Bullied into Darkness (Life Story Part 1)

    March 4th 1981 I come into this world, and right off the bat there is an issue. My fingers didn't form correctly and I have fused bone instead of cartilage in a few spots, so they don't bend in some areas where there are suppose to be joints. This is nothing more then cosmetic damage though, and there isn't much that can be done about it. I have no memory of the first 4-5 years, but I do remember Bristol and Saint Marks Elementary School, where I went from kindergarten, 1st, 2nd, and half of 3rd grade. All I remember about Kindergarten is nap time, and the foam pads we use to lay on.

    When I got to first grade (87/88), I met my first Bully. The school day was about to end, and we were lined up at the door waiting for the bell when this red headed kid punched me really hard in the arm. I remember crying, and the teacher (a nun) walked over to me with an angry look and grabbed my arm and pulled me back into the line and yelled at me to behave and be quiet. A later incident (it could have been a day later, or a month later, I'm not sure) involved the red head and a friend of his with black hair. I was walking home and they came up to me and were saying mean things and shoved me into a telephone pole. After that, the kid with the black hair would be mean to me all the time, and other kids started to realize how easy it was because I was quiet and shy, and so I became this target. On the playground behind the school, no one wanted to play with me, so I would usually just wonder around looking at the chalk drawings on the ground. There was a giant hole in the fence right along the Delaware river, I would hang out over there just watching the water move past.

    I did have a few friends though, one was named Chris. We would hang out all the time after school playing Atari and NES video games. We weren't friends at school though, he acted as though he didn't know me. I remember my mom once asked him something about it and he said "I cant be friends with him at school because no one likes him and they wouldn't like me" (something along those lines). I said "Yeah mom he would get picked on too" like it was just reality and normal to me. (and in hindsight, I don't blame Chris at all). My other friends were 3 kids that lived next door to me, they all went to a different school so they didn't see how others treated me and therefor were actually good friends...and I suppose I got along with my brother those early years as well. 2 houses down from me, lived a girl who was about 12-14 years old, and she was pretty mean and nasty. One time she shoved my face into a fence, and she must have got in a lot of trouble for it because I never saw her again after that.

    By the time I got to 3rd grade (89/90), I was beginning to hate school. I didn't like the uncomfortable uniforms, I didn't understand the religious stuff. I remember a story about Jesus standing by a well, watching people drop money in. A rich guy came up and put hundreds of gold coins into the well and smiled at Jesus. Jesus was not impressed and waved the man away. A poor women came up next, with only 2 pennies to her name. She tossed them both in and Jesus hugged her...I remember thinking "Why couldn't the rich guy give some money to the poor people, and why are the poor people suppose to give their last pennies to jesus/god/the well?" I spent weeks thinking about that and trying to make sense of it...but, its religion, and there is no logic with religion. Sometime during 3rd grade, we moved to Horsham PA, and I got a new start...

    3rd grade (1990) at Blair Mill Elementary School was ok. I liked that I didn't have to wear a uniform and the playground at the school was nice. I remember Mr Bloom, one of the cooler teachers I had. He took us Whale Watching, and was always nice and patient. During a field trip a kid choked on something and Mr Bloom (who apparently didn't know the 'Heimlich') slapped the kid on the back super hard until he spit up the food.

    4th grade (90/91) was tough. I tried to make friends on the playground, but other kids would always react to me like I was annoying them whenever I tried to join a game of kickball or tag. Also, I met the biggest Bullies of them all, Dan and Tim (I am holding back saying there full names). These guys would pick on me constantly. Once, during a game of kickball, it was my turn and I was at "bat"...I kicked the ball and ran, and when I looked up, Dan was standing just before first base waiting for me to run past (he wasn't in the game we were playing so he shouldn't have been there)...I felt this panic come over me and I tripped and got tagged out and my team was mad. If I hadn't tripped, I know he would have shoved me or something. That's just one of many memories that are embedded in my head of Dan and Tim, they stalked me and watched me and took every opportunity to bully me.

    5th grade (91/92) is where I began to feel anxiety constantly. I would get up every day feeling uneasy, go to school and feel nervous and scared most of the day, then come home and play video games and feel better until the next morning (without doing my homework). I started having body oder this year, and was teased a lot for smelling bad. I didn't know why I smelled, didn't know about deodorant at the time. That's something a parent is suppose to teach there child, but nope not mine. I'm not sure if they just didn't notice the BO, or just ignored it. Either way, I was sent off to school smelling bad and being bullied constantly. Teachers saw kids teasing me about my smell, even telling them to stop being mean, but did they question why the teasing was happening in the first place? Of course not. I remember a teacher walking past as we were taking a test, and he starts sniffing the air and then smells his own armpit, and I was terrified he was gonna say something and embarrass me, but he just kept walking and went back to his desk. Near the end of that year, I started pretending to be sick all the time so that I didn't have to go to school. My mom fought with me every day, but I would insist I was sick, and she would make me go to school 4/5 of those days, she usually gave in and let me stay home at least once a week.

    The BO was a problem outside of school too. I had this friend named Dominic, I met him in CCD (some after school religion course) around 90/91 (4th grade), and we hung out a lot. I remember being at a roller skating rink, it was me, Dom, and 2 of his friends that I didn't know. There were a lot of girls around, and he was talking to a bunch of them, and so were his friends. I was extremely nervous and uncomfortable around girls at this point in life, and so I wasn't able to talk to any of them, but its not like they were trying to talk to me either. At some point we started shooting pool on one of the 2 tables they had, and I'm taking a shot when I feel something touch my shoulder and I turn to look, and I see this girls nose near my left armpit. My turning around causes her to jump back and trip and fall to the ground (because she had skates on). Her friend helps her up and they both smile at me and skate away, as I turn to look at Dom, I see him and his friends hiding there faces while laughing...I realized immediately what had happened. They told those girls to come over and smell me, and it was just a big joke and fun time for all of them.

