Entangled Within a System

By Priscilla Cerrillo / Winter 2022

As I sit here, trying to find a way to start my story, I dwell on the fact that I’m a 31-year-old college student, no kids, no husband, no home that I own, just me, and my cat. One might say this isn’t enough to relate to, or even offer. But it is more than just my story, it is bits and pieces of my life that connect with the systems that support and interact with us. Whether we want to believe it or not, everyone has a connection to this system in one way or another. As I started to interact with the world, I realized we had a lot of trust in a system that doesn’t care a single a bit about us, and yet everyone seems to accept and learn how to live with it. 

By the time I was 17, I realized I couldn’t keep up or learn in the same way other people did. Instead of seeing a system that I could trust to help me, I saw it as a system that was designed against me, it would enslave me to their labor for the rest of my life. And by 17, I was faced with choices that would have me interact with the system that would have me see the other side, and everything that is hidden from those who are privileged. At 17 I would start to see how everything connected.

The last week of December 2008 would be the day my life changed. I was used to waking up to smell of chorizo on the weekends, but on this morning, the smell woke me up from my sleep, my head was spinning, and I thought oh man, this is going to be a bad hang over. As I stumbled out into the yard, everything started to spin, something was off, something was different, it was more than just a hangover. As I sat outside on the floor trying to prevent myself from the inevitable, I started to uncontrollably vomit. I wasn’t sick from food poisoning; this didn’t leave me with the same feeling after drinking. Instead, I just knew, this one was different. I was hoping it was all just a nightmare, and I tried to sleep it off instead. 

I woke up the next morning, and I just knew, I couldn’t hide from it from myself.  I stepped into the bathroom, and within a minute of waking up, I read the word “Pregnant.” I knew the Clearblue digital sticks worked fast, but I wasn’t expecting that level of speed. Within less of a minute everything changed, I wasn’t prepared for how I would feel, think, or experience it. My heart sunk to the point I thought it wasn’t going to come back up. I thought, ‘you really did it this time’.  As I made my way to my bed, my knees collapsed, my head started spinning, and there I was, on the ground crying my heart out. I thought, this wasn’t supposed to happen, how could I have let this happen? It all seemed, unreal. I didn’t have time to think it through, all I knew is that I had to act fast.

Girls getting pregnant before 18 wasn’t all that uncommon in my family. Being Hispanic, and fist generation from parents who immigrated from Mexico, I come from a big family. So big we would joke on who would become pregnant before 18. Escaping that fate was the only goal sometimes. In 2007, my sister had fallen ill from her pregnancy, I watched her body wither away as she couldn’t handle the changes happening within. Her body was rejecting the pregnancy. She could no longer handle it. No one in my family had insurance at the time, so she felt she couldn’t get the help she needed. She couldn’t afford what was needed to stay healthy, and my parents stress was enough to keep her quiet. So, she made the choice to have an abortion, to save herself.

My parents didn’t know how to look deeper to how we were interacting with the world around us, and how it was affecting us. They were battling their own struggles that they too did not think they would face when coming to America.  This was the first time I saw the pressure come down on everyone I knew, how the world around me didn’t just exist on the outside, but how it intertwined among everyone’s life and influences out decisions. After seeing what she went through, she was the only one I could trust that wouldn’t judge me and anything I decided to do. 

The only thing on my mind the morning I found I was pregnant was I wasn’t going to be a teen mother; I wasn’t ready mentally or physically.  I needed to learn how to truly navigate this world before bringing in another vulnerable human. It’s embarrassing to admit, but at the time I was repeating my junior year I kept telling myself, there are so many messes I had to fix. But in that moment, I also knew that I finally had choices. Legal ones, ones where I could get the help I needed, keep it private, and take control of my own body, situation, and future. 

January 20, 2009. I had to wait two weeks before I could find an appointment at the only public clinic available, two weeks of pure agony. The drive to the clinic itself was a blur, outside was a crowd of protestors carrying signs that had images of aborted fetuses of them, I thought, wow, this is stuff really does happen, they really do attack you as you make your way in. They approached our car screaming yelling, but all they did was instill their pain, judgment, and guilt onto me. They pressed their faces against the windows angrily yelling for us not to go in. Getting passed the protestors wasn’t something I was expecting, there I was, already in pain emotionally and physically, and all they did was leave me with the image of an angry person screaming as I tried to gain control of my life again. They didn't know me, my story, or any other person who had to walk through those doors.

The small defeat from the seeing the protestors didn’t come from the fact that there were others who disagreed with my choice, but to the fact that they dedicate their lives to have a legal say on other people’s bodies. They dedicate their lives to telling you how bad you are instead of just trying to figure out who you are, the situation you are in, how you got there, and how to help end your suffering.  Growing up in a catholic school, I knew the constant backlash one would receive if they felt you were subject to be working from the forces of evil.  But what I hadn’t expected was how far some will go to control your life, by using it to fuel political agendas to strip us of the right to have a choice. 

