Well, I said that I'd go through this, for... closure or some thing. I don't even know at this point. Anyway, this time we'll be delving into my teenage years. One of the worst parts of my life. For those who haven't read
part one, in my early adolescence I had moved to another house, the family had gotten into a car crash, and things were going to pot.
I don't know if I went to Our Lady of Hope until it's last year, but I do know that I spent eighth grade to a 6-8th grade middle school. There I met a couple of friends that popped up in high school and even beyond. We didn't learn very much because the whole thing was just absolutely chaos, no student paid attention to anything and the faculty was much more focused on getting the students to pass their standardized test, the MCAS. No joke, one student put a paperclip in an outlet and was taken out of school for like a month.
I started reading a lot during this period, I remember. Probably the most of my entire life, the first two Eragon books, His Dark Materials, a ton of Goosebumps books, Hatchet, and just about anything that was in the school library. It was at this point I did really start focusing on writing actual fiction, most prominently a series of novellas about a girl who turned into a monster. Some of the other kids actually really liked it, and in the end I wrote 6 of them. I also started drawing some silly comics, but unfortunately (or fortunately, all things considered), none of the originals survived, although I have tried to do revivals/adaptations and such. The original Moonflower was also something I wrote at this time. And I even tried my hand at poetry. Like I joined my school's poetry club. If that sounds unbelievable, wait until you hear that I actually made student council, but left it for poetry club was student council was boring, and did nothing.
Then high school happened. It started out fairly okay, actually. I liked most of the teachers, and I was capable with work and such. But this was when I started developing a lot of my mental illnesses. Freshman year of high school, if my math is accurate, 2007. Winter came along and I started to feel... not so great. Of every depressive episode I've had, Freshman year and Sophmore year of high school are both in the top 3.
My home life was falling apart completely, largely due to my mother's addiction and my stepfather becoming more and more unpleasant to deal with as the time went on. And this was also the time that the economy was going to go very very south, so generalized small joys were harder to come by. And the environment is not going to improve for many years.
A lot of these things depression was definitely taking advantage of, but that doesn't convey what kind of monster it really is. In freshman year I shared none of my classes with anyone from 8th grade, and I certainly wasn't even in the same school as my childhood friends. Depression turns good moments on their ear. Those things you liked to do become "they're done now, and they'll never happen again, and you'll never see these people again."
Sophmore year I
was placed in some classes with my 8th grade friends. And I felt worse. And depression was like "see, even with that, you're
still not happy and you never will be happy." I came close to the end. Especially because I didn't see much future for myself. I didn't know what I wanted to do with my life, and at this point, we were all expected to know so we could choose a college path. That's one thing about my high school. There were two paths that they wanted: college, or military and then college. So many seminars, and talks, and moments, I've gone on and on about this before and I don't want to harp too much here. People generally know my feelings on college, and they really haven't changed, especially as student debt as ballooned into a massive problem. The important part for this story is that I didn't want to go college, and telling the powers that be about that was
fun. None of this stew helped my emotional state at the time.
I tried telling my parents that I was depressed, many times. I wasn't burying it in secrecy or silently suffering. The teachers picked up on it and I actively made it known that I was feeling depressed. Nothing changed. Back in the late 2000's, teenage depression was largely seen as typical "teen moodiness" that happens to most people and you get over. I remember distinctly telling my stepfather about this. His response: "are you suicidal?" I said no. I had suicidal ideation, wanted to do it, but wasn't at the point where I was willing to go through it. And I was also worried about what would happen if I had said yes, which was closer to the truth than no. I won't explain exactly why here for privacy reasons, but if you've read
Today I Learned Pluto was a Planet, you know how this person treats difficult mental health issues. Because "I wasn't suicidal", the depression was simply something that I shouldn't have worried about, I guess. Teenage moodiness, not a problem. It was a massive problem and a good chance that the only reason I'm still alive today is my dog Patrick.
It was also at this time that I started developing OCD, although I didn't make the connection until the 2020's (which we'll get there, we're doing the whole thing). OCD tends to work with "themes" - obsessive thoughts about a particular stressor, like thoughts of violence or thoughts of religious condemnation. I still remember my first theme. Messing about in the yard, I ended up getting a bruise. And it never went away. To this day. It might've healed, but there's permanent discoloration (I went to a doctor many years later and he didn't seem concerned about it at all). Mix it with this
song, which was popular on country radio at the time, and the fact that one of the most popular shows in the world was House MD, I became paranoid that I was going to die.
Neither of these were fun. They're still not fun. But I don't think anyone truly likes the hand that they were dealt.