    6th grade (92/93) only got worse (by this point I was using deodorant, so at least I didn't smell anymore), now I was in 'Keith Valley Middle School' with a bunch of new kids from other elementary schools around the area. On the first day, we all gathered in the Cafeteria to get schedules and be assigned to a homeroom, and I met my second worst nightmare after Dan, I'm just gonna call him "Holmes". Holmes and this other guy Mike, walk up to me and another kid I was sitting with, and they say "I heard you had something to tell me" or something like that, and I'm like "huh? no" and Holmes says "if you are talkin trash were gonna need to settle it now" and I'm like "I haven't said anything" so he walked away, but he could tell how scared I was. Before he started being a bully, I actually made an attempt to be friends with Holmes. I saw how popular he was, and wanted to try and be part of that group. I saw him do air boxing with a friend of his once, so the next day during gym class, we were all walking down a path to go into the School Track, and I started air boxing at him and he seemed freaked out, and his friends laughed a little. His one friend behind him said something like "Is he trying to fight you?" and Holmes was like "Nah hes just playing around". After that I thought Holmes liked me, so I would insert myself into the group and jump into conversations. I'm not sure how long that went on, a few weeks maybe, and then one day these 2 girls come over to me and said "Holmes doesn't like you, so stop hanging around him". Just blunt and straight to the point. So I stopped and went back to keeping to myself.

    This was also the year I met my best friend, Brian. He was 2 years younger then me so he had no preconceived notions about me like the kids in my grade did. We would hang out after school all the time, playing video games, watching movies, and making our own stupid home movies. At school I was miserable and stressed, but at home I was happy. I remember that year the Math teacher had us doing this game where 2 students would stand up, she would ask a math problem, and the first one to answer could stay standing while the other person sat down. Dan was in this class, so I would lose on purpose every time it was my turn, but of course I got into a situation where I had to go up against him anyway. To stand up at the same time as him with all these other kids looking on was really shitty, especially when I actually tried to avoid it. Near the end of 6th grade, I knew this kid Brett that was in one of my classes, we use to trade video games throughout the year. I had borrowed a handheld tiger electronic game from him and lost it, and he was mad about it (understandably so). One day in Gym class, Holmes, and 4-5 of his friends, corner me near a bathroom stall, and Holmes says "I heard you were talking shit pussy" and I said "No I didn't" and Holmes shoves me into the stall and proceeds to slap and punch me for what felt like 10 minutes, but was probably 20 seconds. When he was done, I looked up and saw everyone behind him just looking on with pleasure (its been 26 years and I can still see those smiles on their faces), and then I see Brett's face in the back with a giant smile on it...He wanted me to see him, because he wanted me to know he had gotten Holmes to beat me up over a fucking tiger electronic game.

    With all the bullying going on, I did have 1 guy who stood up for me whenever he saw someone picking on me, a guy named Duffield. I didn't have any classes with him, but we were in the same grade and he probably saw it happen to me a few times and got sick of it. He would walk up to someone who was getting in my face to intimidate me, and get in their face and chase them away. He saved me like 4-5 times in 6th grade, until my friend Dominic met him. Me and Dom were in the Village Mall arcade playing Street Fighter or Mortal Kombat, and Duffield came in. We all took turns playing, and Dom and Duffield started arguing. Dom told him to step outside and fight, and they left the arcade as I was frozen in fear too scared to watch the fight (seeing fights made my anxiety go really high). I continued playing the game and they fought. Dominic was always fighting and he worked out all the time, so of course he won the fight. Duffield came walking back in all bloody and beaten and Dom was fine, except for Duffield's sister screaming in his ear as he came back to me in the arcade. Duffield never stood up for me again after that, but he never bullied me either, which was something I was afraid of after that fight.

    7th grade (93/94) arrived and it was the same thing over again. One day I was hanging out with a friend named Adam behind a pizza place, and Dan and Tim came riding up on there bikes and saw me. I froze in terror as they got off their bikes and walked up to me. They saw me holding a pack of cigarettes (was holding them for Adam) and were like "you think your cool or something?" and they made me take out a cig and light it and told me to inhale, and if I coughed they were gonna punch me. I don't know how I did it, but I inhaled that horrible fucking smoke and did not cough even a little bit. They got back on their bikes and left, but I'll never forget that fear I felt. Up to this point, its been mostly mental abuse from Dan and Tim, with a shove in the hallways once in a while, but in that moment I thought I was about to get beat up, and it terrified me. Another incident that year was at the local town Trailer Park. Me and Brian were playing on a rope swing with some other friends, and Dan and Tim came riding up on their bikes and I went from feeling good and happy, to feeling terrified instantly. They started yelling insults at me and dared me to come down from the tree, I just sat there silently until they left, and so did all my friends. Andrea was there as well (read more about her in 'female nightmare' blog), and I felt like a complete coward after she saw that.

    In November of 93, I went to see the movie 'Cool Runnings' with my friend Dominic, his Mom, and her boyfriend Scott (who I hated). We got popcorn and soda and sat near the front, about 4 rows back. His mom and Scott were behind us, maybe a row or 2. As we waited for the trailers to start (Ads were still playing), these 2 girls leaned forward and started flirting with Dom, and then they moved seats to get next to him. He introduced me and they said hi to me and I said hey back, but I felt so nervous, that I had a small panic attack and I got up after the movie started, and moved to a lone seat near the back of the theater. I didn't tell Dom where I was going, I just got up. I sat there the whole movie. After the movie ended I ran up to Dom as they were walking out of the building, and said I was in the arcade the whole time. Scott yelled at me and I just stayed quiet. Anxiety is a crazy powerful thing, and its made me do a lot of stupid things in my life.

    93/94 was also around the time I got braces. My mom had a small cleaning company, and she worked out a deal with the dentist to clean his office (located in Hatboro) to pay for them. She would take me with her to clean the place once a week, and I actually liked it. I got paid to empty trash cans and vacuum all the rooms. We did this for many months, and one day as we pulled into the parking lot, I saw Holmes and a few guys walking by the building. I stayed in the car as she got out and opened the trunk and started unloading the cleaning equipment/supplies. I waited till they walked further away and then got out and did my thing. She yelled at me for not helping her unload, and was mad the whole time we cleaned. At the end, I usually took the trash out to the bins outside, then I would take the bins to the curb, but I was scared that Holmes was outside still, so I refused to take the trash to the curb. She got even more pissed and told me if I didn't take them to the curb, she wasn't gonna bring me anymore. My fear of Holmes was so intense, I still refused to take the bins to the curb. When we got home, she told my dad, and he lectured and yelled at me for a while, and then told me I was done cleaning with her, and I got fired, and never cleaned with my mom again. Making such a big deal over the fact that she had to move 2 trash bins to a curb makes me so fucking angry, even to this day in 2019. I never did anything like that before, and it should have been a strong warning sign, but having stupid oblivious parents is part of life for most people, unfortunately.

