into a different room to protect me so that I wouldn’t hear the words. They did not know that my Father was already abusing me sexually. When my Mother finally had enough of my Father’s abuse, she took a knife and told him to leave.

He tried to coerce me into going with him by lying about my Mother and her ability to take care of me. ‘She will make you a slave’, I was told. I don’t know where I found the strength or intuitive understanding, but I told him ‘NO! I will not go with you.’ That was the last time that I saw him in that context.

Because of financial constraints, my brothers and sisters had to drop out of school. My mother, who was a nurse, was working double shifts to make ends meet. When I came home from school I had to be very quiet and not make too much noise so that she could sleep. Even still, her presence in my life was very nurturing and very caring for me. My Mother was an essential piece of my life.

In 1979, while my family was in transition, there was a major coup in El Salvador. As a young child, I was always perceptive about my environment. I was an avid reader and I would read especially about what was going on in the movies. It was also around that time that I began to notice pictures in the papers and words that said disappeared . . . disappeared . . disappeared . . . and I wouldn’t understand what that meant. I envisioned people disappearing ‘phtzz’ like a puff of smoke into thin air. Later I learned that they had been taken away by the Para-military.

There was so much pain at home. I saw my first dead body at age six. I was on my way to school with my brother. We always walked through this soccer field. I saw a group of children looking at something and I was curious. As I drew near I saw it was a corpse. He had on a white tee shirt and it was soaked in blood. On his face, he had a handkerchief but I could see under that there were cuts on his face as if he had been chopped with a machete. In his hands, which were folded on his chest, was his ID card so everyone could see who he was.

No one said a word. Everyone just kept looking and no one said a word.

Later, it became natural. People started to say ’have you seen the dead bodies?’ The military would come and just take you away in the night and then you would be left somewhere else. Sometimes the bodies would never be found by their loved ones. They were left in the dumps or ravines to be eaten by the dogs and vultures. When a corpse was found in my neighbor hood it was usually someone from somewhere else.

So the dead would be put in the community house and people could come and try identify the body. Many were never found. There was such a lot of pain going on around me!

At the same time I was very dedicated. I was excited about doing my work for school. I remember now how it felt when I came home from school and my mother was there, I would run to her and wrap my arms around her neck and my legs around her body crying ‘Mommy! Mommy! Look at what I did’. I felt so good showing her my marks and my projects. The things that were very exciting for me was getting materials and Learning! Learning! Learning!

Over the years the episodes of sexual abuse were encapsulated and buried somewhere in my unconsciousness but it would always come back to me. The moment I realized what had happened was when my mother and my sister came to me at puberty to explain to me about all the reproductive organs. They asked me if I wanted a mirror to see myself and I said ‘NO!’. I realized then that something had happened to me. There was a feeling of shame and a voice inside the back of my head that always said ‘never tell anybody about this’. There was a confusion in my mind about what had happened. As a child I could not make sense of it. I would feel very anxious sometimes, often sitting curled up on the couch, crying and weeping, fearful of what would happen.

Before my mother and sister came to me, I remember having this repetitive dream. In the night I would dream that I would be in a sinking boat and being absorbed by the water filling the boat but then the boat would keep sinking through the sand and then I would have a double feeling of drowning from the water and from the sand. There was a total feeling of asphyxiation. Then I would appear inside the ship again and there was a huge cloud of mosquitoes. I knew in my dreams that the mosquitoes would not be sucking my blood but eating my flesh. I would run and run and run until I reached a wall. I would always reach that point and then I would wake up.

In another dream, there was a poor community where I would walk through on my way to school. I would come into a particular house and I could never find the exit. I would be wandering around. Then one day, there was a moment in which I found the exit. I cannot tell you how but from that day on, when I had the dream, I would be able to find my way out. So I kept the secret of the abuse inside of me and suffered in silence.

There was repression going on internally and externally. Neither the war raging outside or the war inside my body was more painful than the other. All I knew was that I could never ever speak out about the abuse by my father because of the secrecy around what had happened.

I also knew that I could not speak out about the events outside. There were things, I knew that I should never ever say although we would laugh and joke about at school. I remember once there was a big speech by some members of the guerillas and after that there was a big shooting . . . not like a little ‘ping, ping’ of occasional gunfire but hours and hours of shots being fired. We would go out and listen to the things they had to say and they would talk about repression and oppression and what action needed to be taken and they would be spraying things on the walls of the houses.

On my house they sprayed this saying that I could never understand “Duarte opportunista esta con los fascistas”. I asked my mother what that meant and I was told

‘ shhh, don’t ask! and don’t tell anybody!’. So I went on knowing that at anytime my life could end and that at every corner my life was in danger.

Eventually I finished high school and was very active in sports. I remember around that time too my mother got into some very religious Catholic type practices. Every night she would pray. I never wanted to go with her but one night in particular, I felt very lonely and very sad and I knew I wanted to share with her what had happened to me. I approached her as she was praying the rosary and I asked her if I could join her. She said, ‘yes of course’. When we ended the prayer I told her what had happened to me. We cried so much. As I cried she embraced and hugged me and later she told me that she felt like a big stick had been put through her heart.

