Motivation logo

Perspective

A story to give you hope.

By Kenneth RogersPublished 3 years ago 11 min read
Like
Me (21)

We all know life is full of ups and downs. Some say life’s a rollercoaster, some see life as hell on earth, and some just go with the flow. Perspective is everything. We live in a world where everyone is busy, all the time. Unfortunately, the busier the world gets, the less we stop to think about each other. My name’s Kenny, and I want to show you my perspective.

I want to start by saying, this is NOT a story of pity. This story is written to show the perspective of somebody who knows what it feels like to be in a position where it feels like nobody cares, or to be outcasted. To show you that it’s ok to feel this way, and that not one person is truly alone in life.

I grew up all over the place. It’s (almost) safe to say that I’ve never really had a place to call “home.” My dad abandoned us (my mom and I) when I was about 6 months old, and my mom turned to drug abuse to escape the stress she was left to handle by herself. I can’t say I blame her, I’ve had my fair share of run-ins with alcohol and pills and weed as well.

Due to the fact that my mom was hooked on those drugs I was taken not long after by DCS, and moved out to New Mexico to live several years with my Aunt. I was still very young at the time, and don’t remember much. But I do remember how I felt when my mom came to take me back from my Aunt, and how I felt as if I was being taken away from my family.

Jump ahead another year or so and I was taken away, again, for the same reasons. Only this time, I was moved to my Nana and Papa’s house, here in Arizona. I remember feeling as though I was treated unfairly under their supervision, and being punished for things I can’t even recall ever doing. Which eventually led to me being moved from there, into my Grandpa’s house where I would attend school and live a fairly normal life for a while. Until I was reunited with my mom once again.

My mom, stepfather, and a DCS agent all walked in together and we had a meet where they asked me a bunch of questions about my living situation and how I would feel moving back in with my mom and stepdad. An important piece of information, my stepdad had been around so long I didn’t even know my biological father had left yet. According to me, he was my biological father. At some point during this conversation, the DCS agent steps aside to my mom, who very apparently grew distressed or anxious, and soon after the agent would turn to me. He approaches looking fairly nervous, and gets my attention. “There’s something you should know, and it’s not going to be easy.” I become concerned as he carefully tells me, “Sometimes, parents have disagreements. These disagreements can lead to fights, which lead to them becoming separated. I wanted to tell you that (your stepdad) is not your biological father.”

My heart grew cold. I felt abandoned. Betrayed. Lied to. From that moment on, I never called my stepdad “Dad” again. I became bitter towards him. Rebelling and denying anything he told me and it only got worse as time went on. I can’t tell you how many nights went by where I would yell and tell him I hate him, then cry myself to sleep at night wondering, “Why me? Why did it have to be this way?”

Skipping ahead a few more years, I’m now in the fifth grade. My GPA had gone from a 4.0, to just under a 3.0, and I’ve stopped expressing my emotions to my mom because I felt as though it wouldn’t change anything. Like it was useless to speak up, because no matter what, my real father was gone and my mom was barely my mom and there was nothing I could do or say to fill that emptiness.

My whole life, I’ve loved video gaming, but I didn’t realize how unhealthy of a habit it became as I became more and more depressed and anxious. It was an escape, I was good at it and it made me feel empowered to be able to accomplish so much sitting in one place for hours on end. I made friends online, earned my virtual currencies, and would beat every game to its total completion within weeks of owning them gathering the highest tier items and hunting all the Easter Eggs (secrets that are harder to find in the game if you’re just playing the game to play it).

I didn’t make many friends, and was the furthest thing from “popular” you can be. I got bullied a lot, to the point where I had kids following me and my best friend, Michael, who lived just a house down the road from me, back to our houses. Throwing rocks, calling us names, and knocking things over pinning the blame on us if ever necessary. I constantly was insulted by how I dressed (My mom wasn’t exactly in the best financial position and we couldn’t afford the clothes the other kids wore), and how quiet I always was. I was considered weird, and people would always make jokes about me being the school’s first shooter.

My depression only grew worse from 5th-8th grade, I had dreamt of suicide many times, but never actually harmed myself in any way somebody could ever see. No cuts, no bruises, only thoughts and subtle self beatings and internal anger. I got to a point where I couldn’t even see myself the same in the mirror, and began following what the other kids did to try and fit in. I tried playing sports, and felt I was never good at it, so I gave up. Slowly I learned that people really seemed to like the art I would bring to school, and became obsessed with poetry and drawing.

In 7th grade, my greatest achievement was being noticed for my artistic skill and being one of the few selected for the schools first Advanced Arts program, where my art skills only prospered. I was drawing banners for my groups in school projects, and was always being asked to draw and craft different things for my classmates. Being foolish, I accepted happily all the time not being aware people were only using me to their advantage for a better grade. It felt good that people finally acknowledged me and I was desperate to keep that status.