    Anyway, back in school, one of the worse classes for me, was gym. Usually I felt safe in a classroom sitting at a desk, and mostly worried about being bullied in the halls between class, but gym was open season for nasty comments from Dan and Holmes and a few other people. I started cutting gym class one day, and after 3-4 days of sitting in the bathroom hiding, the vice principle "Mr. Finer" called me to the office. He asked where I was during gym and I explained to him that I was hiding in the bathroom because I was being bullied. I didn't tell him about Dan (because I ran into him outside of school a lot and was just terrified of him) but I did tell him about Holmes and Kirby. My Finer says "I'm gonna have to call them into the office and talk to them about it" and I begged him not to, that it would only make things worse. He says "If the story is true, I have to ask him about it and try to put a stop to it, otherwise you will have to get ice house for a week" (ice house was in school suspension where you sat in a room for 8 hours, it was pure hell), so I told him it was true, and he sent me back to class. I felt sick thinking about what was gonna happen after he confronted Holmes and Kirby. The next day Kirby came up to me and was like "Why did you tell Mr finer that I bully you" and I said "I just said that to get out of trouble" and Kirby walked away. Maybe he didn't see it the way I did, maybe little comments here and there didn't seem like bullying to him, but it hurt me enough to make me hide. The following week I was walking from Math class to English class, and Dan shoved me really hard into a wall and I started crying a little bit. I watched as dozens and dozens of kids just ignored me and kept walking as I picked up my books and gathered myself. I made a decision that day to fail 7th grade to get away from Dan and Holmes, and I stuck with it (by not trying at all, and failing tests on purpose) and I successfully failed 7th grade...

    In the summer of 94, I was walking with my friends Bill and Stephanie, when this car pulled up and a guy I knew named Milton, was in the back seat. He called Bill over to the car, and tried to take his hat. I went up to the window and said "Why you trying to take his hat, Milton?" and Milton said something but I couldn't hear. I didn't realize it but the driver of the car had gotten out, and came around the back of the car. As I pulled my head away from the window, I turned and saw a fist coming at me and *BAM*, I saw sparks and stumbled back. After a second or 2 I looked up and saw this 40-50 year old man (I was 14) and he was walking toward me again. He went to take a swing and I jumped back and he stopped short of hitting me and got back in the car, all the while mumbling something. I still see that fist from time to time as a flashback, and it always jolts me when the memory hits.

    Repeat of 7th grade (94/95) arrives, and for the most part, it was a pretty good year. I was still feeling that anxiety every day, and getting up to go to school was rough, but I wasn't being bullied while at school so I was able to concentrate better. I made some new friends and started hanging out with them after school. We would just walk around the town, doing stupid things that teens do like...nothing too bad. The previous year we were given a big science project (called "The Leaf Project") where we were suppose to collect leaves and document them, as well as grow a plant and document its growth. I spent 2 hours on the project the previous year, and failed with like a 20/100 score. This year I spent weeks working on it and got a B (82/100) and felt great about that.

    Outside of school that year, I had a pretty horrible experience. I was hanging out with these 2 bothers named Ryan and Nathan (Ryan was 13, Nathan was 12). I had known them for years, and I thought of them as friends even though I didn't hang out with them much. We were playing in their backyard and there cousin Joe showed up. I never met him before, but he seemed cool as we chilled in the backyard. At one point Nathan comes up to me and says "we don't like Joe, he talks tough but hes just a pussy" and I'm like "oh, ok" and Nathan says "you should kick his ass and teach him not to talk trash", and I say "Nah hes not doing anything to me". We continue hanging out for a little longer, then Joe leaves with his mom. After hes gone, Ryan tells me "Joe said he could beat you in a fight", and I'm like "Really? Why?" and Ryan is like "He always talks trash about people, that's why we don't like him". They spent the next 2 weeks convincing me to fight this kid that I had only met once, and it was working. They told me they had my back if he decided to fight back, but they assured me he wouldn't fight back and that I would win easy. I believed them when they told me he was talking trash, and that I could win, so I started feeling like I should do it. I convinced myself that he deserved it for being nice to my face, but talking trash about me behind my back. I also felt tough for the first time in my life, and it was a little intoxicating to hear them saying positive things about me.

    We were hanging out in their basement one day, and Joe showed up. As we played some video games, Nathan kept asking me to fight Joe before he went home, and I finally said "Ok". I felt confident and excited, and walked over to where he was sitting on the couch. I stood over top him and said "I heard you wanted to fight". Ryan and Nathan were standing behind me, and I felt pretty safe. Suddenly Joe jumps up and grabs me and, throws me onto the couch and starts punching me. He continues hitting me as I am trying to block with my arms, but he kept hitting me in the jaw and it hurt like hell, plus it was terrifying and I was in full panic mode. I was able to get up, and I tried to go out the back door but Nathan stood there blocking it with a pleasurable smirk on his face. Joe kept hitting me as I went to the stairs to try and go up, but Ryan was standing on the first step, blocking them as well. After a few more hard punches to my head and face, I started crying and said something like "My mom is waiting for me I gotta get home", and Nathan moved and let me out the back door. I walked home with tears and blood running down my face, and in shock. I couldn't understand what had just happened, and I felt like such a pussy. For years I thought it was my fault and that the way I acted was the reason I got beat up, but I eventually realized those 2 brothers were evil little manipulating jerks and I wasn't completely to blame. Not sure if Joe was in on it, or if they did the same thing to him.