Much of my teenage years is defined by conflict with my stepfather. I was dealing with this mental cocktail, and home life was falling apart. After high school began, there was only one thing that he'd ever talk to me about "get a job" or "why don't you have a job yet." And that became his major focus when I turned 16. I was a waste and useless unless I had one. I was going to be either way to him, but then he'd presumably leave me alone at least.
The minimum age to work in Massachusetts, generally speaking is 16 years old. If you've lost track of the score, I turned 16 in 2008. This was the start of the Great Recession. The unemployment rate shot up to 10 percent at some point. People weren't employing
adults at the time, nevermind 16 year olds with no work history. And that's just any teenager. I wouldn't have been the best hire, because once again, depressed and wanted to die. Oh, and my stepfather got more and more aggressive as time went on, driving me into a social anxiety that made me more and more unhireable. Because he's an idiot.
Junior year, I did have a reprieve. I joined the school's games club. This is where I was first introduced to Dungeons and Dragons, that was its main focus, but I also learned how to play games like Settlers of Catan or Chrononauts, and I had a lot of fun. Even though D&D was 4th edition then and we only played modules. It gave me an interest that I keep to this day, and it turned out to be a coping mechanism that helped me to improve somewhat.
I was still terrified of my prospects after high school. The economy exploding made it seem like anything I chose to do would lead to disaster, and there was always this looming threat. So, one thing I did in my later half of high school was picked some of the most random and eclectic series of electives, hoping that something would stick and I'd have an interest or a passion that could carry me from here to eternity.
Let's see if I can remember them all. Took a cooking class, a photography class, a piano class, a web design class, two editing classes (yes, I actually took editing classes), creative writing, business management, criminal justice, and probably even more. Some things stuck, and some things didn't. I can still make a 2000's era HTML table, but as far as piano goes I know what middle C is. I don't know how to find it, but I know it exists.
I also did other things in rough attempts to get
something to stick. I started making game demos on this engine called the OHRRPGCE. I kept trying to write something, recreating the story I made during middle school and making it worse somehow. This is the second oldest surviving writing I have, and it is throw-it-in-a-fire bad. I even started a Youtube channel under the name Brovania when I turned 16.
So Brovania, I have no idea where I originally got the name. I know it's the name that I called my bionicle
Lerahk, but it's really just a random word and it was a word that was never taken on any website that I tried to make an account with, so I could have something without numbers. Brovania is apparently a country in a Goosebumps book, so that might be relevant, I genuinely don't know.
What I do know is that when I turned 18, on my birthday, my cousin showed me this guy called the Nostalgia Critic. The first or second video I saw from him was Free Willy and from there I was hooked. I was really getting into a lot of web series in my later high school years: JoshScorcher, SMPfilms, What You Ought to Know, and some others that we'll talk about in the next one as they're more relevant there. Not the AVGN though yet, cuz I was a prude about his kind of humor. Oh that's another thing, before I became a youtuber I didn't swear. Ever.
I graduated in June 2011, and for the longest time I was basically a NEET. Did nothing productive, except avoid my stepfather as much as possible. Until he eventually he left. Part of it was definitely the shit between us, and the rest of it was the state of my mother. It was either late September, early October.
And then things got... chaotic. Without my stepfather's intimidating presence, my mother lost control of everything going on. Especially because there was no structure. And so my siblings did end up standing up to her a lot. Thanks to the suggestion of a "family friend" though, she started calling the police whenever her children stood up to her. And the cops took my mother's side every time. If you're wondering, I was so lost/apathetic, I was not the one doing any standing at the time, and it's probably a good thing in hindsight, considering that I wasn't a minor and that kind of altercation could have ended very badly. Eventually, I left and moved in with my grandparents by the end of November 2011
If you're wondering "the family friend" is dead, and that's all you need to know about him. Also, I know there's a temptation to "never speak ill of the dead" and I get talking about this might come across as taboo. My policy is "speak honestly about the dead." It's their lives that define them, not the fact that they're dead, which is the least interesting/relevant part of anyone's life, since it's something that's a part of virtually everyone's life.
But I will state that at some point before her death, we did make up like adults. Of the three parents I was dealt, she was indisputably the best of the three. She did keep my stepfather largely in check until she no longer could. She was young and inexperienced and that's always going to lead to complications. I can honestly say she tried really really hard, even as the drug addiction started to weigh her down. Her efforts didn't always lead to the best results, but most mistakes she made were at least understandable. The best way of describing my feelings is "complicated" and that will continue until her eventual death, but that's down the road.
Next time, we'll start on things you all might be vaguely familiar with.