58 Voyager
Member
- Joined
- Dec 15, 2013
- Messages
- 14
- Reaction score
- 2
Hello everyone....just joined....here is my story...
There are so many armchair psychologists who seem to have an answer or a solution to other peoples problems, without the benefit of education or experience. “Just get over it and move on, what’s the problem?” is their favorite solution. There, they did their bit of good, on to the next loser.
I encountered these closet therapists in one form or another my entire life. They need to quiet down.
They have not lived my life. They don’t have any idea what I went through. Oh sure, compared to other people’s experiences, I’m sure it’s not that big a deal. But I’m not those other people. I am me. From my point of view and the processing/tolerance limits of brain, it was horrible. But somehow, I pulled through, adversity after failure, and I’m still here. Never been arrested, never did drugs, never had any dependencies like alcohol, gambling or hookers. I made sure I finished my education, and with my limited resources, I fought hard to be the best at everything I tried.
Yet today, at 55 years of age, I am all alone. No friends, almost zero relatives. No job. All I have to show for 55 years of trying is that I own half of my house, and the bank owns the other half. That’s it.
And why am I all alone today? Simple. Bullies. Bullies as parents. Bullies as step-parents. Bullies at school. Bullies at work. Bullies as neighbours. Bullies as relatives. Bullies have done that one thing they are good at, namely, they have ensured that I have become a socially isolated person after 55 years on this planet. These bullies have finally worn me down to the point I have no strength left to fight back or to stand up for myself. I’m tired.
Oh sure, the armchair psychologists can easily offer advice and opinion, based on their values. But without the rhetoric of “walk a mile in my shoes”, please, walk a mile in my shoes.
1958, I was born in Turkey to super narcissistic parents, sole survivor of a string or abortions that took out my siblings, a party girl mom and a lazy opportunistic dad who when I was born was in jail for embezzlement. After his release from prison, he joined the army, then a job on the road selling chocolates for Nestle. We moved and moved and moved and moved and moved all the time. They divorced in 1964 when I was 6. My dad moved to Germany as an immigrant labourer. Mom stayed behind and moved. And moved again. Then, she moved some more. Always skipping out on rent, very easy to do back in those days. I attended 4 schools while in grade 1, including getting abandoned in a boarding school for several months. I also recall nightly blackouts and being evacuated to nearby apartment basements as enemy fighters neared the city as the country had gone to war. A year later in 1965, my mom, 28 at the time and wanting the single party girl life while schmoozing with Americans in an attempt to get a green card, put me on a plane to Germany to be with my dad. 2 weeks later my dad and I took a 3 day train trip across Europe and returned to Turkey where he dropped me off at my mom’s last known address and returned to Germany on the same train the next day. One week later my mom put me back on a plane and sent me to Germany. She fired off a telegram for him to pick me up at the airport, asked that she never be contacted and forget she ever existed. My dad and I lived in a rooming house in Dusseldorf, where I attended school. He began to date one of the other tenants, a hooker. Children’s Aid were notified by concerned (busybody) neighbours, who threatened to have me taken away and given to a foster family, erase my birth identity and ensure my birth parents would never find me again. Seeking a compromise, my dad sent me off to a boarding school run by Roman Catholic nuns.
I spent the worst year of my life there, among orphans and other unwanted children. (No, no one "touched" me). Not knowing the German language and scared of the super strict disciplinarian and oversized nuns in black habits (not at all like the sweet ones in The Sound of Music) and with no one visiting me, I began to withdraw into my own world. While I was at that school, my dad was over in New York City, looking at future residency opportunities. So I was pretty much abandoned in Germany, 8 years old and with no relatives.
Near the end of 1966, my dad somehow conned Children’s Aid with a quickie ******** marriage with a woman he met from a personal classified ad. She had given birth to a daughter from her previous marriage on August 1, 1966. Her ex had abandoned her months earlier. Somehow, on November 1966, after she had divorced her ex whose whereabouts were always unknown, had met, courted, and married my dad. Yeah, I raise my eyebrow at that one too but that’s the story my dad is sticking to. Now married and with a “family”, he was able to retrieve me from the boarding school. Children’s Aid monitored our “family life” with regular visits for the next year. As soon as the year was up, he shipped me back to Turkey to be with my mom and stepdad. By strange coincidence, both had remarried on the very same month, November, 1966! He then sent his wife and step daughter to live with her parents, and left for New York City. I attended school in Istanbul (Grade 4, School #9) for 4 months before being sent to New York City to be with my dad and stepmother and her daughter, who was 2 years old at this time.