    In the summer of 95, I was walking with my friend Dominic, when these 2 amazingly beautiful girls walk up to him, and give him these big passionate hugs. Having been bullied for years, and called ugly many times, I saw this and just felt heartbroken. I wanted girls to do that to me so bad, but they never did. He introduces me to them, and they look at me like I am gross...a look I got all the time from girls. They start to walk away, and he tells them "Hey, my friend Eric didn't get a hug" and they reluctantly walk over to me, and the one girl with long Brunette hair, puts her arms around me and her finger tips touch behind me, but no part of her actually touches me. It was such a horrible feeling, and such a heartless thing to do. It made me feel so ugly. After they walk away, Dom tells me the Blonde girl came over his house yesterday, knocked on his door and asked him to take her virginity and that they had amazing sex...I was already sick from what just happened, but hearing that just killed my soul. I felt so much pain in that moment, so much jealousy. I also felt an intense fear...I was scared that I would never know what that feels like to be wanted like that, and that fear came true. I have been rejected my whole life, and here am 25+ years later, feeling exactly the same way I did as a teenager. I am afraid I will have to go another 30 years having never felt love. Anyway, I was pissed at them for doing that, and I got even more depressed about the way I looked.

    8th grade (95/96) was pretty much the same. I was still feeling anxiety every day but I wasn't fighting with my mom to stay home, I was actually getting up and going to school willingly. This was also the year of a giant blizzard that closed all the streets around my area for like 4 days. We got off from school for about a week, and I walked with a backpack to my friend Tim's house (like 4 miles in 2-3 feet of snow). I spent the week playing Killer Instinct on SNES over the internet using XBAND. It was fun, but people would rage quit constantly by disconnecting their phone line. I don't have much to add about this year, it was bully free for the most part like the previous year, and I got some of the best grades I've ever had because I wasn't constantly stressed out about walking the halls between class. After the school year, something started to happen to me that summer of 1996. I noticed my hair on the left and right side of my forehead was starting to ride up and only a patch in the middle was growing, so I started wearing a hat all the time. I didn't realize it at the time, but it was a receding hairline...I was starting to go bald at only 15 years old...

    9th grade (96/97) sent me right back into hell again. I was now in Hatboro Horsham High School and I saw Dan and Holmes on the first day in the cafeteria where all the students gathered. I had 2 years of peace away from these assholes, and now I suddenly felt terrified and stressed all over again. They were 1 grade ahead of me, but as I quickly learned, this high school doesn't separate grades. I was put in classes with 9th, 10th, 11th and even 12th graders. On top of that, my hairline was weird looking and I felt like a freak walking around without a hat on. The second week of High School I was walking to Math class after lunch, and I saw Dan heading to the cafeteria. He was on the opposite side of the large open hallway in the distance, but as he got closer, he moved over to my side and hit me with his shoulder really hard. I didn't say or do anything and just kept walking, but it got me really upset and I felt myself getting more depressed. I started to think about suicide on a daily basis. One of my ideas was to slit my wrists, but I was afraid of the pain. Another idea I had was to jump off the roof of a local store near me, called Bradlees, but I wasn't sure if it was high enough for the fall to kill me.

    I spent all of 9th grade depressed and angry and suicidal. I would go to school and walk around with my ugly receding hairline, wishing I could wear a hat, then when I got home, all I could think about was killing myself to escape this hell. This went on the whole school year, and when summer came, I went back to being happy again. I spent most of that summer playing one of my favorite video games of all time, Castlevania: Symphony of the Night. I had a hat on every second that I was awake, and could not be in a room with people without it being on my head. I had this ugly patch of hair in the front, and was bold around it. It was so nasty and made me look 20 years older then I was. As the summer started to end, I was feeling worse and worse as the first day of school approached.

    10th grade (97/98) is the year that I almost did something horrible. By this point I was shaving the patch on the front of my forehead, and using an electric razor on the rest of my head, but the baldness was still very noticeable. I watched every day as girls gave me angry disgusted looks, and sometimes even nasty comments. I was walking past a study hall room, and this Puerto Rican girl (I don't remember her name, I just remember she dated a popular guy named Tom) was at the door waiting for the bell to ring. I actually had a huge crush on her because she was drop dead gorgeous, but I never talked to her, and didn't even know her name. She looks at me and goes "Ew that is the ugliest boy in this school" and I just felt this anger and pain as a few girls near the door also looked on with disgust, and some even laughed. That was the single most painful moment I experienced in school, and from that day on, I started slipping into darkness. Over the first few weeks of 10th grade, I noticed Dan, Tim and Scott (plus a few other guys) would hang out in a group together outside of the main entrance every morning before the bell. Holmes and Kirby (and a few others) also hung out in front of the main entrance on the other side, and I started having this fantasy of showing up with a gun and shooting both groups...

    I spent countless hours thinking and planning out how to best do it. I figured people would start running as soon as I started firing, so getting both groups would be tough. I knew I wanted to kill Dan first, and as long as I got him, I was fine with not being able to get anyone else. This was before the Columbine shooting, and so the idea of taking a gun into school wasn't something that I saw and was imitating, and the thought/words "school shooting" was never on my mind. I was just looking at it like I was getting revenge and shooting bad people, didn't think of how evil and horrible it would have been. I was completely convinced I had the right to do it, and that there wouldn't be any innocent victims. The main thing stopping me at this point was the fact that I didn't have a gun. I did have this friend of a friend that I hung out with 2-3 times over the past summer, and his dad had a large gun collection. I held a few different guns at his house. I started thinking of a way to take one of those guns. I tried many times during that school year to get my friend to ask his friend to hang out so we could go to his house, but with no luck. The year went by, I kept fantasizing about shooting Dan and Holmes, but I was also depressed and had no way to get my hands on a gun. My hair was gone before the end of 10th grade, and I was completely bald...to make things worse, as the summer approached, my parents forced me to get a Job, and so I didn't even have summer to look forward to...

