This Is Who I Am + This Is Why I Am Where I Am Today

Thought I might as well properly introduce myself. And tell you guys some things about myself.

As a kid, I was always bullied. My whole life. I was an easy target, I was small and easy to push around. I also had a full-care handicap sister who was in a wheel chair. She couldn’t so much as sit up on her own. It was up to me and my mother to do everything for her.

She was the most common reason I was made fun of, and not accepted into social groups. She was considered a freak, and I was a freak by association.

As a kid, I believed without a doubt in all of this. But as I got older I was institutionalized by the public school system. They snuffed out our imaginations and ability to believe without looking for hard evidence to back it up.

That’s a hard mind set to break once you’ve developed it… But I’m doing my best.

I’m kind, loyal to a fault, and I’m the kind of person that would give you the clothes off my back and take the bus home in my underwear if you needed them more than me.

I also protect those who can’t protect themselves. It’s a kind of code I live by now.

I turned my back to my friends, because they turned into bullies. They were bigger and stronger than everyone else, and they abused that power. I hated them for it.

Going on 2 years ago now, I stood against them 6 on 1. For a total stranger. They were laying into him in an alley beside the bank, so I put myself between him and them and took the beating.

I never went down a single time, or threw a single punch. They just kept coming at me trying to take me down. But against all odds there I stayed, putting a gap between them and their original target. In the end it was them who got tired of laying into me, and they walked away.

I should have gone down. Plenty of times, not just this once. But even when the odds are stacked against me, by sheer power of will I keep standing. I never back down.

That’s the one belief I’ve always held. In the power of will. And after all these years I’m finally starting to realize just how strong mine is. It’s what keeps me going when my mind and body are ready to quit. It won’t let me. No matter what, that part of me comes out on top.

To go along with my “This Is Who I Am” thread.

I mentioned my sister, in the wheel chair. Well when I was 15, in grade 10, my mother got severely depressed. This guy cheated on her, and she didn’t take it well at all.

She stopped taking care of us all together. She just laid in bed all day and night with her head under the covers.

So I had to make a call, either call child services and get me and my sister out of there, or leave school and start supporting us myself. I chose the ladder.

I dropped out and went to work. I worked the graveyard shift for 6 months. 32 hours a week at minimum wage ($10 at the time). It wasn’t a lot, but it was enough. I would get my grandmother to make the bill payments and rent payments for me, and I would get her to take me grocery shopping while my sister was gone to school during the day. I was the one who fed her, changed her, bathed her, and made sure her medical equipment was maintained (thank God for Google).

I did that for about 6 months. Grew up over night, and took on way too much responsibility for a kid my age. But I did it, despite my mind telling me I wouldn’t be able to handle it. I did it.

When she came back around, she was furious. At the fact that I left school, and also at the fact that I was working with my father and had developed a real relationship with him after all those years of her doing her best to keep us away from him.

Instead of getting a thank you, I got a fake phone call.

She called her cell from our house phone one day, and stepped out acting like it was an important call. Came back a minute later and said to me “Your father needs you to babysit, I’ll drive you down.”, so I jumped at the opportunity to see my other siblings after all that time.

We got there, and she sped off before I even made it to the door. When I walked in, none of them knew what I was doing there. 45 minutes later, she was back with this guy in a pick up and she dumped my stuff in the driveway and took off again.

I didn’t see or hear from her for 3 months after that.

I try not to hold a grudge, but realistically, I am where I am because of her. If she hadn’t reacted the way she did, I’d be doing just fine today. It all comes back to that moment when she kicked me out.

It’s like I lost my purpose and haven’t found another one yet… I’ve been drifting ever since.

Not living, just existing.

I was out on my own by 17. Back at my dad’s by 18. His girlfriend stole some money and took off while he was in the hospital after surgery. (This, this right here is the reason we’re struggling so much. She really screwed him over)

We haven’t quite bounced back from it yet.

The moral of the story: Life is cruel to those who least deserve it. But we’re usually the ones tough enough to come out on top in the end. You just need patience.

Edit: Thanks to who ever combined the 2 threads.