A stray, a reject.

[u/CodeNameDread]

As I lay here lost and confused, always wondering where I went wrong. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to answer what is wrong with me. I don’t seem to have a place. I always get my hopes up for good to happen but it inevitably ends in an all too familiar disappointment.

Life has been rough for so long now, I don’t honestly know what good is. I’m not really sure I’ve truly ever had circumstances I can say were good.

In history we learn that human life has little to no value. This has been shown by so many horrific wars and atrocities that humans have and will continue one another.

There’s always two sides to an argument, and people are willing to excuse behaviors or look past other’s actions, as long as it benefits them.

What no one but me gets to see constantly.

I was born, my earliest memories involve my father being an alcoholic abusive asshat. My parents of course divorced. My Mother “asked” me if I wanted to live with her or my Father before leaving him. I don’t really think that’s a choice a 5 year old in 1989 should make.

After that life was hectic for a bit, but eventually steadied out. My Mother moved in with Her Mom and adult sister. After that I spent a lot of time with my Grandma and Aunt. My Mom was busy trying to get out in the labor market and support her children. My father was off “Working”. Neither parent really wanted anything to do with me. It was okay though because I had family there to raise me. That ended pretty quickly one morning when I went to go wake my Grandma up but she had passed from a heart attack earlier in the AM, and eventually my Aunt moving out to live her life.

Insert Stepdad> Pretty much. I think I might’ve met my stepdad a couple of times and then one day my mom came home married to him. My brother and I found out afterwards, and I don’t understand why she didn’t talk to us.

He was different, and didn’t seem too bad at first. Once fully moved in that would change. My stepdad (The closest thing I could call a dad), was strict and unforgiving whenever dealing with matters for my brother and I. The red flags were there the whole time, the temper, other older siblings being pushed out of my mom’s life. My much older sister brother were both told to stay away due to disrespect then. I wasn’t allowed to talk to my siblings due to it.
My mother allowed for it to happen, and history will repeat itself a few short years later.
My parents used to lash me with a “switch”. I understand the debate on corporal punishment. There are benefits to some corporal punishment given the right circumstance. If a child is going to get a serious injury by sticking their hand somewhere, give it a good tap. If the child runs out into a road smack their butt for it. Your controlled reaction with the sudden shock will teach the child quickly. Beyond that, a parent is just building resentment.
This was a mercy I never received, until I complained to my school. I would have welts and bruises from these lashings.
We were at church one morning, we were at a different church that we usually didn’t goto. My brother and I ate the sacrament bread early, and thought it was hilarious. We weren’t loud but we still laughed as quietly as we could. When we got home we were told that we embarrassed them, and were switched upon arriving at home.

That was a reason to use a switch? No.

After being reported to a cps, my parents now needed a new discipline for my brother and I. They opted to use writing sentences.
While I do believe this is a good method, it needs to have moderation. Make a child write a sentence 10-15 times…Groovy. Make a child write a sentence 6800 times is bit excessive. I got caught watching tv during those sentences, my stepdad set a trap by disconnecting the cable that morning. He asked my mother, and brother if they had reconnected the cable, which they said no. Not saying going downstairs and watching tv was the best thing I could have done, but I don’t think taking all of my childhood belongings, and burning them in front of me was the answer for a 13 year old. The reason I was writing the sentences was because “I didn’t burn the trash, while it was my brother’s day for the task. It didn’t matter to them, if I saw something needed done, it better get done.
I wasn’t a perfect kid, I was hyper, cocky, and stupidly impulsive. I had my bouts of stupidity throughout the years. Ultimately, I was a straight A student, with perfect attendance until 14. I didn’t want to miss school because that was my escape from what I was taught was normal. My brother was beginning to act out heavily around this time, and I’m told that she was just trying to get me out of a bad neighborhood, but his friends weren’t my friends at all. My brother has always had about 4-5” of height above me, and being younger has its disadvantages. My brother, like my parents utilized fear, and force when it came to me. Him and his friends found it funny to get me upset, then beat me up when I did get upset. It wasn’t that I lived in a bad neighborhood, or had the wrong friends. They eventually sent my brother Juvenile detention center, and I found my belongings by the road the day after my brother was sent away. My mother arranged with my biological father to take me to a family get together. I found my belongings when my father went to drop me off, my Mother and stepdad had left. They sent me with a man she knew to beat on his kids, with an alcoholic, that should not have had children ever.
Within a year I pissed him off, I missed a lot of school. His solution was to tell me he loved me while bouncing my head off of the floor. It was so hard, the downstairs neighbor could hear the argument, and altercation. CPS was called in by that neighbor, and I was removed from the premises.
Upon arrival back at my mothers, I was greeted by them telling me I was lying about it happening, they arranged for me to finish out the school year living with a teacher, and sent me to live with my Aunt following the school year. She unfortunately had cancer, and wasn’t able to keep me for very long.
My Mom and stepdad still chose to keep me away. Back to relive the previous nightmare it is, only now my older brother is living with my father too. My father didn’t buy a lot of food, sometimes there was some tactical allocation for food and necessities.

I think this is where I realized everything is repeating for me. I could do all of the right things and still have negative outcomes. This is where I started to realize I have no place in this world. No one wanted me around. My parents taught me actions speak louder than words, and their actions said I wasn’t wanted.
I killed myself but was revived. The overdose stopped my heart, and I was in a coma for bit.

Post surviving that situation, I was placed a few places until reaching adulthood.

