I owed it to you, I owed it to me

For a while this took up so much space in my mind that I'm going to tell you that I don't even know where to start. It took me 6 years to digest it, accept it and transform it into something beautiful.

I feel physical pain in my chest right now and I cry, I cry a lot. But I know that my crying already speaks from another place. I feel that this is the end of a very hard stage and I swear that doing it with you makes the most sense.

Let's start at the beginning... I studied social work without knowing why. I had always planned to study psychology, but at the last minute, I don't know why I decided to change. During my entire degree I worked full-time as a receptionist at a nursing home and I was so captivated by that world that I decided that my professional career when I left university would be in that field.

I fell in love with older people: their experiences, their wisdom, their fragility... I have always been one for challenges and I wanted to end up working in a social emergency center for older people. It was very clear to me! And I got it.

For 5 years I worked there, with very difficult situations from which I learned, I would tell you, 90% of what I know today. I learned a lot from each of the people I treated: from that woman who was admitted because her husband mistreated her; of that Mr. Who drank to forget all the mistakes he had made, of the one who came from living on the street... and of each one of them who opened up to me telling me everything that had made him get there. There I was absolutely happy, I felt at home, surrounded by people who valued and loved me, wonderful colleagues, many of whom are friends today.

But after 5 years I needed to see more ways of working, I wanted to learn from other teams and they proposed another challenge to me: opening a new residential center together with a person whom I greatly appreciated and had a lot of trust in. And here the story begins... right at that moment, without knowing it, a very difficult stage would begin for me and that would change me forever.

Everything there was chaos, from beginning to end. The center opened with many deficiencies, lack of personnel, lack of material, in a rush... And when you work with people you learn that rush is never a good companion. People need time to get to know each other, to adapt... and none of this was possible there.

And do you know that phrase that what starts badly, ends badly? Well, I swear to you that it is true, true. That only got worse every day. I and a large part of the team were fighting against a huge and very strong company that only wanted to profit from those families who could not take care of their elders at home and who entrusted their most precious asset to us.

I fought so hard in that center... we lacked material, we lacked professionals and lack of control reigned there every day. My head was constantly fighting with the idea of ​​leaving that job and leaving, I had many contacts and finding a job would be very easy for me but I was incapable of leaving those who were “my protégés” there, each of those gentlemen and ladies whom I had accompanied since their admission and that their families had placed the trust in me to take care of their mothers and fathers.

Between constant meetings, minutes and emails warning of the lack of control that existed there, I went to work on a Sunday. That day I was on duty and as soon as I arrived the center's assistants were waiting for me with some images saved on a mobile phone. I cried, cried and cried non-stop watching that. I don't need to describe what I saw, but I remember that moment as if I had experienced it yesterday. Crying, I ran to my office, I called a contact I had, I kept a lot of documentation and I knew that those were going to be the last moments I would spend in that center.

I REPORTED

I was so aware of what I was doing and so aware that this was the end of me... but so aware...

I was just meeting Sergi at that time, I asked for my time and told him to accompany me to a police station where they had summoned me. And there I told everything, absolutely everything. I couldn't stop crying

On Monday, as was my turn, I went to work. I still don't know how I was able to do it, but I went into the director's office and told her: the police are going to come because a complaint has been filed, and I filed it.

If I thought I had cried, I had no idea how much I had left to cry. That was horrible: meetings and more meetings that day. With one person, then with three, then with four... with a single objective: withdraw the complaint.

From then on I felt all the feelings that one can feel: anger, sadness, anger... they advised me to take leave to avoid further pressure from the company and to maintain maximum silence with my colleagues whom I appreciated very much and knew were suffering because of it. how I was. I received letters, calls, burofax... all with the same objective: withdraw the complaint. But I never ever considered doing it.

I was forced to sign a voluntary resignation from my job (it was my mother who handed it in because they recommended that I not go). I was never able to say goodbye to my users, nor their families, nor my colleagues... nor pick up my things from my office. I hope you have never been forced to leave a place without saying goodbye because it is the worst ending.

I had lost my job. Without unemployment. Without companions. Independent, with expenses to face and a brutal crisis of values. If as a social worker my duty was to ensure that my users were well... why was I the one who had been punished in that way?

I became disenchanted with my profession, with the people who governed, with those who managed these types of centers and with everyone who pointed the finger at me for having named something that everyone knew was happening.

I went through the most difficult months of my professional and personal life. I didn't want to go back to work in what had been my profession and vocation. Because I loved my job, anyone who has ever worked with me knows it. I needed many hours of therapy to cry and accept what had happened. And I was forced to go back to work, but it was never the same. I was not me (and as I write this sentence I cry endlessly). They took away my vocation

For a year and a half I continued working in various places, but I felt that that was no longer my place. At the same time, I accompanied Sergi a lot when painting and I was immersed in that whole world of creativity that surrounded him... and I don't know in what way or when I started sewing. I went to Sergi's mother's house to be taught, hours and hours... I had never sewn, nor seen a pattern, nor managed a social network... when they ask me how this project came about, I can't answer because I don't know. I know that he was born from the most fragile and damaged Mireia but that he was able to transform all that into a new experience.

For months I wondered... would you report again? And they made me doubt at times. But now, having passed time, I tell you that I would act the same 1000 times. As a result of that complaint, things changed. I couldn't see it but I got news from a thousand channels. Let no one tell you that reporting is worthless, because it is not true. Perhaps the result is slower than we would like, perhaps the suffering of the one who takes the step is too great and perhaps the fear at first paralyzes you but the one who hits the table later feels that he can handle everything.

Why Dandelion as a name? Because they say that when you blow on them, a new dandelion grows from each of their pistils and that's how I felt at that moment, being reborn after being destroyed.

Behind every project, social networks and a careful photo there is a story, many times harder than we imagine. You have told me so many of your stories that I also felt that I owed you my story. Dandelion has healed me, through dandelion life has given me back so much love that I assure you that everything I cried at that moment I even feel was worth something. If I had to go through that to get here, I assure you it was worth it.

THANK YOU MILLIONS FOR ACCOMPANYING ME IN THESE 4 YEARS. FOR HEALING ME WITH YOUR STORIES AND FOR MAKING THIS PROJECT THE BEST OF THE GIFTS