A pasty white blond kid among NYC's finest ghetto members, beaten regularly by my bigger and stronger African American neighbours as well as now alcoholic stepmom, who would take out her rage and anger for my dad on me every opportunity she had. Each time I tried to complain to my dad, he would scold me and tell me to be grateful to her for washing my ****** underwear. 3 years in a housing project where I witnessed murders and suicides. There were interesting parties in our apartment. But rarely was there any food. I went to school without breakfast and had to lie almost daily to the cashiers in the cafeteria that I had forgotten my lunch money. I wasn’t the only one, and they looked the other way. With only 2 bedrooms, my "stepsister" and I had a rotation of the smaller bedroom, one week her, one week me. One would sleep on the pullout sofa for a week, while the other slept in the bed. When it was my turn to sleep on the bed, the stepsister would sleep there first, then be transferred to the sofa when it was my bedtime. Almost every night, the stepsister would wet the bed and I learned to sleep around her urine. With no air-conditioning and brutally hot New York City summers, that mattress was rank. When I complained to stepmom, she only hit me while father ignored her actions. In 1971, facing financial issues with credit agencies because of living beyond his means, my dad sent me up to Toronto, Canada to be with mom and stepdad. Convenient for him, my mom and stepdad had immigrated here in October 1970 to start the opulent life of “New Canadians”.
My dad sent his wife and stepdaughter back to Germany and remained in New York City for a year, before returning to Germany. After that, he would return to NYC once a year to keep his green card active and I would fly down every February for the weekend to see him for 48 hours. After 1980, he gradually started to vanish. It took me over 20 years to track him down in 2002.
If the physical abuse in NYC was bad, the psychological abuse with my mom who still didn’t want me and the new ill-tempered brutally angry at the world stepdad was worse. My mom still resented me, and the stepdad was a Homer Simpson clone in every way. No personal bedroom for 2 years, I slept on a cheap cot next to the dining room table for 2 years until they bought their first house. No friends were ever allowed in “their” house, so no friends invited me to theirs. I was given old ugly clothes while they spent money lavishly on their smokes and booze and guns and lifestyle with regular yearly trips back to Turkey. I received the silent treatment and was shunned for weeks on end every time something in their lives went wrong as they found it easy to blame me. I became their servant, their maid, their butler, their shopper, their handyman, their babysitter, their bank for quick loans. Stepdad (the hunter) beat my cat to death because one day the cat brought home baby rabbits it had found.
So I had attended 15 schools in 4 countries by the time I started grade 9. I graduated from high school, and went on to college. When they had their own son and daughter, born in 1974 and 1976, they announced that there was no room in the house for me, and I needed to go (1979). Already in my 2nd year college, I rented a small room across from the college, worked in the cafeteria in the mornings washing dishes, unloaded UPS trucks at night, and somehow graduated from community college.
April 1979, got my first job, then another, then another. On Mother’s Day 1982, I met my ex-wife. We were married in 1983. She was from a rural farmer family, and for lack of another word, her entire family was ignorant rednecks. Funny thing though, she wasn’t anything like they were….at first. They resented and rejected me right from day one, for being foreign, different religion (I don’t practice), and shunned and mocked me for the nearly 25 years I was in their lives. I was used to that treatment from my own parents so I just went along. My above average IQ and ADHD personality didn’t help my cause either. My ex-wife did nothing to appease them, defend me or diffuse the tension I had with the in-laws for those 25 years. My children were ignored and overlooked by their maternal grandparents. After 24 years, where she had become more of a dependent daughter instead of a friend/partner/equal, we finally grew apart to the point where the marriage ended in 2007.
My ex-wife had rarely talked about her past, her childhood on the isolated farm, her life before I entered her life. Her parents were abstainers, Baptists, and her dad never got within 10 feet of his daughters.
Meanwhile, my mom and stepdad and I had finally forged a stable relationship after my marriage in 1983, and the subsequent birth of my boys. They both continued there unrelenting criticism of me for everything. Where I lived, what names I gave my boys. My mom wouldn't talk to me for 2 months after the birth of each child because the name we gave OUR son was not the name she wanted. They were critical of where we spent our holidays, the house we bought, the car I drove, what music I listened to...I was even yelled out for stirring my tea in the wrong direction. But, they were my parents, right?
