Jessy | Pacific Beach, San Diego
My name is Jessy. I‘m from Chula Vista, San Diego, but I was born in Tijuana, Mexico.
Right now I’m in Pacific Beach, with the goal of finding myself after some difficult times with drugs and alcohol. I’m a recovering alcoholic, I sleep in my car, and I’m homeless but I have two part-time jobs. Pacific Beach is a good place to blend in because other homeless people are here. But it’s also a wealthy place where I wanna go. As I sit here I’m working on my resentments of my past, so I can free my heart up to receive what God wants to give me.
Why do you want to be here where it’s beautiful and wealthy?
I grew up poor. When I was 18, I had the desire to go to school. I was homeschooled my whole life. I made it into Junior College, and finally into the University of California Berkeley. I studied business and got a great job, but then I got caught off with drugs, women, and alcohol, and lost everything.
What brought me to Pacific Beach are the beautiful people, the wealth, the pleasure, and the relaxing side of things, because I burnt myself out when I was working too much.
How are your interactions with other people at Pacific Beach?
Only after being here for close to a year, I’m starting to get to know the other local homeless people. They’re hard on the outside but very good people on the inside. They need time, you have to earn trust here. But when you do, it’s a good brotherhood.
Do they share similar stories of rags to riches and back?
I hear it often at Alcoholics Anonymous group meetings. People who had a marriage, kids, cars, and good jobs but then ended up sleeping behind the dumpster here at Pacific Beach.
How is it to earn the trust of fellow people on the street?
Maybe dressing a little bit more like them. I usually don’t wear hats but try to wear them now a little more. Also, be friendly and humble yourself and get to know them.
What is your motto in life?
Do your best to be humble. Be wise as serpents and harmless as doves. Letting go makes it easier to receive what God has for you.
Where have you found your faith?
I grew up Christian and very religious. My parents were missionaries. They didn’t work for many years and we were just telling people about God and the bible. I thought I knew God but I was a very perverted man when it came to women and alcohol. I was very mean, selfish, and disrespectful to authority. I lost many jobs. I was often a bad person. Still, I am a bad person in some sense but I know now what I’ve done. But I’m still not getting to know God and I’m 32 and I thought I knew him. He speaks to me in little moments like this, when he brings people like you into my life. Your name ‘Emanuel’ means in Hebrew: “God is with us”. Actually, my brother is named Emanuel too. He’s a very good and strong man and has four kids. He’s very successful in his own business and sends me selfies from time to time. We’re both very proud and don’t want to humble ourselves. Sometimes I look after his kids when he’s on a business trip. He tells me to man up and get on my two feet. Then I say: “What about you, you can’t take care of your own kids”. There’s a little resentment between us. We both love each other but the best for us is right to know to focus on ourselves. As in the pandemic: “put your mask on yourself before you can help the other person with their mask.”
What were you doing just now when I approached you?
I have a lot of delusions. Right now I’m writing a report about my resentment towards my sister, but I’m writing it for about 32 people. It says, „The above fears drive the delusions. The result is the attitude behind the actions.“ So, when I do something, a bad action, there is an attitude behind it, and behind that attitude is a delusion like „I am the king of the world.“ And behind that delusion is fear. I am afraid of being flawed or useless. As the youngest of six children, I have always been afraid of being helpless, powerless or abandoned. I need people to like and love me, and if they don’t like me, I get angry. As a grown-up man, this is very difficult.
What do you think about the usefulness of coming-of-age rituals for American society?
Yes, I think that’s a good idea. Maybe there could be a general test of manhood, in my case, specifically for men. Can you change your car wheel? (laughs) Are you capable of being a responsible man? If I had to design a test, it would probably be pretty terrible. I would leave that task to women. Women know what a good man is. I still don’t. I would probably use the 12 steps of Alcoholics Anonymous as a basis. I’m on step 4 now, which is about resentment. Unresolved resentment can build up over time, and then you pass it on to your children or your partner. The 12 steps can help you cleanse your heart. People need to know how to deal with selfishness, resentment, dishonesty and fear. There are many problems in society, but people only talk about the problems themselves and not the reasons behind them.
How is your experience with Alcoholics Anonymous?
The program started within the Christian Church and is now spread all over the world. It’s open to people from all walks of life. It started with alcohol but today there are also groups for different addictions. There’s an app with all meetings around you. Today, there are around 50 meetings within a 10 miles radius. Between 3 and 100 people attend the meetings. Each meeting has a secretary and a leader. Both read from the same script, so there is a consistent format at each meeting. There is no main leader, but volunteer trusted advisors. There are strong stories. People who have been convicted 10 times for driving under the influence, served 15 years in prison, lost their wives or husbands, been shot, slept behind dumpsters, been homeless for years – and then they wrapped it up and now are successful, have kids and partners. But when you’ve sunk that low, it’s hard to get back to where you were. So, everyone is a little bit strange. But our brokenness makes us all united.
