Joel's Hear
I'm here, at least for now
"I sat in the blue chair today!" young me exclaimed to whoever came to pick me up from preschool: my mom, my grandma, or my grandpa.
They knew I was very different but were kind enough not to mention it. Ol' Joel wasn't ever going to sit in one of those accursed blue chairs. In the Pre-K classroom, there were 30 chairs. Only five were blue. They were a bigger than the red chairs, and had newer paint. They were for the kids who acted the best. I wasn't one of them, not being able to color in the lines, nor being good in any way the teacher wanted. My brain couldn't do it. I never sat in more than once the entire year.
The next year I didn't sit in one at all, despite being held back, staying in that same pre-k. I don't even hate those teachers, to them I was an alien.
Then I went to Kindergarten. My teachers still think I have problems, but suddenly I'm a genius. I skip first grade, missing making the gingerbread house. In second grade, I still have problems, but can name almost every country and it's capital in the world. My family shows me off a bit to friends. In third grade, I find my greatest adventure, stim, and love all at once: The Hobbit. When my teacher finds out that I read the entire book in three days, and answered all of her questions, the concepts of autism and savant appear in the minds of the school staff.
But, no one in my family has a mental anamoly. The Newtons are always sane. My grandparents reject the idea that I'm abnormal (though everyone always knew I was) and has the clout to make sure the teachers never suggest I'm different again.
I have probably drank alcohol less than forty times since I became of age 14 years ago. I drank alcohol 3 or 4 times a week from the age of 14 to 19. I didn't want to be alone, but I was terrified of people unless drinking. So I drank. At 17 they officially diagnosed me with depression, and gave me antidepressants. By this time, my mother was alternating between bipolar (called manic depression then) and schizophrenia for many years. She also had a creepy psychiatrist who proscribed her an extreme dosage of Xanax in exchange for sexual favors.
Anyway, she kills herself when I'm 19. I have to go to the iron castle - the mental hospital - after this. There I really am depressed, witnessing horrendous abuses within its walls. But they say I'm not depressed, just schizophrenic. After a five minute meeting with some woman I never saw before or after. Long story short: I stay there for almost a year, being given sedative shots every day because I won't take schizophrenic medication. Finally, I see the doctor again. It's a different one. He is the chief psychiatrist of the whole yard. He talks with me for 30 minutes, gives me a discharge date for the next day, informing me that I am most definitely NOT schizophrenic, but have a condition I've never heard of: something like Ass-burgers. This is in the early 2000s. I leave the next day (not schizophrenic ) with an appointment card in hand, an appointment which I will never go to. What if it's a trap? I will avoid the mental "health" system like the plague after this. A misdiagnosis for a YEAR, plus a psychiatrist plying my mom with drugs for sex, plus the overall torture and inadequacy of many staff members to other patients...
The point is (for those seeking it) that I list HFA as an official diagnosis on this site, because I'm not HFAOD. I have been diagnosed as schizophrenic, bipolar, and depressed, as well as told I had Ass-burgers
by the chief psychiatrist of the largest mental hospital in the Southern US. There is not quite as complicated a checkbox for listing my diagnostic status, so if you can add one @tree...
Though, I felt bad that I was never worthy to sit much in the bigger, blue chairs, the main problem was that they were bigger. I've always been the tallest in my class. In eighth grade i was 6'4" andbthank God i stopped growing then.
Don't feel bad if you can't make it through this long post, because I never am able to read long posts (except for sometimes pjcnet).
They knew I was very different but were kind enough not to mention it. Ol' Joel wasn't ever going to sit in one of those accursed blue chairs. In the Pre-K classroom, there were 30 chairs. Only five were blue. They were a bigger than the red chairs, and had newer paint. They were for the kids who acted the best. I wasn't one of them, not being able to color in the lines, nor being good in any way the teacher wanted. My brain couldn't do it. I never sat in more than once the entire year.
The next year I didn't sit in one at all, despite being held back, staying in that same pre-k. I don't even hate those teachers, to them I was an alien.
Then I went to Kindergarten. My teachers still think I have problems, but suddenly I'm a genius. I skip first grade, missing making the gingerbread house. In second grade, I still have problems, but can name almost every country and it's capital in the world. My family shows me off a bit to friends. In third grade, I find my greatest adventure, stim, and love all at once: The Hobbit. When my teacher finds out that I read the entire book in three days, and answered all of her questions, the concepts of autism and savant appear in the minds of the school staff.
But, no one in my family has a mental anamoly. The Newtons are always sane. My grandparents reject the idea that I'm abnormal (though everyone always knew I was) and has the clout to make sure the teachers never suggest I'm different again.
I have probably drank alcohol less than forty times since I became of age 14 years ago. I drank alcohol 3 or 4 times a week from the age of 14 to 19. I didn't want to be alone, but I was terrified of people unless drinking. So I drank. At 17 they officially diagnosed me with depression, and gave me antidepressants. By this time, my mother was alternating between bipolar (called manic depression then) and schizophrenia for many years. She also had a creepy psychiatrist who proscribed her an extreme dosage of Xanax in exchange for sexual favors.
Anyway, she kills herself when I'm 19. I have to go to the iron castle - the mental hospital - after this. There I really am depressed, witnessing horrendous abuses within its walls. But they say I'm not depressed, just schizophrenic. After a five minute meeting with some woman I never saw before or after. Long story short: I stay there for almost a year, being given sedative shots every day because I won't take schizophrenic medication. Finally, I see the doctor again. It's a different one. He is the chief psychiatrist of the whole yard. He talks with me for 30 minutes, gives me a discharge date for the next day, informing me that I am most definitely NOT schizophrenic, but have a condition I've never heard of: something like Ass-burgers. This is in the early 2000s. I leave the next day (not schizophrenic ) with an appointment card in hand, an appointment which I will never go to. What if it's a trap? I will avoid the mental "health" system like the plague after this. A misdiagnosis for a YEAR, plus a psychiatrist plying my mom with drugs for sex, plus the overall torture and inadequacy of many staff members to other patients...
The point is (for those seeking it) that I list HFA as an official diagnosis on this site, because I'm not HFAOD. I have been diagnosed as schizophrenic, bipolar, and depressed, as well as told I had Ass-burgers
by the chief psychiatrist of the largest mental hospital in the Southern US. There is not quite as complicated a checkbox for listing my diagnostic status, so if you can add one @tree... Though, I felt bad that I was never worthy to sit much in the bigger, blue chairs, the main problem was that they were bigger. I've always been the tallest in my class. In eighth grade i was 6'4" andbthank God i stopped growing then.
Don't feel bad if you can't make it through this long post, because I never am able to read long posts (except for sometimes pjcnet).
will mean you have a name for what you already were.