It stems from spiritual warfare that has been inflicted particularly on women seeking to gain control of their lives throughout history. According to the World Health Organization, almost half of all pregnancies are unintended each year. With 6 out of 10 ending their pregnancies. Abortions have and will always be around, the access to safe abortions is a way of ensuring no one is at risk of a damaging their physical, mental, and social well-being. But when certain ideologies dictate your mind, there is no room to learn or understand the perspective of another. 

Once in inside the clinic, the nurse who did my intake was the first person to make me feel like everything was going to be okay, without me having to say a word, she was able to comfort me. It was cold card clinic, the next room I was led into had a group of women, all in pink hospital gowns, waiting for their names to be called.  No privacy, no comfortable setting or atmosphere. They were in the waiting room, adjacent to the locker room that held all our belongings. One by one we got called back to get our first ultrasound. One by one we were all given one more chance to say no, while still being reminded that we would lose the $500 deposit. 

Shortly after the market crashed in 2008, my father had fallen so far behind on the bills and mortgage that one by one, things started to disappear, both my parents’ cars got repossessed. Every month we had to figure out which day something would get shut off, whether it was the cable, water, or the electricity.  Waking up knowing my mother would remain in her bedroom stressed, while my father tried to comfort us in saying things are getting better, there was no escape from the daily stress. All this was happening while my father was too stubborn to take me out of private school, he was too stubborn to accept that I needed a different type of help. That $500 dollars felt like a million bucks to me. That $500 was my ticket.  It made me think of those who did not have the privilege to either have it themselves or know someone else who would spare the funds. This $500 could have easily been my roadblock.

In that room I met people with stories completely different from mine, some were older than me, some younger than me, some had families and others were just not ready. Everyone had their own story, and no one was there to judge, we just needed to get to the next step to move on. Everyone respected that. But of course, that isn’t always the case, some needed extra assistance, some were so far from an edge that they needed attention in ways no one there was qualified to provide.  But there was nothing we could do; we were trying to survive ourselves. All we could do was just console each other as strangers, as best as we could. When it was my turn to be called back, I was presented with the news that I thought I had escaped, news that I thought impossible to be true. At this point, I didn’t want to think about the night I got pregnant, it was the first time I realized that I had ignored the fact that I didn’t want to think about how it happened, I was only focused on how to fix it.  In that room, I found out I was 8 weeks and 3 days. Counting back on the wall calendar, there it was, 8 weeks and 3 days. Exactly 8 weeks and 3 days from that day was Thanksgiving Day, the last day I had spent with the person who had raped me.                                                                                                       

I already knew I was pregnant; I knew I wasn’t going to keep it, but that exact piece of information is all that I needed to relive the trauma. The trauma I thought I could ignore. It made getting the abortion all that much more vital as I contemplated the idea that if I had no other choice, I wouldn’t have been able to escape the world that was destroying me.

I was scared, I was lost, and I was alone, and I was relieved it was finally over.  I walked out the clinic with my heart torn to pieces, I needed to mourn, I wanted to mourn, but who would understand? Who would not pass judgement? I was officially alone.

At this point in my life, I was still facing the fact I would have to make up for the time I fell behind. I was ready, but even though I had all the motivation in the world, my school counselor informed me that due to unpaid tuition balance on my account, they are unable to release my transcripts. There I was, 17, trying to get a high school education, but was being held back due to bureaucratic regulations gatekeeping my education. I was fortunate enough to have my counselor understand where I was coming from and release my transcripts to the counselor to the school I was requesting.  This was the first door that was finally opened for me, the first one that led me to have control of my education, and my life.

By Feb of 2009, I officially dropped out of my private school and enrolled at my local public schools independent learning center. This was also the moment I realized my father never took me out of my private school since he himself had no idea how the system worked. He knew how to run his own business independent from these rules, so when it came to the system, everything was foreign to him.  He kept me in private school in hopes I would receive the guidance he knew he couldn’t give. Once I turned 18, I had enough confidence to navigate the system and enroll myself in adult school simultaneously. By June of 2009 I had graduated with honors, I escaped repeating my junior year, and I was finally able to thrive in my education.

Everything else I had known at that point seemed minuscule. While everyone I knew was getting ready to go to their college of choice, take a year to travel, or finding their perfect prom dress and date, I was stressing every day about how I was going to make it past 25. I knew going to college wasn’t going to be easy for me, but I knew I had to keep going. 

My brother would then be the one to keep reminding me that there was a great divide between the privilege and not. But he failed to mention all the pain that came with that realization, and what to do with it. We have all inherently become entangled into the ideology stemming from neoliberalism to sustain society.  I saw this approach strip my family of their dignity, their faith, their roots, and their happiness. I watched my mother’s roots disappear as my father’s vision to have his own business empire kept us all linked to a capitalistic mindset. The happiness I once saw had disappeared and been replaced with loneliness, a loneliness I feared I’d face one day.

In the fall of 2009, I was informed that my check had bounced, and that I was not able to attend the semester. I had no idea what to do, I had no access to aid, no credit, no job, no car, and a full-time school schedule. I was stuck, with no guidance on what to do next as I didn’t want to burden my father after all I put him through at my previous school. This was the side my brother had warned me about, my only option was to make money, and fast. 

