Hello there,
The following is basically my life, you might feel that it is a bit long but it is one of the few times I have opened up to tell my story. If you feel you are interested in helping out another human being please read it, at the end I ask for your help because I need to learn how to forgive.

Every man holds countless demons in their heart. Some hold hate against people different than them, others fight against addictions and other such as me, is swarmed daily with resentment against the people who raised me.
My story is that of many of the Y Generation, a child that lived the oh so popular divorce pandemic of the 1990`s, no real guidance on how to grow into being a respectable man and to be prepared for a world that has changed so quickly that the values that were taught to me by fictional characters such as Captain Planet or the Power Rangers are almost inapplicable to the contemporary vision of today’s world.

Now enough said I am turning to this forum for some advice from people that can probably see my problem from outside and can help me cure this hatred I carry and that is slowly destroying my life.

I was born in Toronto back in the late 80`s, my mother was a Mexican immigrant that had flown to Canada to learn English but fell in love with the maple leaf flag and a tough older man who is my father, a Slovak immigrant who escaped Czechoslovakia during the student protests against the Russians back in the day. During my early childhood I have to admit that my life was as common as any other Canadian child, I had a little sister, a mother and a father, a big white house with a huge garden and the peace of mind that every child deserves. I had no idea what was the situation between my parents due to my age.

One day I saw my mother crying, I had to be 7 or 8 by that time, it was the first moment I realized my mother had more emotions therefore was a human being, a few months after that my sister and I had moved with my mother into a women shelter and a few months after that into a basement apartment with financial aid from the government.

At that moment I still had contact with my father and my mother was putting all her heart into raising my sister and I as well as possible.

One day my mother came home with a young man with a very strong Spanish accent, she told me she was going to "study" with him and entered her room, I was very naive at that time, so I kept playing in my room with my sister. After a few minutes there was a knock on the door, it was my father who looked a bit uneasy, he asked me "where is your mother?" and I pointed to her room saying she was with a friend "studying" my father understood what that ment and ran straight to her room and began to bang the door and shout, my mother opened the door and my father barged into the bedroom yelling "where is he?" my mother acted obtuse and innocent telling him that she had no idea what he was talking about but that didn`t stop him from checking under the bed and harshly instigating my mother because she had brought a man over to our house when my sister and I were around. While that was happening I began looking for the guy around the room to help my father, I had no idea what kind of situation I was witnessing at that moment, Then I looked inside my mom’s closet and saw some legs hiding behind a dress, looked up and there was his face scared and shaking, then he put his finger slowly to his mouth and whisperingly sissed "shhh". I had no idea who this shirtless man was, but if this was a hide and seek game I had already won! so I yelled to my father "he`s here! the man is here!".
Now being a 7 year old kid it is almost a known fact that your father is the strongest man in the world, that day I witnessed it, I had never seen one man grab another full sized man and throw him across the room onto the bed grab him by the neck and with a steady and firm voice yell "stay away from my family" My mother`s study companion just picked up his pants and fled.

Sadly that warning did not persist because one week later the man was back and it was not long until he had moved in definitely.

Now I believe that before continuing I will have to address this new character in my life with more profound description, his name was Xavier a 30 year old medicine student from Ecuador who was volunteering in a hospital in Canada because he could not practice legally due to Canada`s medical policies, oh and he lived in his parents basement.
As time began to pass, Xavier tried to win us over our father taking us out to the park, showing us how to play soccer and the dangers of playing with fireworks, the only problem I had with him was that he was not my father and as a child did not understand that my mother needed a man in her life, therefore I rebelled against him and his authority, He would oblige me to call him "father" which I never did and I would revolt against him anytime he would shatter my real father`s reputation, slowly our relationship moved from a distant but respectable one to much more violent terms. He began hitting me and my sister if we would do things that he did not approve of, for instance putting our elbows on the table would earn us at least a "coscoron" which is a Spanish word for flicking ones knuckles on your head or a plain slap on the face, to challenge his authority would earn us a good beating until we were too scared to leave our room.