Skipping ahead, we’re now in the 9th grade. I’m almost 15 years old and I’m still passionate about art, and my passion for poetry became a passion for hip-hop music. I was taking Art I, but my art teacher soon asked me if I would like to be place in Advanced Art classes for my sophomore year instead of being placed in the general Art II classes, which I happily accepted. I had a notebook full of drawings of characters from cartoons and comic books surrounding long lists of rhyming words that would grow every time I learned a new way to rhyme the pre-existing words on those pages. And I completely stopped focusing on school entirely.

By Junior year, I had started a small playlist on SoundCloud, which you can imagine opened up a whole new world of bullying. People teasing me asking me to rap for them and always criticizing me for being a “wannabe Eminem,” and many other racial, and nasty slurs that only made me angrier. It was about then that I got the idea to drop out of high school. Not to chase my passion for rap, but to get away from the constant bullying and disrespect. To get away. Instead of dropping out, my counselor persuaded me into taking my classes online at a little online style school known as Student Choice High School, where I eventually just stopped logging in and showing up all together and was eventually dropped from their roster.

I was 18, and I had secured my first job at Subway, where I quickly became friends with my manager who made me one of her best employees and soon worked me up to a shift lead position. But then, everything fell apart. I had met a girl in my sophomore year who, little did I know, would become the biggest part of my life ever when my mom decided she was sick of fighting with me and sick of me not doing anything with myself, and kicked me out at 18 years old. Her family took me in to live with them, and I kept working, and was forced by her dad to go back to Student Choice and get my schooling done. Me and this girl became very close, and were almost like a married couple for 6 years all-in-all. When me and her broke up our technically first time, my mom took me back in. But by 19 I was kicked out again, and single, and had nowhere to go. An old friend of mine from elementary school offered me a place to stay with him out in Tennessee and within two weeks after getting that offer, I said my very painful goodbyes and rode the Greyhound for 3 days across the states. My habit of drinking, smoking, and drug abuse became worse than ever before.

From Xanax, to cocaine, to Vodka, cigarettes, LSD, and marijuana, I was doing whatever I could to escape the heartache. Many people said they were there for me, and that they cared, but no matter who talked to me I still felt abandoned. I spent almost a year in Tennessee, going out till the crack of dawn getting high, and coming home to sleep for only a few hours to go to work again wired off of cocaine to keep me going. It was then that I acknowledged my drug problem and forced myself to quit cocaine and cigarettes. I have never been to rehabilitation.

During the time I was in Tennessee, a huge hurricane was predicted to sweep the east coast and my mom called me worried and crying and my friend’s dad paid for a ticket to bring me back home.

Coming back to Arizona made me feel like a new person. Everybody was excited to see me, old friends and new friends invited me to go out almost every night, and my family spent so much time with me it was almost like nothing bad had ever happened in the first place. I continued writing and recording music, and became very popular very quickly in the area, but I still felt lost. I still felt like something was missing. Like I was still too alone.

I very quickly got back together with the love of my life as mentioned earlier, but was suddenly faced with the backlash from every single one of my friends who told me that until I stopped seeing her, I wasn’t invited to go on trips with them, and I wasn’t allowed to room with them because they wouldn’t allow her there with me. Now I had the love of my life, but no friends. I became depressed and angry once again, which led to some of the worst fights I’ve ever had with my mom, and I was kicked out again to live with my girlfriend. Now I had no friends, and no family. Just me and her. I lost hope. Lost motivation. Grew confused and angry and ended up turning all that negativity to her which ruined my relationship yet again.

I am now 21. I’m back at home. I’m making my music and have a song with 118.4K plays that talks about the pain of my love life after losing her yet again. I have new friends that are very real with me, and the love of my life is laying right on top of me sleeping as I write this, but because of my past, she’s afraid of me. It hurts more than I can fathom but I still fight to be with her every single day because my perspective has finally changed. I’ve seen a lot, done a lot, hurt a lot, cried a lot, attempted suicide numerous times, and I’m sitting here smiling. My reason? I’m still standing. I’m still fighting. And everything is finally turning out ok. I have a job at a McDonald’s, I have my bond with my little brother and sister slowly building back together, I’ve reestablished the emotional bond with my mom, and I’m slowly winning back my Diamond in the rough.

I had been taken from home, I had been kicked out of my home, I had been betrayed many times, had been alone, chased the wrong person at one point while me and my girlfriend were separated who ended up having sex with my older brother and bailing, I had been bullied, I had been abused, I had been admitted to a psychiatric hospital for my depression, I have finally gotten clean from all the drugs, and I’m alive. Writing this story to show you that it’s all about perspective. We get lost, we get abandoned, we get hurt, and we get stuck in some of the most horrible positions in our lifetimes. I’ve had friends overdose, had friends commit suicide, and had friends become the victims of murder. Yet, somehow, I’m still here. I’m still smiling. I’m continuously telling myself that it won’t always be this way. I just have to have patience.

happiness
Like

About the Creator

Reader insights

Be the first to share your insights about this piece.

How does it work?

Add your insights

Comments

There are no comments for this story

Be the first to respond and start the conversation.

Sign in to comment

    Find us on social media

    Miscellaneous links

    • Explore
    • Contact
    • Privacy Policy
    • Terms of Use
    • Support

    © 2024 Creatd, Inc. All Rights Reserved.