My Experience With Luis Felippe Mora

Growing up afraid of my father

I remember being hit with a belt repeatedly throughout my childhood. I remember slapping, yelling, profanity, belittling, intimidation, and threats. Sometimes my father acted on those threats. These were not one isolated argument or a single night that I can separate from an otherwise comfortable home life. They were part of how I learned to experience home.

I remember objects being thrown at me, including screwdrivers. Some of those impacts damaged my skin, and sometimes I bled. I remember the pain and the fear of being hit by something I could not stop.

There were also times when I remember my father deliberately striking places where I was already hurt from sports. One example was an ankle that was healing. I remember repeated belt strikes to that ankle and felt that the repeated pain and impacts kept the injury from getting better. That is my experience of the injury, not a documented medical calculation of how much longer recovery took.

I remember my head being slammed into the floor and being held against a wall by my neck or shirt. I remember being choked at the foot of my bed. When I climbed onto the bed because I was afraid, I remember being pulled or thrown from it. I also remember being restrained with my face toward the floor and my father’s weight on me while I struggled to breathe during panic attacks. January 4 became one especially clear and painful night within that broader history. It was not the beginning of everything I am describing.

I never saw alcohol or drugs involved in the episodes I am describing. I did not experience the physical treatment as something that happened only when my father was intoxicated. I cannot establish what was in another person’s body or mind. I can describe the fact that I did not see drinking or drug use accompanying those incidents.

What I remember from both parents

My father hurt me more often and more severely, but my mother, Luisa Fernanda Galvis Mora, was not only a bystander. I remember both parents participating in repeated belt beatings and in versions of the incidents in which I tried to protect myself with extra clothing and books.

I also remember both parents forcing me to stand in freezing cold shower water while I still had my clothes on. I remember screaming for it to stop and being physically held there. Those memories belong to my account of both parents, even though my relationship with each of them was different.

I have two younger sisters. From what I witnessed, they were not physically treated the way I was. I remember them receiving things they wanted while I felt I had to find ways to get many things for myself. I also remember my parents portraying me to them as a bad person. I cannot speak for everything my sisters experienced privately. I am describing the differences I saw and understood as their brother.

Read my account of my relationship with my mother ↗

The ways I tried to protect myself

When I was younger, I generally endured what my parents did to me. Around the end of eighth grade and the transition into ninth grade, approximately 2019, I began trying more actively to protect myself. Those school year and age references are approximate. What I remember most clearly is the change from simply being afraid to searching for something that might make the next beating hurt less.

When I saw my father begin to remove a belt, I would run upstairs to my room. I put on layers of shorts, sweatpants, jeans, sweatshirts, or whatever I could find. Sometimes I placed hardcover schoolbooks inside the front and back of my pants. I remember him approaching slowly enough that I had time to do this. I felt that he knew what I was doing, although I cannot know exactly what he understood.

I remember him banging on my bedroom door and ordering me to open it. Fear made me comply. I remember being pushed onto the floor or bed, having the books forcibly removed, and being made to take off the extra clothing before being struck repeatedly with the belt. I cried and screamed. Both parents participated in versions of these incidents. I did not witness the same treatment of my sisters.

Sometimes I picked up a belt myself and stood holding it while a parent stood at the bedroom entrance with another belt. I meant it as a bluff to make them stop. I did not strike either parent with it. Sometimes they backed away. More often, I remember being overpowered, having the belt taken from me, being told to drop it, or still being struck.

I sometimes pushed them away, too. It would not be accurate to say that I had never made physical contact before January 4. The distinction I remember is that January 4 was the first time I struck back in a way that visibly hurt my father. My own actions that night are part of the account, and I describe them in the detailed chapter.

Read the context for how I tried to protect myself ↗

The window in an unfamiliar country

When I was approximately twelve, we took a family trip somewhere in Europe. I cannot remember the country or town, or what started this particular incident. I remember physical and verbal mistreatment at the Airbnb where we were staying. Afterward, I was made to remain in my room for hours.

I opened the bedroom window and climbed outside into the street. I wanted to escape. At that age, I had no realistic way to leave my family permanently, but I wanted to be away from what was happening inside. I remember walking around for approximately six hours.

I had no phone, map, money, food, or water. I spoke English and Spanish, but not the local language. I followed main roads, passed bus stops, and paid attention to landmarks. I was trying to build a mental map so that I could find my way back, even while wanting to get away.

Eventually, I returned through the same window. As far as I know, my parents did not realize I had been gone. I cannot know everything they noticed or understood that day.

Looking back, I think about how much could have happened to a twelve year old walking alone in an unfamiliar country without supplies or an easy way to communicate. I am not claiming that some additional encounter happened. What stays with me is that being out there felt like the escape I could find. This is one of many painful memories, and there are experiences I am still not ready to share.

What having enough money did not mean for me

I understood our family to be financially comfortable and my father to have a high income. There were periods when I understood that my mother did not need to work, and she did not work for a while. What matters to this part of my account is the contrast between the resources I believed were available and the things I remember going without or having to obtain or pay for myself.

One childhood memory involves something as ordinary as underwear. As I grew through elementary school, I remember wearing underwear that no longer fit for years. It was uncomfortable throughout the day. I did not understand that the problem was that I needed larger clothing.