    Summer of 98, my first full time hourly job. I just came off the worst school year of my life, and was now working at Sam's Club, pushing carts. This store was so big and busy, they had 3 full time cart pushers to collect the carts around the parking lot. I worked 8 hours a day, 5 days a week, pushing rows of carts around the parking lot of this massive warehouse store. I was sore every day, especially in my feet, on top of being depressed about not having a summer to relax and unwind. The suicidal thoughts didn't stop, and I didn't see my friends very often because of my work hours. I also felt the same at work, as I did at school. I got nasty looks from girls, and I felt awkward and uncomfortable talking to people. I was in a constant state of anxiety every day during school, and now my summer is the same thing. I really couldn't see myself living life this way, and just got more and more suicidal as the summer started to end, and the next school year approached. My friends were also being dicks for some reason. They would call me and tell me there gonna pick me up at my house, and I would stand out front waiting, only to have them drive by and yell some insults, and keep going. I figured they were bored and just being stupid, but they kept doing it. One time they even showed up at my work and drove around me yelling insults and doing burnouts in the parking lot shortly before closing hours. It started to feel like they weren't my friends anymore...

    11th Grade (98/99) arrives, and I'm just a complete mess. I have to go to school, and then I have to work 30 hours a week on top of that. I'm extremely depressed and suicidal and to make things worse...Well, I mentioned my best friend Brian earlier, you see, he just started 9th grade this year and was now in my school with me. On the first day, I went to the lunchroom for my scheduled hour, and I saw Brian had the same hour as me. I got my lunch and went to his table where he was sitting with some other people that I knew and was comfortable with. As I sat down, I could see the anxiety on their faces, and they tell me the table is full and there is no room for me. I point out that there are plenty of free seats, and they say "everyone's not here yet, its only the first day, but all the seats are already filled and taken"...so I move to an empty table next to their table, and I eat my lunch alone. I watch as Brian and everyone else ignored me while they ate, and I just felt dead inside. The problem was, they were scared to sit with me and become targets themselves (and I don't blame them). That is how much I was hated and bullied. Even the people who didn't bully me, hated me because of how uncomfortable they felt around me. This went on for a few days, I sat and ate lunch alone as I watched my only friend ignore me, then on the 4th day of 11th grade, a kid came up to me on the bus ride home, and ripped my hat off my head saying "Dude your bald? let me see". I knew at that moment, I couldn't take anymore...so that night, I attempted suicide, and failed.

    I got a blade from one of my disposable razors and attempted to slit my wrists, but the anticipation of the pain, caused me to chicken out after I started to cut. As soon as I felt the pain from the first small cut, I dropped the blade, and just couldn't go through with it. As I laid there in bed crying and bleeding a little bit, I had an epiphany...Why don't I just drop out of school? and so that was the last day I went to school...A few weeks later, I quit my job at Sam's Club, and buried myself in my room for about a year...(Continued in "Life Journal 17 to Present"...)

Enduring Agoraphobia and Emptiness (Life Story Part 2)

 NOTE: This is part 2 of my life story, you can find PART 1 HERE if you haven't read it yet.

    After going through all those years of being bullied, I went into my adult life with intense Agoraphobia. I spent a few years (1999-2004 my early 20s) working part-time jobs and sitting online and chatting with people when at home. I found a community of Anime Music Video (AMV) fans, and started making my own videos under the studio "Otaku Vengeance". I released a video in April of 2000 that went Viral before the days of social media and youtube. It was called "Pokemon Bitches", and it was being talked about on every forum on the internet back in those days. I met people IRL (like customers at work, etc.) who talked about the video to me, without knowing I made it. After a horrible childhood, my adult life was actually starting off good. I was editing videos that everyone seemed to like, sitting on forums and chatting with people, I had friends and was part of a big online community. My AMV website was getting tons of traffic and I was seeing positive comments constantly...it was great for a few years...

    However, in early 2003, I lost my AMV website address (www.otakuvengeance.com) because I had prepaid for 3 years, and forgot to renew it. When I woke up that day and realized it expired, I immediately tried to renew it, but it was GONE within just a few hours of expiring. GoDaddy sold my domain address to some company called "The Tidewater Group" and they wanted $10,000 for it when I reached out to them about it...so I lost my website and everything I built over 3 years. I made a new domain address (".org" instead of ".com") but I never got that old traffic back because all of my videos had the old website address in the intro, and it was the ".com" address on all the forums talking about it as well. I got super depressed and felt like everything was extremely unfair...THEN I got scammed out of $3000 (years worth of savings) later that year trying to get into an internship program for movies. The company was called "The Career Connection" aka "The Film Connection" (run by James "jimi" Petulla)...I should have known it was a scam, but I was already depressed about losing my website, and I felt this sudden "what have I been doing with my time?" kind of feeling and I desperately wanted to be a video editor/movie director...so I jumped into the program and paid $3000 and yeah, got scammed...(HERE IS THE FULL STORY)

    In 2004, I was in a depression after losing the website and most of my savings, among other things like constant rejection from women. Having gone bald at 16 destroyed my self esteem and it didn't help that a girl I was practically in love with in high school called me "the ugliest boy in school" on multiple occasions. I tried a lot after I became an adult, but I was rejected every single time...I was lonely, so I vented a lot on the forum that I used. I had been there for a few years and felt comfortable talking about my depression...but just like in school, there were bullies online too, and after everything I went through growing up, I was sensitive to it and couldn't handle it. When I would make a post about how I was feeling, this for some reason, set some people off. After enduring a lot of personal attacks and stalking of my posts for a few months, I was feeling anxious every time I logged into the forum. I asked for some help from the admins (they were my friends), but they refused to help out (basically said "Just ignore it"), so I made a post explaining why I was leaving the forum, and I never looked back. I would spend the next 15 years in isolation. No social life (aside from 1 or 2 friends), or social media. I did try dating a few more times, but I was still constantly rejected. I had big dreams of making money on youtube, and I tried lots of different types of channels, but I never found any success. I was also bullied by Nintendo for many years about the "Pokemon Bitches" video. They had it removed from multiple locations on the internet and I was unable to upload it to my AMV youtube channel, so that prevented subs and growth. AMVs in general have been a pain in the ass to deal with because Japanese companies are huge bullies...it sucks to have entire youtube channels removed just because I found a hobby I enjoy (and the only thing in life that I excelled at). As for work, well, because of the anxiety I felt whenever I was out of the house, I wanted to avoid feeling it as much as possible, so I worked as few days a week as I could (I did a lot of 10-12 hours shifts so that I could work less days). When I was home I had video games, movies/TV, my hobby (video editing), "420", and pr*n...and I was content with that life, but I was always stressed about money...that is until I got rich.

