Ian: My Story

Ever since I was a child it seemed that my life has been surrounded by conflict and drama. My father was a very abusive man in all aspects of the word. My mother would come home to him passed out from drugs and alcohol, and I was upstairs turning blue or having some sort of fever.

At the age of 5, I was playing the piano, drawing, painting and making people uncomfortable with my blunt intelligence. I never fit in with anyone and most teachers and babysitters thought I was far more advanced than others.

After my parents’ divorce, my mother found a new husband and kept me far away from my father as long as she could. Eventually he slowly came into my life, constantly bribing me to live with him. My mother would tell me horrible stories about him and said he would brainwash me and try to use me. I, of course, wanted to have a “real” father figure since I didn’t fit in very well at home and I seemed to have the same interests and intellect of my father.

All throughout school I was teased and did very poorly while going through counselors and special programs for learning disabilities and was suggested to take medications. I was taken out of class to speak with attorneys, caseworkers, or mediators for my parents’ divorce and custody issues. I had parents that did not get involved with my talents. It was not until I was in sixth grade that I had an art class. Before that I was in trouble for day dreaming and drawing in class. I could not sit still or pay attention. Also, I was extremely depressed because no one got along with me and no one at home would listen. Finally I became sick of my life and decided to move in with my father. He was already starting the abuse by hitting me. When I cried, he would tell me that he loved me and would buy me things my mother wouldn’t.

I ran away in seventh grade from Lake City to Cadillac on my bike. My father told me that this would help with custody. After that, it all went downhill. My mother acted as if I did not exist when I went over for weekends and my father was hitting me and making me work full-time jobs and give him all the money. This went on for years. When I was in high school I started smoking marijuana. My grades went from low C’s to high A’s, I had less depression and anxiety, I got my artistic talent back and I was finally noticed for who I was. I wondered why all of this was happening to me when 99% of my friends became stupid couch potatoes. It didn’t make sense to me until I saw counselors about a possible bipolar issue. All of the marijuana and paranoia finally made me realize that my father had been brainwashing me, which caused a very harsh depression.

I tried to kill myself three times with no success and I realized I just had to get out. I did something my mother never thought would happen. I told my father no, and that I was going to move out. He beat the life out of me, but I was free and I was planning to get a job and save money to move to college downstate.

During this time my drug use turned from heavy pot to heavy hard drugs. I tried suicide once again. This time I went to my mother and told her how depressed I was and that I needed help. I had horrible support from my family and was pushed into cheap counseling and a lot of medication. I had breakdowns, hallucinations, and other bizarre side effects. At one point I took most of the pictures and things my father gave me and burned them in a very large pile in the middle of my apartment. I told myself no more meds and no more counseling because it just seemed to keep the memories alive. This did not go very well and I had even worse anxiety and depression. I finally moved out of Cadillac just to get away from the source of it all.

This story is only a small pebble from a very large boulder I have had on my back.

Since then I worked at many restaurants while attending college with only my hope and my beautiful fiancée to help me through some of my bad days. The memories of my life and the genetic history of bipolarism in my family keeps me in check on what to do in states when I feel I cannot deal with it all. Nowadays, I try to find a release when I have anxiety and try to have a friend when I am depressed. All this has led me to become one of the strongest people on this planet.

I am planning to become an artist in all fields as well as to write a book about the bizarre events that seem to surround me like a human shaped magnet in a world of steel.