My Story…

Since childhood I have always felt like I wasn’t from this planet. I have seen some strange incidents in my lifetime. I remember going to the hospital once as a child, getting some blood drawn and having blood spurt out. I remember learning how to read from Grandma who made a special visit from out of town to teach me, when my parents became frustrated that they couldn’t teach me. I remember my parents taking me to a school for children with special needs. Everyone at the school had a physical disability; I think that made my parents uncomfortable, so they didn’t enroll me at the school. I remember being the most popular kid in my preschool. I remember my teacher sending me to the gym to retrieve a child for movie time, after repeated requests by me I punched him in the face and dragged him back to class so I would not miss the movie. I remember being labeled in 3rd grade “Smart But”, this would appear on all of my report cards for many years to come. I remember playing football in 7th grade and causing the team to run extra laps because I couldn’t remember the snap count. I remember being taken to see a specialist because my parents thought I was lazy and being disobedient. The specialist basically repeated everything my parents said during the session. I remember moving in 8th grade and suddenly becoming the only minority child at my school. I remember going to public high school and not knowing how to connect with the cute girls at my school. Something I still have a problem with. I remember struggling in math class and later on chemistry classes. Any class I had to remember formulas was a problem for me. Still is to this day. My chemistry teacher gave me a “D” because I was going to before and after school, and lunchtime tutoring. I remember going to college and noticed that some classes I could breeze through and others I couldn’t pass with without exerting monumental effort and perfect attendance. Damn you economics class. Shaking fist!!! I remember getting fired for jobs for silly reasons often stuff I didn’t figure was my fault. I remember meeting my future wife, and getting an internal peace I never had with my parents constant criticism. I remember arguing with the registrar about graduation, but I had no proof of the classes that I had already taken. Still haven’t graduated to this day. I remember spending a lot of time in computer labs on campus; so much so, I ended up getting a job on campus as our 1st Campus Student Apple Rep. I remember being the first liberal arts major at my school to get a job at Apple Computer. Which was an accomplishment because they came to my school for Engineering & Computer Science majors. I remember 1 month after I got the job at Apple, my dream company; the person training me say “I was a failure,” because I wasn’t able to understand her training. After getting an attitude adjustment from her supervisor, I was eventually able to pick up the necessary skills. I remember after 6 months in a department that kept moving me from task to task, I transferred because I didn’t feel like I had a safe position in the event of a company layoff. I remember the new job being like it was created with me in mind. In my first 12 months in the job I won 4 out of 4 quarterly awards for sales. Despite being the only person in my department to do this, I did not win the sales person of the year award. What struck me about that as being weird; is that I wasn’t even nominated. I remember getting fired after I got divorced. I realized my life had started falling apart after the divorce. I remember moving back home to live with my parents. That was rough. At this point I started getting the same failure, lazy, not paying attention to detail comments that I hadn’t heard for awhile. I remember being taken to see a specialist a 2nd time because my parents thought I was lazy and being disobedient. The specialist basically repeated everything my parents said during the session. Now to the present, since I moved to this area, I have been losing jobs anywhere from 3-6 months on average, with the longest I have been employed at one job being a 11/2 years. I have had over 40+ jobs. I watched a repeat episode of the Cosby Show one day, in which Theo was diagnosed with Dyslexia, and thinking I don’t have that but maybe I have something like that. I got diagnosed at 28 years of age, but haven’t worked anywhere long enough to maintain health insurance, treatment, or medication. Now I am 42, I have been unemployed for the last 7 months, and I know that my anxiety and depression are at all time levels. I am not leaving my house for days at a time and cleaning is not happening like it should. I also have added sleep apnea in the mix. I do not know what to do next. File for Medicaid, file for SSI/Disability. I am already registered with our State office of Vocational Rehab, is that something they will help me with. My parents are helping me with financial stuff, but I have a sneaky suspicion they want to cut me off because this is my fault, if I had only listened years ago. I feel like I need counseling immediately for the depression, I feel like I need some kind of behavior therapy, and an ADD Coach. But now I have no money, no degree, no woman, and no job. The only things I have going for me is I have no debt, I’m not dangerous to others, and I have managed to avoid drugs and alcohol.

Excuse the venting but this is my cry for help.

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