On April 24th, 1995, I was born in North York, ON - just a little while outside of downtown Toronto, to a seemingly loving and caring family. I say seemingly because they took quite good care of me as a child despite their neglectful ways as I got older. I moved to Houston in 1996, as my father had found a much better job (what he tells me). We lived in Twin Lakes, an extremely affluent area with million dollar homes. Suffice it to say, I was quite into the "upper-class" lifestyle.
My brother was born in Houston on June 5th, 1997. He was born well under normal weight (3 pounds 14 ounces?) and prematurely by around 3 weeks. For the first six months of his life, all seemed extremely well and my family seemed to be quite relieved that his premature birth had not caused any visible complications. Sadly, we were wrong. At the age of 6 months, my brother began to develop complications while breathing, raspy breath, shortness of breath etc. It was at this time we had taken him to a professional for a diagnosis/or lack of diagnosis to be made. We found out that my brother had Spinal Muscular Atrophy with Respiratory Distress type 1 (SMARD1). Very few children with SMARD live to the age of 10 years old, and they cited this fact while informing my parents how severe SMARD really was. He required full-time respiratory assistance from a ventilator, as doctors knew his condition would deteriorate. Believe it or not, my brother is still alive today at 16 years old. The doctors were wrong about that; however his condition has deteriorated rapidly. Soon my brother was crippled to the point of being bed-ridden, his only form of mobility was via wheelchair.
I don't remember much of my first years in school, except the time I pissed my pants while playing in the sandbox in kindergarten. I was sent home with a pair of pink corduroy pants and cried the entire night. It was probably at this time where I stopped pissing myself. I had no other incidents of leakage since that date.
Grade 2 (probably 2001 or 2002) saw me move to Calgary as my dad had found yet another job. I attended Stanley Jones Elementary for a portion of Grade 2, but transferred to another school since we moved areas in Calgary. The only notable memories I have were being called eraser kid (from my tendencies to eat the erasers off of pencils and chew the pencil afterwords), beaver (no explanation needed) and freakshow - after I was dragged out of a classroom by my mom because I threw a fit when someone stole my pokemon cards.
Captain John Palliser (my school for half of grade 2) was hardly eventful. All I remember there was calling my teacher mommy once and having my older cousin (in grade 6 at the moment) throw my new frisbee on top of a roof. I hated him for a little while because of that, but him and I look back at it and laugh hysterically.
Westmount Charter School was my school from Grade 3 all the way to my graduation which concluded in May of this year. This school brought some of my closest friends along but also my darkest moments. In grade 3, I met my best friend Jonathan. We literally got along because we made fart noises/burp noises on the table. Eventful story, isn't it? Jonathan and I became best of friends, despite me stabbing him with a pencil and being dragged out by the principal to his office. Anyways, I was pretty hyperactive at the time, but my parents had always thought it was just me being a kid. The summer of my Grade 3 year came, and I went to Lebanon to visit some of my family for six weeks. Lebanon was awesome, I started to play Counter-Strike 1.5 in an Internet Cafe and got into it really quickly. It was that year I started to play Counter-Strike all the time on my father's shitty Dell computer.
Grade 4 came along, and so did PokemonCrater. Jonathan and I would play PokemonCrater practically every day in class when the teacher wasn't looking. Soon we got a bunch of other friends into it. My most prized possession was a level 100 shiny Flygon, until my friend Fabian tried to show me a trick which ended up releasing my Flygon. We're still friends despite my hatred toward him in Grade 4.
I continued to play Counter-Strike and Runescape extensively through Grade 4 all the way until Grade 8. Grades 5 and 6 weren't too memorable, but Grade 7 is where my life basically became a clusterfuck. By grade 7, I was extremely overweight, weighing in at something short of 300 pounds - I may have even broke that mark. I thought nothing of it, played some World of Warcraft and Counter-Strike, and continued on my merry way. That is... until the bullying in Grade 7 started. Fatty, lardo, Jupiter (I laugh at that nickname now), I heard it all, but names were something I could brush off. That's until the physical abuse started. There are countless times where I'd have my head down waiting for the morning class to begin and some asshole would always come and staple me in the back, I'm pretty sure there might be a mark there. He also stapled me in the back of the neck and in the hand. This guy was a complete douche to me. Sometimes while walking in the hallway, him and his hockey buddies would slash at my shins and cut them open pretty badly. I took it upon myself to finish school and get the fuck out and go home. Home wasn't any better. My parents were also terrible about my weight, calling me the same names that they would call me in school. I would always have some days with shitty moods before this, but it was at this time where the mood shifts were well noticed and well documented (within my brain, at least). My suicidal ideations came to light on an evening where multiple kids from my school began to post an email from my inbox telling a girl I liked her. Someone went on my computer while I was working on it in the library (the school wouldn't allow you to lock them) and printed out multiple copies of the email, forwarding it to other students as well. Soon, the email was plastered everywhere in the school. I cried and cried that night, thinking I would take my life. I posted one of those statuses on Facebook asking for help, and was willing to talk about my problems to someone who reached out to me. Instead I got "kill yourself ******" "the world would be better off without you" messages on that status. I took some sleeping pills from my mother that night and my parents had rushed me to a hospital to make sure I was okay. I was put in the emergency room for a short while, before being moved to a unit for monitoring. I was sent home because the nurses and psychiatrists didn't find me to be a threat to myself or others at the time. That was my only attempt at suicide in Grade 7. Yet in Grade 8, suicide became a regular thought...