That came to a sudden and unexpected falling out on August 1997, when they retired and moved back to Turkey. Numerous attempts at trying to find out what happened and reconciliation were all met with rejection. The last words I recall hearing my mom tell me on the phone, “You are a f’ng ahole just like your father!” To this day, 16 years later, they stay away and do not want contact. Even my ex, and my boys, are still puzzled to this day as to what happened. Speculation is they expected their own son, who grew up with money and every toy, to become successful. He will be 39 next week, a drug addict, has not worked in 20 years, arrested numerous times, arms that look like a road map from cutting and suicide attempts. Because they failed as parents, once again, they took it out on me. The step-brother lives with his parents in southern Turkey. The step-sister lives in Vancouver as a diving instructor. I received written death threats and condescending remarks from the step-brother 4 years ago out of the blue when he looked me up on Facebook. Now they leave me alone. My guess is he felt a threat that since I, the oldest child in the family, would make my rightful claim to any inheritance under Turkish Law. Not the case. I never cared for money.
May 2007, the marriage had run its course, and we were separated. My ex never wanted to talk about what went wrong. Today, she appears to be happily living an alternative lifestyle (*cough*). Years back (oh, ain’t hindsight wonderful?), she had begun a systematic passive aggressive behaviour to alienate my two boys from me, and she succeeded.
Since then, I have been in 4 failed relationships. Childhood programming, I am nothing but extra nice and courteous and giving and obliging to these ladies. Initially they think it’s wonderful. Then they get complacent and spoilt, then they get bored and move on to biker bad boy with the goatee and Harley. Each time. It’s now a week before Christmas, and like last year, I will be alone again. PTSD and BPD seem to have taken hold of my life.
I was picked on by my parents, and step parents. I was picked on by my peers while in Turkey, because I was a pasty white blue eyed blonde 6 year old in a nation of olive skinned black hair/brown eyes. I was picked on by my peers while in Germany for not speaking the language and not being smart enough. New York City, I explained. I was brutally picked on and beaten by the school bullies when I came to Canada. My accent when speaking English was a mixture of light German and heavy NYC Ghetto Black. In fact, my first day at school, one of the kids in my class said I spoke like a “N” (you could say that word back then). In high school, I was picked on, bullied, and beaten regularly. I was skinny. I had terrible face, chest and back acne. My clothes were always the cheapest and a decade out of style. I spoke with an accent. I was introverted and shy. Thanks to inherited genes, my mannerism was on the effeminate side and I was called every variation of “***”, by the usual bullies. Oh, today, I see many of them on facebook, living a gay life. Makes sense, doesn’t it. My hips had an abnormality, one leg significantly longer than the other, so I also walked with a sexy wiggle many women would be envious of.
After high school, I attended community college, studying chemistry. And sure enough, I was picked on and got into fights with a couple of rural redneck boys from a small Ontario town. They also sexually harassed every female in the classroom. Being the 1970’s, no one cared. After college, I worked. Having Aspergers and ADHD now made me learn any job quickly, and I became a good problem solver. This in turn alienated the status quo. I was bullied for “working too much, working too fast, sucking up to the managers, brownnosing up the corporate poopchute”, anything they could throw at me. My car was vandalized and I received hate male while working at one of Canada’s leader in telecommunications because I was the only one promoted out of a pool of 30 deadwood. I could solve complex problems before the issue was fully explained. That in turn infuriated my coworkers who shunned and ignored me, badmouthing me within earshot.
We had a decent social circle when I was married. My ex rarely had friends and the twice yearly parties I would throw were mostly my co-workers and some friends. Seems I had to “buy” friendship by hosting these events with lots of food and booze (on my dime). Who could say no to that? Our fully catered events became legendary. BBQ on the summer, house party in the winter. I never noticed we would never get an invite back. All those “friends” disappeared when the marriage ended.
My neighbours and other co-workers also shunned and mocked me because as I grew older, I had no use for the alcohol lifestyle. I didn’t get drunk and pass out. I didn’t go to bars and pubs and shout “wooooooo” while holding up my index and pinky in both hands. I wasn’t a jock, and sporting events bored me. I knew a lot about history and geology and geography and mechanics and medicine and archeology and science and more. I am a nerd. Wooooooo.