One day coming back from school my mother had our luggage ready, she said we were going to "wonderland" (The Canadian equivalent to Disneyland but without the 10 hour lineups) but Wonderland was something very different than what I thought after walking off the plane to see a big sign welcoming us to Mexico. As time passed I found out that my mother had lost custody on my sister and I, so she forged the paper work necessary to take us to Mexico and not lose us to our dad.

In Mexico City things weren`t that nice at the start, first of all I was the only tall blond kid that spoke English, so I was a victim of a lot of bullying at school, since day one I had to walk alone to school because my mother had to work, so discovering one of the world`s largest cities by yourself at the age of 9 is a great shock, but I preferred to stay away from home as much as possible because being home would mean to have to deal with Xavier and a very stressful mother. The beatings got more intense as time passed and I grew more, this time the use of belts, sticks and cables where his favorite items to install his authority without forgetting that he had become a fan of ridiculing my sister and I in public, for example once I got stuck on some monkey bars in the park and he pulled down my pants so my ass was in the air while I cried for help.

As I slowly began to grow into puberty I was becoming much more defiant and the situation of my house was much more intense than ever, so my mother had decided to send me to Canada back with my father, the thing is that the man I had moved back with was a different one, he was a sad man full of frustration, he had given up on life after his marriage ended and had no will to overcome it, our interaction was also very harsh and conflictive so I decided to move back to Mexico one more time.

When I arrived back I was obliged in calling Xavier “father” again which I never did, his abuse continued and I was ever more defiant. One day one of Xavier`s friends came to visit, while we were in the living room I had made a remark that he did not like and in front of his friends I was beaten up again, this time my mother intervened but after that I was considered a problem child, so I was sent to military school. Need to say I hated it but had no escape, in Mexican military schools corporal punishment was allowed so I was beaten everyday for different reasons, one of them because I did not have the uniform required although it was because they didn`t have uniforms my size. My mother took me out after I tried to break my leg with a baseball bat so I could miss school.

I was transferred to another school where everything went smoothly, Xavier was still violent but I was getting stronger and faster so when he tried to punch me I was able to escape, limiting him to more verbally abusive tactics. Once Secondary school was over I only wanted to go back to Canada, to be with Canadians and to not feel as an outsider but my father refused to accept me, so I was sent to a private high school very far from my house, I would have to take public transit everyday which would take me around two hours each day to get there, I was 16 at the time and began asking my family to help me out with a car but they refused profoundly saying that the only thing they were going to give me was an education, a car was something I had to buy by myself so that I would not become a little “junior”. After a year in that high school and failing most of my courses I moved back to Canada to finish off my high school.
The two years I was there where hard at the beginning, my father was traumatized that I wasn`t a man at the age of 17 so he would take me to the doctor to try to get hormones to start growing a beard, obviously the doctors refused and my father blamed my mother for that. The first year I was there I had joined an acting club, but my father said that I was a homosexual for being part of that and that he was sure I was in that club just to meet other gay boys, he kicked me out shortly after when I had refused to quit the club, I felt mentally stimulated and part of a group. I had joined the Rugby team also where I am proud to say that we got farther than any passed team had gotten and we went undefeated until the championship game, the only game my father attended and criticized our performance on the field. Around those dates I tried to commit suicide, but before passing out on the floor of the washroom had a need to wake up and not let myself go, I couldn`t leave my sister alone in this world.

When I was ready to go to university I was interested in culinary arts and business, after being accepted by all the institutions I had applied to, my father did not accept to sign the papers necessary for the governmental student loan, with the excuse that I did not have it in me to study business and I had to go for a trade, something more according to my intellect. I was left with no education therefor I moved back to Mexico to study business there.
I had the chance to study in a very well known institution in a small village called Cholula, I spent five years there where I learned many things, met many people and had a chance to go for an exchange program to Brazil. Although the school is for the country`s ultra elite and my classmates would drive to school in their BMW`s, M-Benz or hummers I was well adapted and could interact with them on an equal level, although I did ask once in a while for help to have my own car because I could not afford to buy one with school and the Mexican minimum wage (4 dollars a day) The answer was always negative and although I did envy my friends that had complete mobility, I managed to live the small town lifestyle.

