How did you decide that you wanted to publicly tell your bullying experience?

I started working with people who worked on initiatives against bullying, and from the beginning, intentions were more obvious than actions. The turning point was when I met the psychologist Javier Pérez Aznar, who motivated me to publicly tell my story and helped me out of the well that I was in. Another very important person is Jesús Pernas, director of the Alcalá de Henares College (Madrid), who has given me the keys to escape persecution. These two people have changed my life and today they are very close collaborators. Thanks to them, I've taken the step of telling my story. The decision has therefore been progressive.

What influence has the harassment you lived as a child had on your life?

We are not our history; we depend on its interpretation. Within all that can happen to me there are always two readings, one positive and one negative. I know very close what is wrong on the road and losing it, so my life as a child has had a great influence on me. I think the key is not to insist on the causes, but to find meaning for what has happened to me. I remember what a 10-year-old boy told me at a conference I said. He explained to me that persecution was a sword of words that insult you and that every time they tell you things they take you out of the purse and get you in and start destroying you. Imagine the face that left us all when such a young child told us.

Could you ask for help when you lived through bullying?

People who pursue in school, in the family, at work or in any other area of life steal your inner language from you. You get scared, you get blocked and you don't talk. It's very difficult to ask for help, and when you do, there are people who may not care for you in time. That is why I always say to the children that you have to listen to it with your eyes: you have to leave everything you are doing and pay as much attention as you can in the child, because sometimes that if not done is too late.

How was the creative process of the Subnormal graphic novel?

I have noticed a great change in my interior after this work. In this process I had to face my fears and I had not yet worked part of my interior. Fortunately, the creation of this work has been a therapy for me, because it has helped me to remove that point of dissatisfaction and hatred from anyone who has treated me so badly. Although the process is very hard, I think it is necessary to show bullying as such.

Everything that comes out in the graphic novel is real, except the mobile phone item, which it didn't have. In this way, I demonstrate without any worshiping what this violence occurs in the school environment. I do not like it when people say that harassment is a matter of children, because in order for any kind of violence to occur, three premises must be fulfilled: the first, which is not taken into account, the second, which is justified and the third, which is minimised. On the other hand, the comic book has a didactic guide that can be obtained from my profile Instagram or Wikipedia to be able to work the contents directly. Besides being in Basque, it is available in Galician, Catalan and Spanish.

What recommendations would you give to a child who suffers bullying?

I would tell him to break with silence, but not only to him, but also to passive stalkers. Because people who remain silent about harassment become accomplices. It was 40 years ago and today we keep repeating the same templates, we have made no progress. The world has changed at a frightening pace at the technological level, but we're still anchored and programmed with completely outdated codes at the emotional level.