After my marriage ended, I was in several relationships. Average body, good looks, warm personality, funny, smart, great cook, well travelled (28 countries), the women I hooked up with thought, ka-chinnnnggg, got me the perfect man. And for a while, life is good. But my personality made me lose them. I’d smother these women with a level of courtesy, attention, affection, conversation, intimacy, culture, travel, cuisine and respect they weren’t accustomed to. I never caused grief, didn’t give them any reason to complain about me. And one by one, they would leave and either return to the loser goateed abusive guy they had left, or latch on to another goateed Harley riding bad boy who mistreated them. Now they had something in common with their peers. Now they could contribute to the BMW (Bitch, Moan and Whine) coffee sessions about what a loser their boyfriends/husbands were. Of course, if I was normal, and hadn’t been thrown around and picked on my entire life, I too could be the dude with the dirty nails and goatee and Harley who drinks excessively when playing hockey and hunting and fishing and snowmobiling and overhauling transmissions of hookers on the weekends.
So, here we are. Christmas 2013. I will spend it alone, like last year. No friends left. No relatives. My two boys, grown men now at 20/26, rarely call, and visit even less. Parental Alienation Syndrome. They can’t give one reason why they won’t stay in touch with their dad. Their mom, my ex, has been badmouthing me to anyone who will listen with allegations about our life together.
I’ve been called a “loner” a few times. Yeah, that’s it, they nailed it. I’m a loner. Didn’t plan on it, but that’s the way I turned out. Armchair psychologists can pass judgement all they want. They didn’t live my life or even walk a few feet in my shoes. I’m not bitter or angry, just sad. Those who say, “Life is about the choices we make” are so full of it. Those words come from the people who lead a reasonably comfortable life. I did not choose my life, nor did I make any decision that impacted my life. Not until I was 18. I had no control over the first 18 years.
I don't have a job, as I was fired along with thousands of others a couple of months ago from a smart phone company.
Now what?
That's me below. I have nothing to hide. It is what it is.
Paris, October 2013
Merry Christmas.
There are so many armchair psychologists who seem to have an answer or a solution to other peoples problems, without the benefit of education or experience. “Just get over it and move on, what’s the problem?” is their favorite solution. There, they did their bit of good, on to the next loser.
I encountered these closet therapists in one form or another my entire life. They need to quiet down.
They have not lived my life. They don’t have any idea what I went through. Oh sure, compared to other people’s experiences, I’m sure it’s not that big a deal. But I’m not those other people. I am me. From my point of view and the processing/tolerance limits of brain, it was horrible. But somehow, I pulled through, adversity after failure, and I’m still here. Never been arrested, never did drugs, never had any dependencies like alcohol, gambling or hookers. I made sure I finished my education, and with my limited resources, I fought hard to be the best at everything I tried.
Yet today, at 55 years of age, I am all alone. No friends, almost zero relatives. No job. All I have to show for 55 years of trying is that I own half of my house, and the bank owns the other half. That’s it.
And why am I all alone today? Simple. Bullies. Bullies as parents. Bullies as step-parents. Bullies at school. Bullies at work. Bullies as neighbours. Bullies as relatives. Bullies have done that one thing they are good at, namely, they have ensured that I have become a socially isolated person after 55 years on this planet. These bullies have finally worn me down to the point I have no strength left to fight back or to stand up for myself. I’m tired.
Oh sure, the armchair psychologists can easily offer advice and opinion, based on their values. But without the rhetoric of “walk a mile in my shoes”, please, walk a mile in my shoes.
