The relationship with my family was, in general, difficult. The relationship with my family during my search was particularly difficult.At my age, I have understood that we all do the best we can with what was given to us in this life and that it is impossible to give what you never received. So it was impossible for my parents to give what they never receivedA couple of years ago I asked my dad if he remembered when it was that my mom started being that bitter and aggressive person I grew up with. The fights at home were always violent.My mother always started them and my father endured the aggression until he exploded. The fights then became a marathon of physical, mental and emotional aggression from both sides, which could last for several days. My brother and I grew up in the midst of that unstoppable whirlwind that was created by them.Violence and abusive behavior towards children was very common in those days and I would even say it was considered normal. Things that at the time were considered a daily part of raising children would today make the majority react. But it all really escalated when I was 11, after my grandmother died. And I never understood why my father would put up with a woman as aggressive and cruel as my mother. I always thought that something must have happened to her along the way that turned her into that monster. The only answer I got from my dad was that she really dreamed of having children and after trying for 10 years, that frustration and sadness changed her. Eventually they adopted us and thus the dream of the two children, the house, the car and the provider husband came true. But despite that, there was a pain in her soul that never left her alone. And my father, who only wanted to play tennis, have two children, a house, a car and a beautiful housewife, had no peace either. His peace was always dependent on her peace. My brother, the first one to be adopted three years before me, was always the pride of the family, something that was obvious to everyone who knew us. Not only did he suffer the typical older sibling feeling of being displaced when I arrived, but he was also the one who suffered far more physical abuse than I did. Perhaps because he was the son, he learned to confront them and that's why he received much harsher punishment.I saw that, and I learned not to complain, or answer, or take space, or be sad. I learned to avoid the blow. My brother learned to take it. None of us had peace. He learned to confront, I learned to disappear, put on a poker face and pretend as if "nothing is happening here."A couple of years ago I realized that it is not normal for a 6 year old girl to pray to God at night to take her away because everything she does is wrong and she is just a mistake in this world.In my egocentrism as a child, when I thought I was the cause of all this, I thought it was my job to create that peace that didn't exist. That it was my job to save them, protect them, make them laugh, explain to them and show them how much I loved them, to beg them to stop fighting, to try to understand what hurt them so much and find a solution, a relief so that they would finally find peace within themselves and finally see me. So that there would be love in my family, the love that I had been waiting for for so many years. I did, as children do, everything I could to make them love me as I wanted to be loved, but I never succeeded. So asking about my adoption did not exist in my reality.The biggest threat, from what I understand, for adoptive parents, is that one day their adopted child will come to them and tell them “it's over”. That they don't love them anymore and that they are going to  look for their real family. The anxiety of losing their beloved children can make them quite crazy. And it´s understandable. It must be so scary. I felt that all the time. "Even a mare can give birth! A mother is the one who raises you", is what my mother used to say to make it clear to me that it was not worth looking for my biological mother.Children feel what their parents feel. Children understand beyond their words. So I never threatened to look for my biological mother. I had nowhere to go, there were no legal papers about who it was. The feeling that I had was that my biological mother didn't even bother to do things legally. She got rid of me "like a mare". At that time we began to hear about the Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo and their search for the children stolen by the dictatorship. But it never dawned on anyone in my family that I was one of them. As I mentioned earlier, according to the social norms of the time, I was the daughter of a slum person, a mare, also known as a poor person with no morals, who left me without looking back. But luckily, this family wanted to adopt me and give me the comfort of a middle-class life. As everyone had told me: "There´s no need to look back. The past must be forgotten."

