Andre Martinez
Counselor
14 Years of Experience
Specialties: Caregiving and being cared for, family and cultural shame, Spanish speaking callers
Andre Martinez
Counselor
Andre has been a caregiver for as long as he can remember. His grandmother first, then an uncle, and for the last several years his younger brother. He learned early that looking after somebody properly is not a burden you carry. It is a kind of love that most people never get the chance to give.
That is why he understands this work in a way a lot of counselors never manage. He has watched from the caregiving side what it does to a person to finally be looked after. The way their shoulders come down. The way they stop apologizing for needing things. The way sleep comes easier once somebody else is holding the worry for a while.
So to Andre there is nothing strange in wanting that. He has spent his whole life giving it, and he has never once thought less of anybody for wanting to receive it. If you have been told that wanting to be cared for makes you weak, he will tell you plainly that whoever said that had it backwards.
He was raised in a house where you did not discuss feelings, you simply got on with it, so he knows exactly how hard the first phone call is. He speaks both Spanish and English, and he is often the person people ask for when this is something they have never managed to explain in either language, let alone to their own family.
What it is like to talk to Andre
Andre is patient in a way that is difficult to fake. Fifteen years of caregiving will do that to a person. He does not hurry you, he does not fill silences, and he does not treat a long pause as a problem to be solved.
A lot of the people who ask for him were raised the way he was. Told to be tough. Told not to need anything from anyone. Told that a man who wants looking after is not much of a man. He knows how deep that goes and how much harder it makes the first sentence.
You do not have to have language for this before you call. Plenty of people arrive with only a feeling and no words for it at all, and working out the words together is a perfectly good use of the time.
In Andre’s own words
When you have been a caregiver your whole life you learn to read the moment somebody stops performing. It is very small. The breathing changes. They stop saying sorry.
I hear it on this line constantly. Someone spends ten minutes explaining themselves, defending themselves, apologizing for taking up my time, and then somewhere around minute eleven they just stop. And what comes after that is always the true thing.
People think the hard part is admitting what they want. It is not. The hard part is believing they are allowed to want it. I have spent my life looking after people who needed looking after, and I have never once thought any of them were weak for it. Not my grandmother, not my brother, and not the man on the phone who has been too ashamed to tell anybody for twenty years.
What it feels like when somebody finally lets go of that, honestly, is a privilege. They are handing me the thing they were most afraid of. I do not take that lightly and I never will.
Andre, on what this work gives back
Things people have said to Andre
These are the kinds of sentences that open calls here. If one of them sounds like something you have thought, you are in ordinary company, and Andre has answered it many times before.
- In my family this would be the end of everything, so I have never breathed a word.
- I take care of everybody and I have never once been taken care of.
- Es la primera vez que digo esto en voz alta.
- I am ashamed of how much I want somebody to just handle things for a while.
- My partner does not know and I do not know if she would stay.
- I do not even know what I am asking for. I only know something is missing.
You will not shock Andre
Andre is a good fit for anyone carrying this alongside family expectations or cultural pressure, and for people who have never been able to separate what they want from what they think they are allowed to want. He is plainly spoken, completely unshockable, and he never rushes.
There is nothing you cannot say
Nothing is too strange, too private, or too much, and nothing you say will surprise Andre. Start wherever feels easiest, and take as long as you need.
Click to talk to Andre(888) 771-2235
Or choose how long you would like
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How It Works
Three simple steps. No accounts. No sign-ups. No records.
Call the Number
Dial (888) 771-2235 any time, day or night. We connect you with the first available counselor.
Talk About Anything
Whatever is on your mind, we have heard it before and we will never judge you.
Hang Up and Breathe
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🔒 Your Privacy Is Sacred
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