Portraits of a New Beginning: Patricia Vildosola

«Today that I love myself, I just want to put nothing but good in my life and show myself that I am worthy of all these things. ... I love myself enough to get a job and be productive in the community, and give back.»

While in prison, Patricia Vildosola had no physical with her family. Seeing her mother after 23 years was “heartbreaking,” she says, because “I didn’t expect her to look like this at all.” She didn’t know how to react and found herself crying. “What an emotional moment to really embrace my freedom,” she says. Her four children were adopted by a family while she served her sentence. She is still working to rebuild her relationships with them. She says the person who went into prison was very different from the person who came out. “It took me 23 and a half years to truly find myself,” she asserts. “I didn’t know who I was. I didn’t have any goals. I didn’t have a relationship with God. I just was — I was just existing.” She says she didn’t have “good role models” growing up, and she began using drugs at the age of 13. In prison, she began to examine why she was so angry and then moved on to “building a relationship with God.” She entered drug rehabilitation programs, studied and became a certified paralegal. Now “I know how to be responsible ... The difference from then to now is that then I didn’t love myself.” She says there came a time when she was at peace with herself: “I was at peace with the person that was walking out of there.”

^{* The testimonies in "Portraits of a New Beginning" were collected and edited by Ana María Carrano, María Gabriela Méndez, Olivia Liendo and Tamoa Calzadilla, under the coordination of Olivia Liendo and Ana María Carrano.}

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