They called me Captain Freud in honor of the famous neurologist, father of psychoanalysis.
And the thing is that as soon as I entered prison -which gave me infinite experiences that I will tell you every Sunday-, I said to myself: “wow, this is a mental laboratory, one of the greatest mental paradises that I will never be able to access”.
We do not know what we have until we lose it, although it is no less true that we do not know what we were missing until we found it. So, within the misfortune of going to jail, I thought it could be fun and enriching for one of my passions, which is the world of the mind.
Although I'm not really a psychologist, in prison they called me Captain Freud because I love to read and study any type of book, therapy or article that is related to the mind and its functioning.
So the other inmates referred to me as "the psychologist" and even "the parapsychologist." I have to admit that I did not want to and I was tired of saying that I was not - if I were a psychologist I would be a great bad psychologist - neither a psychiatrist, nor a coach. What can we do. But it is that I have no glamor and, to tell the truth, I am not interested in having any degree, or seal of this educational system, for a thousand reasons (among others, because the learning model that is used is obsolete. It is not the same to study for pass what to study to learn).
And apart from the degrees, I love to train in any field that is related to the mind and I have been doing it for more than ten years, enough time to pass two degrees in psychology that I do not have. And this is the origin of the nickname "Captain Freud". Ah! Nor do I have a master's degree at Harvard, or diplomas, rather I don't even have a wall to hang them.
The weirdo of the books
Other inmates also addressed me as "the weirdo of books." And it is that when you arrive at a sinister place where threats, fights, drugs and continued abuse by those who say they should reinsert you in society are normal, a person who reads regularly is a rare: it is for those who never read. And so, every day, a new prisoner approached me to ask me, in a chatty voice: "Excuse me, you're very strange, aren't you?" "Yes, I am," he would tell them.
The reality is neutral, each one creates their own, each person gives them a different emotional charge to their experiences or circumstances. They were all peculiar to me and I was a weird guy to them. Reality is what it is, what we do with it is what we are.
There were three activities that he used to do every day in jail.
Study criminal law to be able to complain (I have done it repeatedly) against the judge who convicted me, and because all kinds of irregularities and all kinds of contradictions were produced by the complainants at the trial. Such was the case that the magistrate, at minute 00.53, stopped the trial, silenced the entire courtroom and uttered the most illustrious words: "do not point out the contradictions of the complainants." I was also studying to make my own penitentiary resources.
(Although I know that it will be of little use to sue a judge. In fact, according to one of the reports of the General Council of the Judicial Power, less than 1% of complaints filed against judges and magistrates prosper and lead to sanctions. Still, no one may prevent me from fighting for what I think is unfair).
I do not believe in the educational system and now neither in the judicial system and more so after everything I have seen in there. For this reason, it does not surprise me that a good part of the Spanish consider that justice is not the same for everyone.
Sport and the mind
Another of my activities involved doing sports to be in good physical and mental condition, because we must not forget that the physical usually influences the mental.
And the last of these activities is the most important for me: studying what I am passionate about, which is the functioning of the human mind and its biochemical processes. Also understand how people react to different stimuli and how emotional problems maintained over time end up deteriorating our physiognomy and our physique.
So I propose to tell you everything that I lived in prison, that mental laboratory I was talking about, in the most entertaining and fun way possible. Every Sunday I will share with you a new experience that will not leave you indifferent. Here we go.