Instead, I interpreted the poor fit as meaning that I was fat or that something was wrong with my body. I carried that feeling around while wearing clothes that had become too small. In the fear I associate with home, I learned to locate the problem in myself rather than understand that an everyday essential needed to be replaced as I grew. That memory is painful because it connects an ordinary physical discomfort to the way I came to see myself.

The person people saw at work and the father I knew

My understanding is that my father has worked in senior technology leadership involving ServiceNow platform engineering at CommonSpirit Health and previously worked at Nuvolo. I understood him to be respected by colleagues, managing people, hiring, running meetings, and working remotely from a home office. I have not independently confirmed his exact titles, employment dates, current employer status, or reporting responsibilities. Those organizations are not being accused of participating in the family events I describe.

For me, that professional life stood beside a very different experience of him as my father. Other people could see someone with responsibility and authority. I was living with the person whose approach to my bedroom could make me afraid. The contrast did not tell me what his colleagues knew or thought about our home. It made my own experience feel harder to explain.

January 4, 2021

A little after 11 p.m. on January 4, 2021, I was playing Rocket League on my PlayStation 4 with three friends. We were talking through our headsets, laughing, and reacting to the game. I acknowledge that I was too loud. After my father told me to be quieter, I tried, then reacted loudly again without thinking.

I remember him returning with a power drill and beginning to drill into the console. I tried to push him away, then pushed harder when that did not stop him. I remember being slapped and pushed, climbing onto my bed in fear, and then being forced onto my back at the foot of the bed with my head hanging over the edge and the back of my neck against the wooden frame.

I remember his hands around my throat and my chain necklace being tightened or pulled against my neck. When he leaned toward me, I struck his nose with my forehead to try to get free. After he moved away, I stood on the bed again. He approached, grabbed my clothing, and threw me onto the floor.

I got up and swung a fist toward his upper chest or head. It connected to some extent, but did not significantly stop him. I remember him slamming me down, getting on top of me, and continuing to strike me. At one point, while my arms were trapped by his legs, I struck him again with my forehead, this time around his jaw. I am keeping both head strikes and the punch in this account because I do not want my own physical actions removed from what happened.

I remember a restraint that trapped my upper body and arms, his weight pressing onto me, and my head being forced into the wooden floor. I was panicking and struggling to move, speak, and breathe normally. I feared I would lose consciousness or die. That describes what I feared and experienced, not a medical finding or a claim that I know what he intended.

I do not remember exactly when my mother arrived at the room or hallway. I remember her screaming and crying for him to stop. I remember him continuing, and her calling the police. When officers entered, I remember still being restrained toward the floor, although the head impacts had stopped. My father told them that I had attacked him and needed to be held down. I felt I became the aggressor in their eyes.

That night led to my first admission to Saint Clare’s Behavioral Health in New Jersey. According to my recollection, child protection services became involved only during my second admission, after an approximately two week first stay, a brief return home, and a panic episode that led to my return to the hospital within approximately two hours. The detailed chapter separates those events and describes what I remember of the emergency response and both admissions.

Read the full sequence in my bedroom that night ↗

Read my account of the restraint and police response ↗

Living in the same house without speaking

After January 4, I did not speak to my father for the rest of 2021 and until a few months into 2022. I cannot give an exact date when we began speaking again. I remember not saying a single word to him through that period.

That silence did not mean we were living separate lives. It continued when I was back in the same home, riding in the same car with my parents and my two younger sisters, and participating in family trips. We could be physically together while I said nothing to him. That is part of what those months felt like to me.

What stopped, and what I felt continued

After the second hospital stay, I was discharged to my grandparents’ apartment about a week before returning to my parents’ home around February 4, 2021. I understood that child protection workers were involved during that period and that the case eventually closed without the outcome or protection I had hoped for.

Neither parent physically hurt me again after that intervention. I believe their awareness of the investigation and the possibility of further scrutiny was part of the reason, but that is my interpretation. I cannot establish their motives.

The end of the physical treatment did not feel like the end of the mistreatment. I remember verbal, emotional, and psychological harm continuing. I felt increasingly portrayed as mentally ill, dangerous, dishonest, or someone who was scamming a bank. I believe those portrayals allowed my parents to continue hurting me without the same visible physical conduct. That is how I understand the change, not a finding about what they planned or intended.

My account of the years that followed includes further hospitalizations against my wishes, the descriptions of me that I say accompanied police calls, and my experience of medication and a recent reassessment in Chicago. I describe those separately because the details and uncertainties matter. A summary of those years should not turn my recollection into a claim that every medical decision has been independently reviewed.

Read about the later hospitalizations and reassessment ↗

Read my account of opening a business bank account ↗

Learning to love my life

During those years, I felt as though I lost affection for myself, my parents, my siblings, my life, and the things around me. I did not feel able to experience love or enjoyment in the way I later would. I am describing that change in my own experience, not offering a clinical explanation for it.

After leaving, I began to feel love for myself and for the life I was building. That includes Samara, my girlfriend, my friends, the family I found, the activities and hobbies I enjoy, my business, and my apartment. Chicago became part of a life I could recognize as my own.

The reason to tell this account is to explain where I came from and what leaving made possible. My life is larger than what happened in my father’s house. The main story continues with movement, Chicago, the people I love, and finding my way home.

Continue with the family I found ↗

Read about the life I have now ↗