"Raul
was Hector’s pride and joy and
his legacy to carry on his name. Much
of
what Raul did was to please Hector, not because Hector asked him to,
but
because he so desperately wanted Hector, his idol as well as his
Father, to be
proud of him. Raul knew that much of what Hector loved about him was
the hopes
and dreams that Hector had invested into Raul."
"Raul always tried to convenience himself that the part of him that longed for a man had to die and he had to just love the great life that he had. Raul struggled to understand how he could feel so lonely when he was so loved. Raul was never sure what was worse; not feeling like he could be authentic or the incredible loneliness that came from pretending to be the exact son he thought his family wanted him to be."
"Maria was aware that suicide rates were higher in gay teens than straight teens. She was also aware of the incredible discrimination and rejection that gays and lesbians endure and did not want that for her son. With her strong faith, she believed that if she prayed hard enough, that God would change Raul."
"Sarah was the first person that Raul felt totally understood him; she saw straight through him and saw his soul. Sarah was very intuitive about people; she saw them for exactly who they were…Sarah was able to empathize with Raul’s pain without letting his pain be an excuse for why he could not live an amazing life."
"This was the most painful night of Raul and his family’s life, but there was a sense of relief that he was finally honest. It was very cathartic for Raul and Maria. Erika was torn between feeling compassion and sympathy for Raul, and at the same time feeling deeply betrayed, deceived and used by him. Hector was in shock and did not know what to do, think or say. It was going to take him a long time to process everything."
“Great,
now write it down. You have seven
things that you say you want, and in order for you to live the life you
want,
you have to have a vision for your life. You also have to have actions
and
words that are congruent. So my role in therapy is to help you have the
life
you want to live as long as it is healthy. When your actions and words
are
incongruent, I am going to call you out….. You need to know
that the work of
therapy falls on the patient, and if you really want to get out of this
low
period in your life, you are going to have to do the work.”
"If you are honest with yourself, you will attract people into your life who are as healthy as you are."