I Wasn’t Born — I Survived My Way Into This World 
 
I entered this world unwanted, uncared for, and unchosen.
Born to a 16-year-old girl who couldn’t love me —
not because she was cruel
but because trauma had already carved her into someone who couldn’t choose herself,
let alone me. She had no choice but to smash me with everything she had.
 
I don’t remember her holding me.
I don’t remember her choosing me.

I don’t remember her ever kissing me.
Not once.
 
I was trained to become her — but worse. Another layer of pain, deeper, more dangerous, more self-destructive.
 
That’s the thing about generational trauma:
it doesn’t ask permission.
It simply repeats.
Parent to child.
Story to story.
Wound to wound.

And with each generation, the pain becomes harder to carry.

 
And I am the generation that chose to stop it —
even though it nearly killed me.
 
 
The Collapse That Nearly Ended Me 
 

And yet, somehow, I still built a pretty incredible life — nine countries, four languages, millionaire in my late twenties, great body, and absolutely no fear of what people thought of me.

But when my grandmother — the only real mother I ever had — died in 2009, everything inside me detonated. My resilience collapsed. Decades of unresolved trauma erupted like a bomb.

 
Within 21 days, I was gone. I lost myself completely.
 

I went from hundreds of thousands in my account and a successful business in Paris to total bankruptcy in under a year.

I changed my face, shaved my head, abandoned my dog — a shame I still carry.

I let deeply toxic people in, including a partner destroyed by alcohol and drugs, and I slid right in beside him.

Within months I was using, I self-inflicted HIV, I sold my body to survive, and not long after — I was homeless.

Seven years of destruction.
 
Seven years of the past eating the present.
Seven years of living the outcome of wounds nobody ever helped me carry.
 
Until one day, in Hamburg in 2015,
I realised no one was coming to rescue me.
 
So I either continued dying —
or I started reprogramming everything.
 
I chose the second.
I made my pain bigger than myself.
And for the first time in my life,
I stopped giving a rat’s arse what anyone thought of me.
 
That’s the day I began to set myself free.
 
 
Why I Do This Work 
 
My work isn’t selfless.
 
If I had children,
I would break my family’s trauma through them —
through the work I’ve done on myself.
 
But I don’t.
 
So I break it by helping you.
Helping you helps me.
Helping society keeps me sane.
 
This is my way of ensuring
no child grows up feeling as unwanted and unseen as I did.

 

The Origin of my story (as far as I know)

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I was about twenty-nine when I asked my grandmother about her childhood. She couldn’t answer at first. Days later, she came back to me and said: “My mother was a terrible person.” I looked at her and saw not a grown woman, but a broken little child. That child never left her.
She told me how, at just six years old, her mother locked her in a cellar — not the kind you know today, but a cold, dark place in 1940s Luxembourg. No heating, no light, no electricity. Bread, water, and a potty to survive punishment she did not deserve. Her mother drank, partied, and left behind 13 estranged children with five different fathers. No warmth. No safety. No childhood.
 
That pain flowed into my mother, into me, and into the rest of my family.
 
 
The Cycle 
 
My mother gave birth to me at 17. She didn’t raise me — and maybe that could be excused. But what came after was unforgivable. For years, for decades, she wore the mask of “mum” while draining me for whatever she could get. She never took responsibility. Not once. Not ever.
I don’t remember her hugging me. I don’t remember her holding my hand. I don’t remember her ever choosing me. What I do remember is the emptiness — the constant reminder that I was never safe.
 
Six years later she spat out my half-sister. Seventeen years after that, my half-brother. She was never meant to be a mother. Not to me. Not to them. Not to anyone.
My uncle’s son became addicted to heroin. My cousin battled mental illness until he took his own life in 2017. My sister continues the cycle of drugs and abuse with her own children.
Everywhere I looked, I saw the same broken pattern repeating.
 
What you don’t heal, you pass on.
 
 
The Turning Point 
 
For years, I wished I had never been born. My life was nothing but fight-or-flight, survival, despair. But I never gave up. I fought. I worked on myself. I survived. I abused myself the way I was abused by her.
I also realised something else: as a gay man — or besides any person wanting to adopt — we would have to pass tests, evaluations, and restrictions just to be considered a parent. Yet any fertile girl can give birth tomorrow without preparation, without guidance, and without ever looking at her own trauma.
 
That’s when my mission became clear.
 
 
The Mission 
 
Would my unborn child choose me as their parent — or would it choose my mother or father? Every new parent must ask this question.
The answer is not money, not stability, not dreams — the answer is YOU.
 
It is not okay to bring a child into this world if you are not willing to face yourself.
It is not okay to hand down unresolved pain to another life.
Parenting must stop being a selfish choice and become a conscious decision.
 
If it were up to me, every future parent would first pass through deep self-reflection — even mandatory parenting tests — before being entrusted with a child.
Not to shame anyone, but to protect the innocent and to finally break the cycle.
 
 
The Vision 
 
I imagine a world where:
Children can be children, not healers of their parents.
Parenting is a privilege earned through self-work, not an automatic right.
Schools teach self-awareness, trauma, and family responsibility from age six — one hour a week, until adulthood.
Adults stop reacting to life and start living it freely.
 
Because when we heal ourselves, we give the next generation the freedom to live.
 
 
Why the Heal first Projects exist: 
 
This project was born from my family’s pain — and my refusal to let the cycle continue.
I empower people, parents, adult children, educators, and leaders to face themselves and make wiser decisions, so that fewer children grow up carrying their parents’ wounds — and for society to create happier, more stable adults, which means a safer, more productive world.
 
This is not just my story.
It’s a call to all of us.
 
If you think you don’t know what I’m talking about — look closer. Walk through the not-so-safe neighbourhoods, the train stations, the red-light districts.
You’ll see it: someone’s child, high out of their mind, selling their body because they don’t know any other way to survive.
Or don’t even go that far. Look at that one friend who can’t hold a relationship — not with themselves, not with anyone.
 
That’s what inherited pain looks like.
That’s what happens when cycles are never broken.
 
To stop toxic inheritance.
To heal first.
To give every child the life they deserve.

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If my story resonates and you want to work with me, choose one of three paths:

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The Clarity Coaching Call

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A Personal Conversation about my story and what it mirrors in you.

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For anything else — talks, keynotes, collaborations — email me at: alekmartin@me.com