Craigslist was infamously known for constantly advertising intro sales positions.  Pyramid schemes for working the bottom of sales.  Door to door.  They hired on the spot and two weeks later I was working 40 plus hours. I became a part of the vicious cycle that would keep me in the working-class loop. It was just right number of sales experiences need finally get a job with real insurance. 23, and I finally had insurance. T-Mobile would be the sales break I needed to make just slightly out of the minimum wage bracket.

The history I was taught growing up told me we had the best system in the world, one that promised freedom and access to the American Dream. This was the narrative my school would spin, and one my father would constantly remind me of. He’d remind me of how it was still better than Mexico’s political system, and how we were still fortunate. This level of peace did give me sense of comfort, but I would still get mad I as I saw how much we struggled in trying to understand how to navigate the system. He didn’t see what I saw in the corporate world preyed on minimum wage employees, keeping us from financial and educational security.  He didn’t see how things had changed some when he came in the 70’s, his experience are completely different from mine. 

By Feb of 2015 my world changed again, I was 25, my best friend passed away from a drug overdose, and exactly a year later my mother had her first series of strokes. I had to adapt, I had new things to process, and more importantly I had step in and take care of my mother. At this point in life, my sister and brother were raising their own families, my father was working day and and night to maintain all he had left after losing the house. I was all my mother had left, and I yet I had nothing to offer.

When I saw my mother in the hospital, not knowing how things would end up at the end of the day, was the moment I began to dwell on the fact that if I hadn’t made the choice I did when I was 17, there would me no one there to take care of her. Eventually that became my full-time worry. I had a constant worry for her health, her mental health, her psychical pain, her depression, her happiness. All that consumed me as I tried to make sure she’s being taken care of. 

The big family that I spoke of before, it had all broken a part by this time, after the market crashed, everyone had to look out for themselves, the days of weekly gatherings were gone. And it was okay, everyone needed to be with their families, but what happened when someone gets sick, or someone has a disability, or loses their job. We could no longer rely on each-other, instead we must rely on the system we paid taxes to. A system that will watch you die before stepping in and help. These were the years where I began to look back on my choice, and think, did I do the right thing? And for what? To live a life without meaning? But I would remind myself that life isn’t over yet, and the dreams I’m capable of, are still within reach. 

Once I saw the help my mother was receiving, once I saw the language barriers and knowledge gap that led to her stress in this world, I began to start planning for the first time in my life. In the spring of 2017, I was officially enrolled in Community College, I had reached an age where the state would now assist in my tuition, and at 26 my chapter was about to begin.  Psychology was the only subject I’d been studying my whole life, it was my way of understanding people, us, how and why we do the things we do.

Fast forward to 2020, the year everyone’s life changed no matter who you were or where you were on this earth.  This was the year everyone started to see the truth unveil itself as a system broke before our eyes. The year where all the things I had gone through myself, were being revealed as common struggles we all share, in our own unique ways. It was also the year I found out I got accepted into UCSD on a full scholarship for the fall of 2021. After 12 years of believing I blew any chances I had, after a lifetime of being told UC schools are out of my reach, after what felt like a lifetime to get here, I made it. 

By 2021, I found out I had ADHD that had gone undiagnosed.  This then became the year where I was finally able to receive the help, I needed to manage in ways that came naturally to others. After years of trying to understand why I seemed to communicate with others differently, and how that has impacted my relationships, I was finally able to find some answers. I finally built the security I needed, to take the time I needed to finally heal. 

2021 is also the year I started my official assessment for Autism, after a lifetime of trying to figure out social situations, I finally have found answers that I didn’t know exist. I have also found the battles adults must face to get any type of formal diagnosis as not many have the information needed to properly assess for Autism, especially in females. For 12 years I put my past traumas on hold as I navigated this world. And for 12 years I was blinded from myself as I was trying to survive.  For the time in my life, I have finally worked through and have gotten answers to some the things that have troubled me my whole life. 

My story is just that. My story.  It is not an excuse, or a means to justify the things that I did my life.  It is a glimpse as to what contributed to the life I lived, what helped shape it in the story that it became. And how I became the product of a system that preys on our vulnerabilities. Looking back at my life from a different lens, there were so many signs that indicated I needed mental health care, signs that I could not see as I had to keep going knowing there’s nothing I could do. 

You may not relate to me, but there are parts within all of that are somehow connected.  So, as I sit here, trying to end my story, it leaves me with hope that others will continue to share their stories. Storytelling is a beginning. It allows us to shed light on the social injustices we face. It allows us to address the suffering of the people and look deeply at the layers that created it. In doing so, we can help make the connections needed to take away some of those hidden agendas behind the system that disguises it. Our stories therefore can connect us in times we feel lonely. This is an insight that needs to be shared, so we can finally see the world from all angles again, so we can find compassion, so we can create a world that stems from love for the generations after us.

Works Cited

Database, Abortion Policies. World Health Organization. n.d. 15 3 2022.

Requiem For the American Dream. Dir. Jared P. Scott, Peter D. Hutchison Kelly Nyks. 2015. Documentary.