1958, I was born in Turkey to super narcissistic parents, sole survivor of a string or abortions that took out my siblings, a party girl mom and a lazy opportunistic dad who when I was born was in jail for embezzlement. After his release from prison, he joined the army, then a job on the road selling chocolates for Nestle. We moved and moved and moved and moved and moved all the time. They divorced in 1964 when I was 6. My dad moved to Germany as an immigrant labourer. Mom stayed behind and moved. And moved again. Then, she moved some more. Always skipping out on rent, very easy to do back in those days. I attended 4 schools while in grade 1, including getting abandoned in a boarding school for several months. I also recall nightly blackouts and being evacuated to nearby apartment basements as enemy fighters neared the city as the country had gone to war. A year later in 1965, my mom, 28 at the time and wanting the single party girl life while schmoozing with Americans in an attempt to get a green card, put me on a plane to Germany to be with my dad. 2 weeks later my dad and I took a 3 day train trip across Europe and returned to Turkey where he dropped me off at my mom’s last known address and returned to Germany on the same train the next day. One week later my mom put me back on a plane and sent me to Germany. She fired off a telegram for him to pick me up at the airport, asked that she never be contacted and forget she ever existed. My dad and I lived in a rooming house in Dusseldorf, where I attended school. He began to date one of the other tenants, a hooker. Children’s Aid were notified by concerned (busybody) neighbours, who threatened to have me taken away and given to a foster family, erase my birth identity and ensure my birth parents would never find me again. Seeking a compromise, my dad sent me off to a boarding school run by Roman Catholic nuns.
I spent the worst year of my life there, among orphans and other unwanted children. (No, no one "touched" me). Not knowing the German language and scared of the super strict disciplinarian and oversized nuns in black habits (not at all like the sweet ones in The Sound of Music) and with no one visiting me, I began to withdraw into my own world. While I was at that school, my dad was over in New York City, looking at future residency opportunities. So I was pretty much abandoned in Germany, 8 years old and with no relatives.
Near the end of 1966, my dad somehow conned Children’s Aid with a quickie ******** marriage with a woman he met from a personal classified ad. She had given birth to a daughter from her previous marriage on August 1, 1966. Her ex had abandoned her months earlier. Somehow, on November 1966, after she had divorced her ex whose whereabouts were always unknown, had met, courted, and married my dad. Yeah, I raise my eyebrow at that one too but that’s the story my dad is sticking to. Now married and with a “family”, he was able to retrieve me from the boarding school. Children’s Aid monitored our “family life” with regular visits for the next year. As soon as the year was up, he shipped me back to Turkey to be with my mom and stepdad. By strange coincidence, both had remarried on the very same month, November, 1966! He then sent his wife and step daughter to live with her parents, and left for New York City. I attended school in Istanbul (Grade 4, School #9) for 4 months before being sent to New York City to be with my dad and stepmother and her daughter, who was 2 years old at this time.
A pasty white blond kid among NYC's finest ghetto members, beaten regularly by my bigger and stronger African American neighbours as well as now alcoholic stepmom, who would take out her rage and anger for my dad on me every opportunity she had. Each time I tried to complain to my dad, he would scold me and tell me to be grateful to her for washing my ****** underwear. 3 years in a housing project where I witnessed murders and suicides. There were interesting parties in our apartment. But rarely was there any food. I went to school without breakfast and had to lie almost daily to the cashiers in the cafeteria that I had forgotten my lunch money. I wasn’t the only one, and they looked the other way. With only 2 bedrooms, my "stepsister" and I had a rotation of the smaller bedroom, one week her, one week me. One would sleep on the pullout sofa for a week, while the other slept in the bed. When it was my turn to sleep on the bed, the stepsister would sleep there first, then be transferred to the sofa when it was my bedtime. Almost every night, the stepsister would wet the bed and I learned to sleep around her urine. With no air-conditioning and brutally hot New York City summers, that mattress was rank. When I complained to stepmom, she only hit me while father ignored her actions. In 1971, facing financial issues with credit agencies because of living beyond his means, my dad sent me up to Toronto, Canada to be with mom and stepdad. Convenient for him, my mom and stepdad had immigrated here in October 1970 to start the opulent life of “New Canadians”.
My dad sent his wife and stepdaughter back to Germany and remained in New York City for a year, before returning to Germany. After that, he would return to NYC once a year to keep his green card active and I would fly down every February for the weekend to see him for 48 hours. After 1980, he gradually started to vanish. It took me over 20 years to track him down in 2002.