The day I graduated was an important day for me, five years of battling through hard courses and insane exams, I presented my Thesis with a unanimous approval and a recognition from my professors, that day the only person who told me she was proud of me was my new little brother`s nana. Until this date neither of my parents have ever told me that they are proud of me, I believe that if they every say those words to me I will crack down in tears, it is the only thing I ever dream of hearing from them.
Now that I had graduated I was ready to live my own life, free and independent but the thing was that I had no idea how to do it, the job market was lame back then, nothing that was being offered amused me in any way and the wage I was getting offered was not enough to even pay the rent for a room. So I decided that I was not going to let myself lose my momentum and took a flight to Brussels to see what Europe had for me. I stayed there for four months with a Belgian girl who was incredibly beautiful but had such a low self-esteem that our life was a living hell together, but that served as a good motivation to get out of Belgium and see the rest of the continent, I managed to bike from Brussels to Strasbourg, visited some friends in Stuttgart, London and Valladolid, I can`t complain I was poor but living the dream.
When I moved back from Europe to Mexico the day I arrived home the first thing my mother told me was “you have two weeks to get a job and get out of here, you know we love you but you are not welcome in our house” that broke my heart and I began to look desesperatly for a job but could never find something that would be able to finance a life on my own with no help, wages were around $700 a month and a room in Mexico City goes around $600 if you want to live relatively centric (1 hour by car is considered close, public transport can take up to 3 hours) I asked my stepfather for a loan for a car, that way I could live in a cheaper area, but work in the business district where most of my friends from school were, but he refused and stated the same thing, “you have to earn it by yourself” I was becoming insane and resentment was bubbling in my brain, I began to smoke a lot of weed, drink until I fell asleep and continued the vicious cycle day after day, until the day my dead line was up. That day I went to the airport and spent the last savings I had on an airplane ticket to Montreal.

Once in Montreal life was good I can not complain, I did a number of odd jobs, from waitering to selling clothing to being a cook, I had a great group of friends and was really becoming a bad ass cook in one of the city`s most coolest restaurants, sure I was earning minimum wage which in Canada is way more than enough to live a decent life, but I began to feel that I was letting time pass and one day I was going to wake up and ask myself “What did you do with your life” obviously my Mexican diploma was not accepted in Canada and my French although good enough to have a nice conversation with a pretty Quebecer was not enough to get a job in my field, but one thing was different I had so much confidence in myself that I was ready to move back to Mexico and do what had to be done to live at 26 the life I always dreamed about.

I moved back to Mexico City and used my savings to rent an apartment for me and my girlfriend who I brought from Montreal, the rest of my savings I spent it on buying things to open a small mobile café but ran out of resources once I crashed into my first obstacle, corruption. All of a sudden I had to pay the cops a large commission to not get arrested, I needed to pay the “Union Leaders” to have a right to sell on the street and needed to pay the District delegate a percentage of my earnings. I was very sad at that moment but didn`t want to stop, I came up with the idea to find a quick job in the meantime and to continue with my plan. By then my stepfather had become a very successful plastic surgeon, he earns close to 40k USD a month, has multiple investments in different areas and owns a shopping mall. He was the person I needed to talk to get some help, so I went with him and asked him one last time for a loan to buy a small Volkswagen beetle that could fit an espresso machine on the back, that way I could use it as a utility van, work place and not have to pay any corrupt governmental workers because I could move anytime I saw a police car come close to me, as was expected he declined saying that I had to prove I needed a car, but how much evidence do you need by living in a city with no public transport and distances that are inhuman? A month after he bought my little brother a super luxurious sport car for his 18th birthday, I felt so much anger and resentment that I cannot stop thinking about it one second of my life.

Now I am dead poor in Mexico City, can`t find a job and eat a bowl of white rice a day, I am planning on moving to a city called San Miguel de Allende which is known to be much smaller and peaceful, I will be using my last $70 to buy a bus ticket, once I am there I won’t have anything but my own spirit, I will probably have to live on the street for some time until I can manage to get a job and save up to rent a room, but one thing I have deeply incrusted in me is hate towards my stepfather and my family that is eating me alive. I am afraid that I will end up as my father, a bitter man and I am only 27. I don`t know what to do.