Now, before I continue, a trigger warning here, as this is about to get a little bit darker.The good thing or the bad thing, depending on how you look at it, is that life has its own plans.Now, before I continue, a trigger warning here, as this is about to get dark.My suspicions about being the daughter of The Disappeared began sometime in 2001, but it was thnaks thanks to the rape that I survived the 7th of August of that year that many things changed in my life. That day I left the yoga instructor class and instead of taking the busiest street to walk the 6 blocks home, I took the parallel street. There I was stopped by a guy who threatened to kill me. He kidnapped me and eventually raped me. That day I thought I was going to die. Abuses like the one I suffered are still common in Argentina. It is still easy to rape and then kill women, and in 2001 it was even easier. I thought my time was up, right after the rape I looked around to see if anyone would save me but there was no one. This was my destiny and I thought, "I always did everything everyone wanted me to do, I always behaved well, I always tried not to be a burden, not to rebel, waiting for permission to exist and now I will die. What a waste of a life! In the end, no matter how hard you try, it all happens anyway." At the end of that day, I managed to convince my captor to let me go, and that's how the rebuilding of my being began.With the strength of the pain and probably the adrenaline of having survived, a short time later I asked my father for my birth certificate to go to the Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo and start the search. I don't remember exactly what happened that day and I wouldn't remember anything at all if it wasn't for my friend Adri, who was there with me. Apparently, he witnessed the scene where my father gave me the birth certificate yelling, "You're going to send us all to jail," and my mother screaming that if it hadn't been for them, I'd be dead. My family tried to convince me that the past meant nothing and that I was just looking for excuses to play the victim.Everyone in my family was against my search. And not only against it, they were violently against it. They were terrified of what they read in the newspapers about the Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo, terrified that I would leave them, terrified that the story was true: that they had bought a baby that had been stolen by the military.That was the last time I talked to them about it. I went to the Grandmothers, did what I was supposed to, moved shortly after to Sweden and never ever mentioned the subject again. My mother tried to get information out of me from time to time and said she had gone to a witch. The witch had told her that I was still searching in silence but that I would wait for her, my mother, to die in order to search freely. The witch was right, but I denied everything. My mother could not handle the anxiety of my search, nor could my father. So why generate more anxiety that I then have to deal with myself? No, I'd rather search in silence.In January 2013, my mother was diagnosed with stage 4 lung and liver cancer. I didn't get to see her while she was still conscious, but my aunt Mary told me that one of the things she had said in her last days was that she wanted me to would find my biological mother. My adoptive mom used to tell me that she watched that show on TV called “People looking for people” (Gente que busca gente) to see if any mother looking for a daughter who looked like me would show up. And when she would tell me this, I always answered : "I already have a mom." In my eyes, my mother was like a little girl with a great inability to regulate her emotions. All my life I protected her from me and my truth, and I wasn't going to stop until the day she left this dimension.Once she died it was time to gather my courage and talk to my dad. In 2015, when I went to Argentina, I asked him if we could have coffee. For 13 years I prepared what I was going to say: "Dad, the grandmothers are getting old now, I can't wait any longer." So that's exactly what I said to him that day in that cafe in the Plaza de Martinez and to my surprise, my dad agreed with me 100 percent. Of my parents, he was always the most reasonable. His response was positive, he also thought it was time and not only that, he ended the conversation by saying, "I don't agree with that ideology," referring to how the military junta decided to settle the question of what to do with the babies born to people they captured, tortured and killed.That was not the reaction I expected from my father. Apparently my mom and dad had time to think during the 13 years of silence. I can imagine that it was probably because the governments that have been in power since I moved to Sweden made the work of the grandmothers visible in a positive way and brought forward the atrocities of the military junta, which made my parents' conscience weigh heavily. So, with my father's permission, I contacted the Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo the following year and eventually left the DNA sampleThe result was negative, which meant that they found no DNA match. The first thing I did when I got the news was to call my dad and tell him, "Dad, the DNA results from the Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo were negative." It was important that he knew that he no longer had to be afraid, no one would be looking for him to make his life hell. His response was very typical of him: “Is that why you're calling me? What pizza do you want to eat tonight?” The beauty of this is that Simón captured that moment, which, like many moments with my family, when reality beats fiction.After that, my dad never understood why I kept looking: "It makes her feel bad," was always his comment. "I think she needs to leave all that behind." As we continued to search, I learned more and more about how my purchase went, and how the baby buying market is doing. My father never remembered anything. "That happened 40 years ago, it's not important to me," was always his reply. And when I told him what I had found out, he confirmed it. But he never helped me. I think the shame gave him amnesia.The last time I went to Argentina to finish the search, I asked him if he knew why I was there and he said yes. And after visiting the last mother, he asked me: “So? Did you find anything?” "No," I replied in a careless tone, almost as if I didn't even care. When Simon asked him what he thought of my search, my dad replied in the same careless way, "I don't care, she can do whatever she wants, as long as it doesn't hurt her." I could never, ever show pain to my father. I would never, ever express my desire to really know the truth about my origins. As for the documentary, it was his opinion that we were wasting our time: "Who would want to see that?" He always said to Simon and me. I never really wanted to talk about any of it with my family. The lack of harmony and space to have calm conversations made it impossible for me to be honest and tell what was happening inside me. If everything was already so difficult between us, let alone trying to talk to them about a topic as charged as the search for my biological identity. Best to say nothing and act quietly. Better to protect them and protect myself from my truth.