    At the end of 2015, my mother and I received an inheritance of 1.5 million. It was in a healthy portfolio earning $60k-$100k a year from interest. We both decided to take a little out for ourselves and leave the rest in so we could live off that interest. Up to this point in our lives, we lived off $35k a year (I cleared about $15k a year, she was close to $20k after taxes), and we managed just fine...so that interest was more than enough to live off of while letting the portfolio grow. I spent the next 3 years in pure bliss, I felt like everything I had been through was worth it if this is the payoff for enduring it all. I didn't leave the house more than 10 times over those 3 years. The house was paid off so there was no rent or mortgage, and I had no debt or responsibility whatsoever. I was able to live off $5-6k a year...it was an amazing dream life. I got into a video game called Trove and put 6000+ hours into it over those 3 years. I had no stress, no anxiety, no depression, no people to deal with. I slept great and felt great every second that I was awake.

    However, in November of 2018, I wanted to get some money out of the portfolio...I didn't deal with any of that portfolio stuff, and whenever I asked about it, my mom always said it was doing good. Suddenly she is making excuses why I can't take the money out and actually told me to get a job. After 4 days of arguing, I went through her room and found the most recent paperwork for the portfolio and I nearly passed out. It showed that almost all the money was gone. It didn't take me long to figure out what happened. After some spying/following my mom, it turns out she was going to the casino...she gambled away over a million dollars in 3 years. After a lifetime of being poor, she just threw it away like it was nothing. To make matters worse, I had a longtime friend moving in with her daughter (my goddaughter) in a few weeks, and I thought I was gonna be able to give this kid an amazing life, and suddenly that dream was gone. I was plunged back into hell, but it was 10x worse.

    To get rich and escape a lifetime of depression and stressing about money and bills, only to find yourself back in poverty, but with a kid and all the added stress from that. I BROKE. I fell into the longest depression I have ever experienced in November 2018. 14 months later, in early 2020, I was working a mind numbing job, CONSTANTLY thinking about that money every day, and being bullied by my boss...I was feeling stress and anxiety all day and night without being able to relax for weeks on end. Eventually it started to mess up my sleep, and I experienced insomnia for the first time ever. After a few weeks of no sleep, I started having extremely bad panic attacks...this put me over the edge. At this point in my life I'm 39, and I have survived endless depression, anxiety, loneliness, rejection and heartache...but insomnia (and the panic attacks), well, it was all too much. After about 6 weeks of little to no sleep and multiple attacks a day, I was on the verge of "you know what". It was the lowest I have ever been. I had a 6 year old who needed me and I was just this pathetic broken suffering idiot and I didn't see any hope, and I came so close to "doing that"...THEN, the Pandemic happened. I was able to get away from work and away from people while getting paid really well by the government. I was sleeping good again, and I managed to silence the ruminating thoughts about that money I lost, for the most part.

    That weekly unemployment spared me for about 18 months, then I had to get a job again. I worked a few months just fine, enduring the constant anxiety, but eventually the panic attacks returned...and so did the insomnia. I got fired from my job after about a week without any sleep because I did something I normally would never do. This customer placed a $30 order with grubhub, and the tip on the receipt said "$1.00", so I circled it and wrote "lol". The customer (a 40 year old woman) called the store and cursed out a bunch of teenage girls and got them upset, and I was fired over it...Even when I try to endure, I can not handle living without sleep. I can't think right, and I do stupid stuff. Yeah the woman was a Karen, but I still wouldn't have done that normally. Luckily I had money saved up during the pandemic, so I wasn't in a rush to find another job. A few months went by, and we decided to move out of the city. By selling the house and renting a place, I had a new cushion of cash and I could sit back without having to work for a few years. After moving into the new place in early 2022, I put $5000 aside because I wanted to build myself a mini movie theater with a giant TV, recliner chairs and a sound system...I finished the room in November, but the centerpiece of my room (and most expensive part, a Samsung TV that I bought) was damaged, and the Technician messed up the first repair. Over the next year, I would have to deal with a bunch of headaches trying to get the TV fixed, all while trying to figure out a side hustle to earn some money so that I don't have to go back to that hourly grind that I hate so much. Eventually, I came up with a T-shirt design idea, using art that my goddaughter made. I created some shirts and put up a website. I thought they were very wholesome and a great idea...

Fast forward to early this year (2024):

    T-shirt sales were failing miserably, and so was my youtube dream. I'm fighting depression and anger while raising a kid (she is 9 at this point) and forcing myself to endure social situations in order to find her friends...all the while constantly thinking about my money that was draining away. I went from spending about $10k-$12k a year in 2019-2021, to $20k in 2023 and looking to hit almost $30k spent in 2024. Everything is so stupidly expensive now. I needed something to give me a break with the T-shirts...suddenly I had a video that I was pretty sure would go viral. I mentioned my TV being a headache to get fixed, well this Samsung Care Technician was at my house for a 3rd time, so I set up a camera, and I caught him damaging my TV to void the warranty. I made a 20 minute video (titled "Ultimate Betrayal of Customer Trust") where I narrate and use pictures from google to describe the year long ordeal I went through with this technician. I also made a cheesy commercial for my T-shirt store and put it at the end of the video. I released it on youtube in early January, but didn't get any views in the first week. I went to reddit ( r/crazyf***ingvideos ) and made a post (with a short clip of what happened, not the full youtube video), and it blew up. After a few hours of responding to comments, I was hooked and loving it. I went so many years without any socializing and always feared being the center of attention, now suddenly I had tons of attention directed at me, and it wasn't so bad...There were some negative comments, but it was 90% positive so I managed to ignore the insults and focused on any questions people had about the situation.