If the physical abuse in NYC was bad, the psychological abuse with my mom who still didn’t want me and the new ill-tempered brutally angry at the world stepdad was worse. My mom still resented me, and the stepdad was a Homer Simpson clone in every way. No personal bedroom for 2 years, I slept on a cheap cot next to the dining room table for 2 years until they bought their first house. No friends were ever allowed in “their” house, so no friends invited me to theirs. I was given old ugly clothes while they spent money lavishly on their smokes and booze and guns and lifestyle with regular yearly trips back to Turkey. I received the silent treatment and was shunned for weeks on end every time something in their lives went wrong as they found it easy to blame me. I became their servant, their maid, their butler, their shopper, their handyman, their babysitter, their bank for quick loans. Stepdad (the hunter) beat my cat to death because one day the cat brought home baby rabbits it had found.
So I had attended 15 schools in 4 countries by the time I started grade 9. I graduated from high school, and went on to college. When they had their own son and daughter, born in 1974 and 1976, they announced that there was no room in the house for me, and I needed to go (1979). Already in my 2nd year college, I rented a small room across from the college, worked in the cafeteria in the mornings washing dishes, unloaded UPS trucks at night, and somehow graduated from community college.
April 1979, got my first job, then another, then another. On Mother’s Day 1982, I met my ex-wife. We were married in 1983. She was from a rural farmer family, and for lack of another word, her entire family was ignorant rednecks. Funny thing though, she wasn’t anything like they were….at first. They resented and rejected me right from day one, for being foreign, different religion (I don’t practice), and shunned and mocked me for the nearly 25 years I was in their lives. I was used to that treatment from my own parents so I just went along. My above average IQ and ADHD personality didn’t help my cause either. My ex-wife did nothing to appease them, defend me or diffuse the tension I had with the in-laws for those 25 years. My children were ignored and overlooked by their maternal grandparents. After 24 years, where she had become more of a dependent daughter instead of a friend/partner/equal, we finally grew apart to the point where the marriage ended in 2007.
My ex-wife had rarely talked about her past, her childhood on the isolated farm, her life before I entered her life. Her parents were abstainers, Baptists, and her dad never got within 10 feet of his daughters.
Meanwhile, my mom and stepdad and I had finally forged a stable relationship after my marriage in 1983, and the subsequent birth of my boys. They both continued there unrelenting criticism of me for everything. Where I lived, what names I gave my boys. My mom wouldn't talk to me for 2 months after the birth of each child because the name we gave OUR son was not the name she wanted. They were critical of where we spent our holidays, the house we bought, the car I drove, what music I listened to...I was even yelled out for stirring my tea in the wrong direction. But, they were my parents, right?
That came to a sudden and unexpected falling out on August 1997, when they retired and moved back to Turkey. Numerous attempts at trying to find out what happened and reconciliation were all met with rejection. The last words I recall hearing my mom tell me on the phone, “You are a f’ng ahole just like your father!” To this day, 16 years later, they stay away and do not want contact. Even my ex, and my boys, are still puzzled to this day as to what happened. Speculation is they expected their own son, who grew up with money and every toy, to become successful. He will be 39 next week, a drug addict, has not worked in 20 years, arrested numerous times, arms that look like a road map from cutting and suicide attempts. Because they failed as parents, once again, they took it out on me. The step-brother lives with his parents in southern Turkey. The step-sister lives in Vancouver as a diving instructor. I received written death threats and condescending remarks from the step-brother 4 years ago out of the blue when he looked me up on Facebook. Now they leave me alone. My guess is he felt a threat that since I, the oldest child in the family, would make my rightful claim to any inheritance under Turkish Law. Not the case. I never cared for money.
May 2007, the marriage had run its course, and we were separated. My ex never wanted to talk about what went wrong. Today, she appears to be happily living an alternative lifestyle (*cough*). Years back (oh, ain’t hindsight wonderful?), she had begun a systematic passive aggressive behaviour to alienate my two boys from me, and she succeeded.
Since then, I have been in 4 failed relationships. Childhood programming, I am nothing but extra nice and courteous and giving and obliging to these ladies. Initially they think it’s wonderful. Then they get complacent and spoilt, then they get bored and move on to biker bad boy with the goatee and Harley. Each time. It’s now a week before Christmas, and like last year, I will be alone again. PTSD and BPD seem to have taken hold of my life.