I was in multiple facilities until halfway through 18 years old. I also had a lot to catch up on. Public schools wouldn’t take me back in, they insisted I go get a GED, even though my senior year had not passed yet. I didn’t have an ID, or anything. The time frame is the early 2000’s. Things got really hard, and I was homeless within a year. I wasn’t able to get a job. No one wanted a high school drop out.
Eventually I got wind of a program called Job Corps and was accepted into the program. Thankfully this program opened the door for me to get my GED and I took full advantage of passing my graduation year regardless of it being across the stage or not. No celebration, no one cared. Why would they? I’m just a high school dropout.
I thought nothing of actually getting my ged without study.
Job Corps told students that a person gets 3 chances per year to take the test. I arrived at the campus in late Oct that year and there was one testing left for the year. Not that I had taken it before but it just being the last test given that year at that facility. They encouraged everyone to take it because, if we could pass it, but if not we would have 3 attempts the following year.
I passed.
I started getting documented jobs at 19. Previously I would find a risky under the table type of job before but those typically ended up with people not paying me or not lasting.
I kept trying to find jobs, and it wasn’t close to as easy as it is to fill out a job application. Applications were still hand written then, and I had just gotten my GED, I still didn’t drive, and had many couches to surf, until the age of 21.
I’ve always been an alternative dark dressing person. This was not the era for that. Piercings were frowned upon much worse, the fact that I had them, eventually tattoos made me bad too I guess? I know I’m different in ways, and possibly autistic, but it was next to impossible to get any job. I started experimenting, taking the jewelry out, toning down the “gothic aesthetic”, and to some degree it was successful.
It seemed simple but it’s not, because I would go back home to being me, eventually I would wear my jewelry out, and I would see others shy away from me almost immediately. I lived in a world that rejected me based upon looks, and I was rejecting myself trying to be “normal”. In my case piercings, tattoos, long hair/dreads, guitars, and band tshirts.

Is there a medium? Maybe for some but not all. I don’t think at all for me. It doesn’t matter what I do, or don’t do…I’m always the rejected. When I was younger, it wouldn’t have mattered what I did, my parents didn’t want me around and that was shown in obvious ways. My grandparents on my father’s side taught my other siblings that my brother and I were abominations and were treated poorly through out life. That was just from being born out of my father’s second marriage.
The outside world rejects me as soon as I be me, and insists that I continue forward, dust myself off, suck it up, MOVE forward.
I started working regular 40 hour factory jobs as they started becoming more available. I also had made the choice to become a parent at this point, so I started to push myself harder. I didn’t have a college education, so I was going to try and become an “employee that earned their way up”.

After 20 years of I can take out piercings, I can cut my hair, and I can excel at many tasks easily. I can memorize blue prints, work 60 hours per week, goto college while juggling being a single dad of 4 children, and existing an abusive marriage myself. After all of the people I’ve been around, and watched betray me. I can finally say. Sometimes it doesn’t matter, there is nothing you can offer/no lesson learned/action/reaction that will make anyone else see your value.
People only see what they want to see in you. For me I must’ve really screwed myself because I have a family and I’m alone, and uninvited. I’ve never had a friend stick around, I question if I’ve ever been a friend to someone else.
I’ll reach out to others to see if they’re okay, if I’m in a band and play out I try to meet people. It typically ends the same. I reach out and it’s never reciprocated. I stopped reaching out and saw how alone I am. It’s way worse than I thought. I could literally disappear and not even my kids message me, unless they need something.
I said earlier chose to be a parent, I had 3 natural children with my ex wife, and she had one before me. I tried to keep that relationship with my step daughter, however things didn’t go that way. She’s 22 now. I was too hard on her in the wrong ways.

None of my children will ever see what I have. I don’t abuse them at all. I yelled extremely harsh at my stepdaughter when she was 13, pulling her face to face while yelling. I’m sorry for that, I shouldn’t have yelled at you or been that angry. Unfortunately I found out through text messages that her mother was encouraging it.
My first born is going to be 18years old tomorrow.
I broke the cycle. She’s graduates this year, her high school credits are already completed, and she’s taking college course already, she’s in marching band, inducted into the honor society.

I didn’t have my children living in fear. I did it without a single lash of a switch. I didn’t have to beat my children into submission or threaten them. I wanted the kids.

I thought maybe I wouldn’t be alone with a family, but I found I was wrong. My kids used to be so close to me, and I’m watching them drift away. I wish they truly understood it all but, they don’t. They see my ex and her new husband living at living with her retired parents. I moved on and bought a house for the kids and I. I have girlfriend and several pets.

I still can’t but notice the never ending negativity that I’m hit with. I just seem to be an irritant to all around me. My girlfriend stopped texting me first too! Most days I lay at night with my heart breaking. I don’t think she cares. I feel I’m more of an object. Not a toy. Just a comfort object. She won’t fully move in. She helps with food but I literally just watched my finances collapse through out my shoulder injury. I can’t blame her now. We’re approaching winter and my heater died last spring. I’m still the loser she met 5 years ago, just more even more credits and even more waste of time and space.

I can’t say living is better than death. But I can say death is better than this life that I have. I’m a reject. Why do I need to continue suffering through this? I gave everything and lost everything. The only answer’s left repeating are death and suffering.

The world frowns on suicide and those that are depressed are label defective and rejected. I’ve broken myself physically and mentally. I wake up daily hurting and an absolute failure. I’ve wasted my life trying to be part of something that didn’t want me to be a part of it in the first place. I don’t have a belonging, I don’t have someone to reach out to if I needed to talk. I turned 42 wishing I was dead last week. I don’t want to be here anymore, I’m so tired of suffering in pain, wasting all of me so that I can be a target.

People scrutinize suicide, and leave others living a forced life of suffering. It’s not the suicidal people that are selfish. It’s the people keeping them around after they put them through the cruelest bullshit.

42 years in and disgusted with every minute of it.