    The next day I am woken up by a phone call. It is a guy named Nick Webert who introduces himself as the Director of Product Training and Head of the Service Department at Samsung. He has called to discuss the video, but I needed to wake up, so tell him I will call him back in 20 minutes. I get up and log on to see 1.5 million views, 15k upvotes and 500+ comments after only 20 hours of being online...but before I can even enjoy the moment for 1 second, I see big red letters "Sorry, this post was removed by Reddit", and the first comment saying "Why was it removed?" was about 15 minutes old. So Samsung had it taken down and called me 10 minutes after the reddit post was removed, like something out of a Jason Bourne movie. Even though I was angry, I called this Samsung bigshot back, and well, long phone call short: He offered me a $2000 washing machine as a "gift", and after I agreed to the gift, he then asked me to take the youtube video down. They had no trouble getting reddit to remove the post, but they couldn't get youtube to take it down, so they thought bribing me would work...but it was too late, the video was already out there. I told him I would "think about" taking the video off youtube...but I knew I wasn't going to take it down. Later that day I received a message from a youtuber named Louis Rossman, who wanted to make a video about it. I gave him permission to use the video, and I was relieved that the story was now getting out there. Over the next few months, people reposted the video on reddit many times, but those kept getting taken down. The videos on TikTok and Instagram were not being removed though. I spent the next 3-4 weeks dealing with thousands of comments...

    Eventually, after answering the same questions 100s of times, and hearing all the stories people had about other similar warranty repair issues. I turned my focus to the negative comments, but instead of responding to them individually, I took screencaps and made a video response. It is not what you might think though, I didn't respond to insults like "You are Fat"...I responded to accusations of being a Karen, for turning down a new TV after the second "repair" (there were hundreds of comments about it), by explaining in better detail why I made that decision. There were a few other issues I addressed in the follow-up response video, and while editing it, I had an advertisement idea that I thought work well. Since the first video had the shirt ad at the end and no one saw it, I decided to use the shirts as a kind of response to the comments in the video...so after I answer a comment I would say "Here is a shirt for you" and the shirt would say something like 'Donut Bee Toxic' or whatever. I released the video and it got no views. I tried posting it on reddit, but those posts also got very few views. I already marketed the original video to my favorite youtubers (Asmon, Moist and a few others), but none of them picked up the story, so at this point I accepted that it was over. The video was out there, my response video addressed the issues people had, and I was satisfied that I told a full complete story. However, a month later, my youtube video would get blocked for copyright...this made zero sense because the video was dead. No one was looking it up or covering it, and on top of that, there were plenty of other copies floating around social media. I thought the full story was gone and after having Nintendo bully me all those years, to now have Samsung continuing to come at me, I wasn't gonna let that clip float around the cloud as only Shorts and Tiktok videos. I wanted all the details out there, so I made a rushed angry re-edit of the story...

    This time I censored the Samsung Care Technician's face, and I put the shirt ad in the video a few times. I made a special shirt for the occasion. I thought it was a good "fuck you" to Samsung...and because people like to be angry about things, I thought shirts would fly off the shelf. In the original video, I put the ad at the very end of the 20 minute story and no one saw it. I tried paid advertising and lost money on that. I felt invisible, no one was finding my store and no shirts were selling. I liked how I used the shirt ad in my response video, so I tried that again with the re-edit. I released the video on youtube and got no views. I put it on reddit ( *** ), and it got 11 million views in 1 day. I didn't expect the new edit to go super viral, maybe a little bit again, but I had no idea it was going to get those numbers...and I certainly didn't expect anyone to react to it at this point, because the original video had already been out there for many months and I figured all the reactors probably saw it and passed on it...I watched those views explode when I released the video and a couple of shirts sold in the first few hours. When the comments rolled in, there were a ton of people angry about the ad. I ignored them (for the most part) and focused on answering questions. I got up the next morning and saw the video had been taken down by the mods of that subreddit, and sales had stopped after only a handful of shirts sold...I was devastated, once again.

    Apparently the ad was breaking the rules about "self promotion". I don't know how I missed that rule before posting, maybe I just assumed it meant something else. My other video from a few months ago, was never removed for the shirt ads, so that is another reason why I didn't even consider it a problem with the re-edited story. I really had no idea the shirt ad would be an issue and cause it to be blocked. I regret it and I never would have put it in the video if I knew that would happen. At the same time though, if I didn't put the ad in, and got 11+ million views, I would have felt intense regret for a missed opportunity, so really, either decision would have caused me regret. On top of that, the ad itself getting such negative backlash might have been what made it viral in the first place. After it was removed by the mods, 2 things kept bothering me. 1st: I couldn't understand how 11 million views only equated to 10 shirts being sold. I always heard that 1%-2% of people will buy something after seeing an advertisement. That would have been 100k+ shirts sold, and I would have been set for the next 20 years, but I only got 0.0001% of that. I mean, I would have been plenty happy if only 1k sold...but 10? I felt so sick, like it was all for nothing...2nd: While I do get that it is a rule, how is it the mods of that subreddit couldn't see the post view count and go "Oh well, we can let this one slide"...isn't the point of running a subreddit to get views? Whatever, at this point in life I was feeling like I couldn't do anything right, and every decision I seem to make blows up in my face...As I was getting the kid ready for school that morning, I looked at my youtube feed, and I couldn't believe what I saw...One of my favorite youtubers, Asmongold, actually made a video about it. I went ape guano...I texted the link to some online friends (as well as some family members) in all caps "ASMON MADE A VIDEO ABOUT IT!"...I did my morning routine, took the kid to school and got settled in with some weed, food and drink. (Since I am about to dive into this video, if you want to see it, just search "Asmongold Samsung" on youtube)...