I was still overweight in Grade 8, and this was about the time I started to play a lot of Stepmania. Although I was godawful at it, I continued to play in class or at home because it gave me something to do. People continued to poke fun at me throughout all of Grade 8, incidents where people would defecate in my change of shoes while I was in gym class, or where people would piss on my clothes/flush them down the toilet, leaving me to wear sweaty shit for the rest of the day. Needless to say, that didn't help the bullying much. Every day was a new type of harassment, sometimes getting sucker punched in the head, kicked while I was down in flag football, tackled into poles - hit with baseball bats, and I'd always get caught for lashing out and swearing at them (these bullies would do it when the teacher wasn't looking, or was absent) and would all report me upon me swearing at them. I got suspended a couple of times for inappropriate language and to me it provoked more suicidal ideations. I felt so alone when everyone would attack me and nobody would notice, but I was too afraid and shy to say anything about it.
Grade 9 was a year where I skipped school a little bit to play World of Warcraft and Counter-Strike among other games. This was also the year where I decided to lose some weight and try to make myself more appealing to people; to quash the bullying. It didn't cease, and I was still verbally and physically attacked by bullies. That year, I tried to hang myself, but I had used a crappy rope from my garage which was hardly durable. The thing snapped and the noise alerted my parents who saw half of the rope dangling from the ceiling. With a little bit of redness at the neck, my parents were certain that I had attempted to physically harm myself or take my own life that night. I was yet again admitted to the hospital for testing, but this time I didn't get out so easily. I was diagnosed with Bipolar Type I, although many thought I was someone with Major Depressive Disorder (unipolar depression; having no distinguishable mania and manic episodes). I was put on Epival in the hospital as a trial run and was later put on Depakene and lithium for treatment of Bipolar. As of late 2011, I started to take Zyprexa instead and it is far better for me.
My grades in school were dropping substantially, and on a constant basis my family would attack me and say it was my gaming habits. I stopped my gaming habits for the rest of the year, and my grades fell even lower - and I tried to use that as proof that gaming was not a sole factor in my suffering academic performance. My parents just ignored it and continued to reiterate gaming as the problem.
In Grade 10, I was down to a weight of 240 pounds, almost 60 pounds from my original weight, and I felt pretty good about it. I was still bullied massively and yelled at and ridiculed at home. It was here where I decided I'd want to move out from my house that summer and live alone.
The end of Grade 10 was my darkest moment. Not because of suicide or depression, but because of how life went for me. I moved out that summer with a friends family for a couple weeks, and during that time I met an old friend from gaming downtown. At this time, I had been participating in ESEA-main for Counter-Strike: Source, and was doing fairly well - I had a chance of applying as a backup for one of the invite teams, but was eventually rejected once a player with better stats came around. Anyways, this friend had been selling drugs (particularly weed) to people for some money. I really needed money at the time and wished to live alone as well, so I got into that business for a little while. I sold weed for 2 years while working at a Safeway. That year I made shit tons of money, enough for rent, food, computer, internet, cell phone bills and much more. The next year, 3 friends from another school moved into me and we all decided to sell together. I had my ARCT certificate at the time, so I also worked by teaching children in the area piano. Piano made me around $35 an hour, so I couldn't complain there. With school and piano and my other job I had barely any free time. Gaming was hardly important to me at that point and it was really just making some money. I made much more money while living with my "friends", and all of us easily brought 100k+ - two of them were selling crack/heroin in the same place I was in.
Just recently, my parents finally decided to get me tested and I was discovered to have ADHD. I was put on adderall for my grade 12 year and finished with a 95 average. How's that for "gaming ruined your life"? I was still very capable of achieving high grades with the right treatment.
End of grade 11, I also had a girlfriend for 10 months. She cheated on me with her ex and I went into a spiralling depression/with suicidal ideations etc. I was extremely clingy, super passive aggressive, and hysterical after she broke up with me. I was a fucking psycho, and I needed to get help. I was in therapy for six months to ease the pain of the breakup. I feel so much better now and there isn't a day that goes by where I think about it again.
I smoke weed every single day of the week, (woah I'm so badass) and I have a lot of money left in my bank account (some from my grandparents and others from dealing). I got out of the dealing game for good and work as a piano teacher for now. I'm attending my local university this fall, on September 3rd and trying to land a job at a Best Buy. I don't plan to stop smoking/the occasional drunk fuck at parties - but I think I'll do just fine.
Parents and I have started to work things out, and I am now living with them again. They are trying to help me through university now and are really trying to make amends after a shitty past. I hope everything works out. My brother has been off and on. He has had countless seizures sending him to the emergency room and ICU for a few weeks and back, but he's stayed strong through all of this. Although he can't talk, him and I are infinitely close and he's a miracle, he's also someone I look up to. He has a pretty tough life, so I stay grateful for the things I do have. I can proudly say I haven't had a serious suicidal ideation since my breakup and I've been a pretty happy person. I'm trying to get back into professional Counter-Strike and picked up League of Legends. I probably won't get good at LoL, but it's a fun game
Forgot to add, I'm 188 pounds now and I go to the gym six times a week. Take that school peeps