I run a meeting on Fridays as a volunteer trusted advisor. Sometimes six people attend, sometimes 20. Being the group leader from time to time is part of the healing. But for me, only sometimes. They don’t want me anywhere near power. Maybe one day it will be possible again.
Do you want to share something from your grief report?
Surprisingly, or not, many people from my childhood are involved. The scars you get as a child are deep. I remember two girls from my childhood. Ashley and Avril. Avril didn’t like me and that made me sad and angry. I was a kid, seven years old and I was already so in love and I needed them to like me. And then, Ashley, when I was about nine and my love was not being returned, I remember my heart was hurting so much. How do you have these emotions at this age? I never got psychological or emotional help from others. When I was in my early 20s and went to college and was on my own, I had to deal with myself and it all came out. This was the time when Tinder came out. I was seeing so many girls. And then it got addictive. I was seeing girls every day, sometimes two a day. I was swiping for hours and lying to get them to sleep with me. I got never caught, as they were lying too.
Have you felt any happiness doing this?
It did make me happy in some way. I’ve always been an affectionate man. I love hugs and kisses and touches as well as intimacy and sex. I just loved the chase. The excitement of getting them to my apartment. It was nothing about love. No kindness. Although, I actually got a girlfriend from it once. It started one crazy night. We stayed at a hotel and we both liked each other. We both acknowledged our loneliness and kept seeing each other for almost a year and finally, we lived together. This was when I was working at Blackberry after graduation from UC Berkeley. It was a great job. I helped Blackberry in their transition from selling phones to security software and I got a ton of money. I had a nice apartment, a nice job, and a good girl. But then everything fell apart.
What makes you optimistic about the future?
The fact that I have more control over my emotions. Cause once I rule myself, I can rule a lot of the world. The only things that are getting in my way are other men and women and the tricks of jealousy, and selfishness. If I can take dominion over my emotional problems and when they come at me from someone else’s lack of self-control, then I know how to get through that.
So, what I look forward to, is having more self-control, and not being afraid to pursue goals. For some reason, I’m afraid of success. There’s hope that I will be free but… I don’t know.
What means success to you?
Success for me is peace with God and others. But before all that: peace with myself.
Why are you afraid of being successful and not anymore in peace with you?
You listen well. (long pause). Success would be knowing what I want and going after it. But what if I forget what I want, that is peace with myself, and I end up going after the wrong ideas of success? Maybe I feel the fear, of doing the wrong decision and this holds me back. I always want everything at once and take ten steps at a time but then I fall. Go way up there like a rocket end then I end up losing everything again and the fall is so bad. Going to UC Berkeley was a big jump.
How did you get into UC Berkeley?
What brought me there was the hunger to learn because I didn’t have proper education. As I said in the beginning, I grew up in a Christian organization with my family. I was always misbehaving in that organization, dating women and leaning up against authority within the organization. One day they kicked me out. I was excommunicated. I was done. Then I was alone. My parents couldn’t support me any longer and I couldn’t support myself. I then learned how to make balloons and face paintings and went to malls and restaurants in San Diego. I lived in Tijuana and crossed the border every day. Eventually, I went to junior college and I supported myself with the balloons for three years. When I started getting straight A’s in school, I realized I was really good at learning. Then it came the time to pick a university and I wanted to study business. My counselor said that nobody gets into Berkeley and if I apply and don’t get in I have to stay one year longer in junior college because they take other classes at other schools like UC LA or San Diego State. It was a big risk. I said I can do it. I prayed to God and said, I remember precisely: “if you get me into Berkely, I will give influence to those who don’t have it”. I, myself, had help along the way from teachers, librarians, and mentors. What made it possible was my hunger to learn and my fearlessness of asking questions and for help. I had to get an A at every single thing. I was always at the tutoring lounge and getting tutors to help me perfect my essays or mathematical equations. Just, I had so much doubt that I was not smart enough and that drove me to be excellent. And then, it happened, I made it into Berkely.
In my first semester, I did very well. I was like: “Oh shit, I can keep up with this”. But then it got really hard, really hard! One of my worst experiences was managerial accounting. The exam was so hard that I barely managed 20 percent, and even on that 20 percent I failed. This broke me. And this was when I started drinking more. I started believing that I’m a failure. I’m not good enough. I don’t deserve to be there. Or that I cheated the system because I’m Mexican American and got free grants because I was a low-income and first-generation immigrant. I got the degree but didn’t finish strong and got whatever job afterward. I got into sales but everybody else is in consulting.
Once I get my heart right, I think I will do something big again. Maybe I start an own business. But right now, I work part-time at Starbucks and tomorrow I also start somewhere else as a dishwasher. I love washing dishes too. Do what make you happy or make a ton of money? I don’t know.