    I was in one of the best moods of recent memory, even though I just had my huge viral moment squashed, Asmongold made a video about it, and it felt like a win after all. Little did I know, I was about to experience a full mental breakdown. The video started great, when Asmon called the guy a "little rat", I had the biggest grin on my face, but I quickly realized this might not be what I always dreamed of after all. There is a point early on in the video where I say "I am slightly disabled" while explaining why I didn't want to deal with the TV on my own (I wanted it set up on delivery), and I see a bunch of comments in the video chat saying "slightly disabled = FAT" and "Just say fat and weak", when in reality, the disability I was referring to, is all mental, not physical, and it is far from "slightly". I was only 3 minutes in (out of 17), and I was already starting to worry. As the video went on, some comments were supportive, some were insulting, so it was an up and down ride while watching it...then I got to the end and I watched in horror as one of my favorite youtubers destroyed me. You would think I scammed his dad out of his life savings by the verbal assault he unleashed on me. Asmon doubled down on the toxic hate I have been getting since day one of this situation. He says the T-shirt ad was opportunistic (yes I did take advantage of 'having people's attention', of course I did, isn't that the point of all of this?), and cringe (ok yeah, it is, whatever)...Then he says "I'm doing him a favor", ugh, why does that infuriate me so much? The worst part was the line: "People f***ing hate people who act like this, talk like this, think like this...they f***ing hate you, so stop acting like this, or at least hide it". Seriously though the video is the real me, I do act like that and talk like that and think like that. His insult about hiding it hits hard because I HAVE been hiding it my whole adult life. I have always known people hated me, that is the cause of my phobia, I fear interacting with people because they always seem to hate me eventually, or at least MOST seem to. I never understood why, and it has caused me a lot of confusion in life (much like Asmon's attack, which didn't make any sense), but I did see it and was aware of it...Listening to him tear me apart was bad enough, but seeing the chat go along with it and agree, while also saying nasty things, was a lot to take in. It was like I was back in high school, and a bully got on stage during an assembly and had the whole auditorium laughing at me and insulting me.

    As the "life lesson" came to an end, I remembered all the friends and family I messaged with a link (though in hindsight, most of them probably didn't get that far in the video)...I wished I had waited till I watched it first, but how was I supposed to know? I thought he was gonna be supportive of what happened, but his focus wasn't on the story of the Technician cutting my TV, his focus was on me. Asmon tries to paint a picture where I got all this hate because of the cringe video and T-shirt ad, but the first video I released, also got tons of nasty comments and hate, and that one was not cringe, nor was there an ad in your face during the video. It ain't right trying to make it like it was my fault for all that hate I received. That Technician deserved it, why didn't he get any? I already had a hard time letting people into my house before this guy did that to me. He tricked me and almost cost me thousands, right in my own house, under the guise that he was there to fix my TV. I trusted him and was left feeling stupid...Am I crazy for feeling like the world is backwards? After finishing the video, I sat in disbelief for a while, with tons of thoughts just racing through my head. I remembered all the hateful comments over the past few months, and now they suddenly felt like they had weight to them. I imagined all those people feeling justified in being negative toward me after seeing Asmon have their back. Then I imagined the Samsung Technician feeling justified in what he did as if I somehow deserved it. It was like a bomb went off in my brain. I went into a state of shock and only just recently am I starting to snap out of it...and that brings us to the deep depression I mentioned at the beginning of this post...

    Being in a depression for 6 years straight after losing that money, it took me into a numb like state. My emotions were flatlined and my anger was like a frozen lake instead of burning rage. The anger was there, it was intense, but it was cold, not hot. I was on the edge of a mental cliff, and Asmon just happened to shove me off it. Sure, he didn't know the cliff was there, but it was still unnecessary to shove me in the first place...and it triggered me in a bad way. It brought out so much stuff I had repressed. The anger from everything over the years. the regret for being the way I am, the endless bad memories I have...it was all hitting me at once and it overwhelmed me. It has been almost 6 months now that I have been living with this thick noisy cloud in my head and over my eyes. When I was in my 20s and 30s and was dealing with depression, I had hope for the future and I endured. Now that I am 43, and all I have seen over the years is the same thing over and over, it is getting harder to feel hope. I have this horrible weight on my shoulders, like impending doom level anxiety with constant negative thoughts ringing around my head...months of ruminating like that is torture. Good thing I didn't have to work while going through all this, even being in a despair like state, I was still able to sleep, and thankfully I was kept busy all summer with my goddaughter and her friends. Their parents all worked, so I had 3 to 5 kids to deal with almost every day. When we weren't hanging at the house playing video games (I must have played 100+ rounds of Dress to Impress this summer), we did the beach, or amusement rides, or water park (we all had season passes) among other things. The kids had a great time all summer, and I also appeared to be as well, but I was in darkness. Here I am at the beautiful Jersey shore, sunny clean beach and all the free time in the world, and I am having racing thoughts and horrible anxiety pretty much the whole time. It is amazing how you can be in such a state of mind, but no one around you has a clue (thankfully, because I wouldn't want them to)...

    Now, with the summer over and the kids back in school, I have finally had time to take everything in without having to immediately do something else. The distractions were nice for a while, but I didn't realize how much I needed the break. I am slowly accepting the new reality of my life, and my new outlook. Basically, I don't want to dream anymore, because every dream that has come true, has turned out to be a nightmare. I no longer care about or want success on youtube...hell, I can't even think about editing a video without anxiety kicking in (unless I was getting paid for it, like, had a job as an editor...ugh, there I go dreaming again). I would go back to making AMVs, but that has been a losing battle for many many years, and I have already had multiple videos erased from the cloud as it is. As for a social life, no. I have accepted that the world is broken and I will never fit into its insanity. When it comes to money and surviving, well, everything I do and have done for the past 6 years, is for the kid. I will just have to find a job that pays decent enough and work as much as I can. The problem is that I am terrified of experiencing insomnia again. I can endure emptiness, depression, anxiety and all the anger that goes along with it...as long as I can sleep. I fear that insomnia so much that I am putting off getting a job until my savings are so low I don't have a choice...that is the only thing that is going to get me motivated to go out there to start looking. With the holidays coming up, I don't see my bank balance making it far into 2025, so I expect to be working again early in the new year.

    Lastly...My biggest regret is that Asmon reacted to the wrong video. I really wish he would have reacted to the original full story and not the rushed censored cringe retelling. I made the full story video (Ultimate Betrayal) with him and other reactor style channels in mind, thinking they would appreciate all the details about the situation...The rushed angry re-edit was never supposed to be reacted to by anyone. I was just mad when I edited it and didn't think the other video would be restored (it eventually was, and I unlisted the re-edit)...so yeah, I put the shirt ad in the video because I thought people would be just as angry at Samsung as I was and want to buy a shirt that parodied the "Samsung Care" logo. Apparently, I don't understand the world because I didn't sell many shirts, and on top of that, I became the target of a hate campaign...fun times.