Things changed drastically from that moment. A few days later, I had a vision of a woman dressed in a blue and white gown embracing me. I could smell the scent of roses. In a matter of seconds, I got transported to a different place. People may find it hard to believe but that is what I saw and felt. That time was a very important time for my healing. There was a group of community women who did a lot of healing ceremonies in which they go through your life and try to bring positive healing energies to you. God’s energy, nurturing energy, it was, to those difficult painful moments of my life.

That was when I turned from a crying woman to a singing woman. I learned to play the guitar and began to sing and dance and became a leader. Being around people, changing situations by helping people to heal and feel better, helped me too. I became a nun based on those experiences and I worked in a residential place for abused girls.

At that point too, I remember becoming more aware of the political struggle in El Salvador, more aware of the need for change, more aware of the need to make the history of the resistance mine. It was my struggle, and now I was embracing it fully.

In 1989, finally the guerillas took the offensive from the countryside to the capital city. They went to the richest neighborhoods in El Salvador and showed the rich, that the oppressed peoples of El Salvador would not be defeated. This precipitated the peace accord. Over 75, 000 were killed in a population of about 3.5million. Today El Salvador has about 5 million people. It is approximately 22,000 sq kms. In the media it was strange that the heroes were portrayed as the military and the real heroes, the guerillas were portrayed as the bad people. In a commission of truth, established as part of the peace accord, the issue of the human rights violations perpetrated during the war was examined. It was found that approximately 99% of the violations were done by the armed forces.

When the peace accord was signed in El Salvador, I decided it was time for me to leave the convent and try to concentrate my energies on mental health and women’s rights.

I would consider my self a survivor of the war as a civilian and I would consider myself a survivor of the warfare that was happening at home. I believe that my mother’s presence helped me to gain sense of balance. She always told me that I must always look to the future. As I looked around and saw the pain on the faces of people around me I knew that I would not want to cause that kind of pain to anyone. I always felt that my mission was not to perpetrate pain but to embrace a healing journey; my own and then letting the healing energy expand to others, sharing this energy with others.

There have been important people in my life because they denounced lies as they were happening and they announced that there was something else out there. They were prophets for us because they taught values, but they would show and live them too. Many of them are dead and gone but we can still hear their voices. For example, there were the Jesuits who were killed in 1989. They were just professors at the university where I graduated but they were killed because they spoke out and said we must not kill each other and that the root of the problem was not communism but poverty and exploitation. The words and death of Archbishop Romero still haunt me. He asked us to follow the commandment of God by not killing each other. What kind of person would kill a man who preaches peace? All of those people have influenced me in many ways.

Do you feel that your story has some extraordinary quality? If so, what would that be.

What is your most vivid or defining moment?

Was there a point in your story when you consciously felt that no matter how difficult you would survive?

Once when I was at university and just about to leave for home, there was gunfire outside and I had to run into the basement to hide. Later when things stopped, we came outside to be met by guns pointing at us from all directions. There were just a few of us alone. I was dressed plainly, no gun, no weapon of any kind, facing the possibility of being shot. It was the International Red Cross that interceded on my behalf to allow me to pass and go home. Another time, guns were blazing everywhere, helicopters were flying overhead spraying bullets in the neighbourhood. My mother and I were hiding in a corner of the house. After the shooting stopped a little boy knocked on the door and showed us a bomb that had dropped on the roof but did not go off. It was right above the place where we were hiding. There were many times when we came close to death by stepping on a land mine for example, as happened to one of my uncles. He bled to death because no one could help him. We were so close to death all the time.

How did the changes/events in your life most affect you?

What are some of the ways in which you found meaning or support to carry on?

Now I share with people who are politically aware.

Therapy was helpful both giving and receiving.

Today I believe in taking political action on the issue of violence against women.

I believe too in enjoying life fully, having fun sometimes.

How big a part did Spirit, Religion or Energy play in your decision-making?

Do you have any tips for creating a meaningful life?

Believe yourself healed! Connect internally and externally with yourself. The you of the past, the you of the present and the you of the future and have a dialogue with yourselves. Connect with others who are nurturing and call upon their energies.

At what part of the process was a support network part of your healing and how did it help?

Are you prepared to give voice to the idea that you have shown tremendous courage in facing these challenges head on?

I know that it takes a lot of courage to embrace a healing journey. It is not a conscious thing that we choose. The moment we are faced with the situation we learn to cope whether it be fighting back or dissociation or whatever we need to do. We need to develop coping mechanisms whatever they may be as long as they work for us at that moment and help us to survive.

Comments, thoughts, messages are welcome!

When Persephone was returned to her mother the world again became a beautiful fertile place for the six months that Persephone stayed above earth. When she returned to her underworld winter fell upon the land until her spring return. In her underworld she was not a prisoner. She learned to help the dead souls to cross over peacefully to their new home.

Athena is the warrior Goddess, not born of a woman but fashioned from the brow of her Father. She is different from the Diana Archetype in that she will be front and centre in any battle. Whereas Diana was a huntress, Athena is a warrior and soldier ready to fight for what is right. Athena is not beloved of women. She carries a masculine forceful energy that puts her on a level with men but in her world, to survive, she had to be that way.

We are grateful to Atoctli for her very moving and powerful story. As she continues on her healing journey we wish her all the love and support that she may need to fulfill the promise of gifts of life and love.

Hierademater