When in 2020 I created the photographic series “The Body I Live In”, self-portraiture transformed for me into the mirror I had always avoided looking into to see my body. A body which, for decades, has carried on its light skeleton dozens of excess kilos of body weight.
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I never expected that, five years later, through the terribly painful and agonizing path of self-knowledge consciousness and spirituality, I would come to meet the soul and spirit that I am. That behind them lies a profoundly and irreparably wounded embryo, newborn, baby, child, adolescent, woman, who for 51 years had been screaming for help but no one ever heard me.

My parents never understood. Only my teachers in primary school would tell my mother: “Maria is from another era, from another world. She is hypersensitive and infinitely romantic and will not manage to survive in the world we live in.”

And Maria grew up and still could not manage to survive in the world we live in.

And none psychologist, psychotherapist, holistic health counsellor or energy healer, in sixteen whole years, ever saw what was truly happening to me.
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I always recounted that I was born abused, in breech position and wrapped completely in my umbilical cord.
I always recounted that, at 13 months, I ran a fever of 41°C with convulsions, went into syncope, and did not come back for some time. That I eventually returned.
Not only to friends and acquaintances, but to all my doctors and therapists.
But I recounted these things as an observer, from an emotional distance.
It is the way our soul finds ways to protect itself, and our body follows in order to survive.
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Until, about three years ago, my hypersensitive heart could no longer bear the successive wounds and I collapsed psycho-emotionally. Sadness and anger filled my body with terrible contractions and spasms, and I could not move from the pain. The emotional pain had now somatized, striking the muscles that protect the heart itself and our nervous system.
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A wrong diagnosis led to a wrong treatment, which instead of relieving and healing me, took me back to my birth trauma, to relive everything I had experienced before and after it. One system after another began to collapse, with unimaginable speed, until I reached absolute physical, psycho-emotional and mental breakdown (burnout).
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Self-diagnosis and self-healing became the only path.
I found myself injured, hurt, betrayed, panic-stricken, terrified, desperate.
Alone — without any help.
With a family for whom I had always been the rock and the support.
With a sister who left at 17 for career and family and never looked back.
And with friends leaving my life one by one during the hard times.
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What I had left were my two sides (since, on top of everything else, I discovered I am also ambidextrous), my quiver with Bach flower remedies, homeopathy, and nutritional supplements in which I had been trained.
The seminars that came as gifts before me exactly at the moment I needed them.
And photography.
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Photography in all its aspects: from the spontaneous capture of an image, to observing it, understanding it, realizing it, connecting with it — before and after — through to its editing, the creation of a statement/narrative/story.

But, above all, its therapeutic quality — when you finally look at it on a screen, on paper, or framed — and it speaks to your heart, your soul, and your spirit.
And you see you, and only you, and you recognize yourself in it.
A unique feeling and emotion.
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Thus, through the path of self-knowledge and the world of consciousness and spirituality, I managed to piece together all the missing parts of my life’s puzzle and to interpret what had been happening to me from the tips of my toes to the top of my head — and beyond.
Even people or encounters did not come into my life by chance, but to teach me something and lead me to place another piece of the puzzle.
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Until the time came for the most painful and shocking realization.
Maria, the hypersensitive little girl who until then could not survive in this world we live in, has ADHD as a neurological condition from a seven-month-old fetus, a deep birth trauma, and high-functioning autism.
Maria, who until then endured inhuman social racism and discrimination — from kindergarten, school, society, stereotypes, trainers, and therapists — Maria, whom this rotten and decayed system, as well as the uncultivated of soul and spirit people, even her own family who never truly understood what was happening to her, made feel and believe she was defective — is, in fact, different and gifted.
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And no one until then had given her the tools and weapons, nor the special treatment she needed to be able to flourish.
It was an enormous emotional shock for me.
First, to accept it myself for myself and feel at peace with it.
But then an incredible accumulated anger awoke, even rage, for all the insults, judgments, criticisms, devaluations, admonitions, mockeries, sneers, malice that I had endured for decades.
For a society and a human race that not only does not accept and embrace difference, but fights it with hatred, resentment, jealousy, envy, competitiveness.
An endlessly lonely, painful, and agonizing journey.
But, at the same time, endlessly liberating.
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Through all this path, one phrase was what kept me going.
When I bent.
When I fell.
When I collapsed.
When my heart ached from sorrow and disappointment.
When my nervous system burned from anger and rage.
When my body spoke with every word and every emotion I experienced.
It was a phrase by Alberto Viloldo:
 
“Whatever happens around you, no matter how much war you receive, no matter how much they doubt you for who you are and what you do, you must not lose your faith and courage, and you must continue on the path of your soul.”
With him, I saw who I was in a previous life.
With him, I bid farewell to souls.
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So at some point, on this road of self-diagnosis and self-healing, I realized something essential:
There is no one — absolutely no one — other than yourself who knows you better.
Every teacher or curator I approached made different choices of photographs and different comments, essentially projecting themselves onto them.
The same happened with my therapists.
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So I decided to listen to my inner voice and wisdom, to choose my photographs myself, to do the editing myself, to write my own narratives and stories, and to build my photographic website myself — without any help, even though I asked for it from certain close people.
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There are traumas you cannot heal.
They will remain indelible and etched into your heart and brain.
They will awaken every time they are triggered.
The most important thing is to recognize them.
And to manage them with awareness.
To be able to turn your traumas into inner voice and wisdom, and to listen only to that — without changing for anyone or anything.

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