I was picked on by my parents, and step parents. I was picked on by my peers while in Turkey, because I was a pasty white blue eyed blonde 6 year old in a nation of olive skinned black hair/brown eyes. I was picked on by my peers while in Germany for not speaking the language and not being smart enough. New York City, I explained. I was brutally picked on and beaten by the school bullies when I came to Canada. My accent when speaking English was a mixture of light German and heavy NYC Ghetto Black. In fact, my first day at school, one of the kids in my class said I spoke like a “N” (you could say that word back then). In high school, I was picked on, bullied, and beaten regularly. I was skinny. I had terrible face, chest and back acne. My clothes were always the cheapest and a decade out of style. I spoke with an accent. I was introverted and shy. Thanks to inherited genes, my mannerism was on the effeminate side and I was called every variation of “***”, by the usual bullies. Oh, today, I see many of them on facebook, living a gay life. Makes sense, doesn’t it. My hips had an abnormality, one leg significantly longer than the other, so I also walked with a sexy wiggle many women would be envious of.
After high school, I attended community college, studying chemistry. And sure enough, I was picked on and got into fights with a couple of rural redneck boys from a small Ontario town. They also sexually harassed every female in the classroom. Being the 1970’s, no one cared. After college, I worked. Having Aspergers and ADHD now made me learn any job quickly, and I became a good problem solver. This in turn alienated the status quo. I was bullied for “working too much, working too fast, sucking up to the managers, brownnosing up the corporate poopchute”, anything they could throw at me. My car was vandalized and I received hate male while working at one of Canada’s leader in telecommunications because I was the only one promoted out of a pool of 30 deadwood. I could solve complex problems before the issue was fully explained. That in turn infuriated my coworkers who shunned and ignored me, badmouthing me within earshot.
We had a decent social circle when I was married. My ex rarely had friends and the twice yearly parties I would throw were mostly my co-workers and some friends. Seems I had to “buy” friendship by hosting these events with lots of food and booze (on my dime). Who could say no to that? Our fully catered events became legendary. BBQ on the summer, house party in the winter. I never noticed we would never get an invite back. All those “friends” disappeared when the marriage ended.
My neighbours and other co-workers also shunned and mocked me because as I grew older, I had no use for the alcohol lifestyle. I didn’t get drunk and pass out. I didn’t go to bars and pubs and shout “wooooooo” while holding up my index and pinky in both hands. I wasn’t a jock, and sporting events bored me. I knew a lot about history and geology and geography and mechanics and medicine and archeology and science and more. I am a nerd. Wooooooo.
After my marriage ended, I was in several relationships. Average body, good looks, warm personality, funny, smart, great cook, well travelled (28 countries), the women I hooked up with thought, ka-chinnnnggg, got me the perfect man. And for a while, life is good. But my personality made me lose them. I’d smother these women with a level of courtesy, attention, affection, conversation, intimacy, culture, travel, cuisine and respect they weren’t accustomed to. I never caused grief, didn’t give them any reason to complain about me. And one by one, they would leave and either return to the loser goateed abusive guy they had left, or latch on to another goateed Harley riding bad boy who mistreated them. Now they had something in common with their peers. Now they could contribute to the BMW (Bitch, Moan and Whine) coffee sessions about what a loser their boyfriends/husbands were. Of course, if I was normal, and hadn’t been thrown around and picked on my entire life, I too could be the dude with the dirty nails and goatee and Harley who drinks excessively when playing hockey and hunting and fishing and snowmobiling and overhauling transmissions of hookers on the weekends.
So, here we are. Christmas 2013. I will spend it alone, like last year. No friends left. No relatives. My two boys, grown men now at 20/26, rarely call, and visit even less. Parental Alienation Syndrome. They can’t give one reason why they won’t stay in touch with their dad. Their mom, my ex, has been badmouthing me to anyone who will listen with allegations about our life together.
I’ve been called a “loner” a few times. Yeah, that’s it, they nailed it. I’m a loner. Didn’t plan on it, but that’s the way I turned out. Armchair psychologists can pass judgement all they want. They didn’t live my life or even walk a few feet in my shoes. I’m not bitter or angry, just sad. Those who say, “Life is about the choices we make” are so full of it. Those words come from the people who lead a reasonably comfortable life. I did not choose my life, nor did I make any decision that impacted my life. Not until I was 18. I had no control over the first 18 years.
I don't have a job, as I was fired along with thousands of others a couple of months ago from a smart phone company.
Now what?
That's me below. I have nothing to hide. It is what it is.
Paris, October 2013
Merry Christmas.
But welcome to the site, maybe at last you can find people who you can relate to and talk to.
