On September 2 1984 I was born a miracle baby (read: accident). My father was 55 years old when I was born and was the chief pulminologist at Baylor hospital in Dallas. My mother was 38 and was a nurse at Parkland Hospital. I lived with my parents in a nice house in a nice neighborhood in Dallas until I was about 8 when we moved like a mile and a half away to a house my mother liked better (It has a lake in the back yard). Shortly thereafter my parents got divorced after trying for several years to make it work because of me. Finally the difference in age and other problems made it unbearable for them. My father moved into a duplex he owned a few miles away and I still got to see him almost every weekend and they kept a decent relationship, so the divorce wasn’t as bad as I could have been.
I stayed at the same private school until 6th grade, after that I moved around for a few years through middle school. Somewhere around age 10-12 I became very angry at my mom and at life in general. I blamed her for my parents divorce and for the way she treated my father. I entered a very troubled time in my life where we fought daily, I did poorly in school, and I really had lost any will to live. My hatred and rage for my mother grew got worse and worse until we got to the point where I could no longer stand it. My father had tried to mediate everything and keep us from killing each other but to no avail. They had put me on anti depressants and sent me to therapy and none of it helped at all.
My father was a very successful doctor in Dallas, and he had his own practice as well as working for Baylor. He decided to get into the Sleep Apnea field of medicine as well. He went in on a deal with some other doctors to open their own sleep lab and somehow got screwed out of hundreds of thousands of dollars. He basically lost everything. One day he got out of bed, had a massive muscle spasm in his back, fell down and could not get back up… He managed to crawl to a phone and dial 911. It turns out that the prednisone he took had basically eroded his spine, the bone was like flaking off. He underwent MAJOR back surgery where they put steel rods in to support his spine. He had to wear a body cast like thing for a few months, and he never really recovered from that surgery.
I could not take dealing with my mom any more, and I felt the need to take care of my father, so I moved in with him. Again he tried to be a go between to patch my relationship with my mother. It tore him up to see us fight so, but my mom was treating him like crap, always blaming him for almost everything possible. My dad and I went and lived in a little POS apartment in the ghetto meant for old/disabled people. They always had people available incase old people fell or whatever.
When I turned 16 I got a job at Stein Mart as a cashier making like $6.50 an hour. It sucked but we needed the money. My father was getting some tiny amount of SS check a month, but it wasn’t enough to support both of us. So I started working more and going to school less.
Alongside working I got involved in AC. Man was it fun and addicting. It took me away from my hellish life and let me enjoy a totally different world. A few of my RL friends played and we wasted many an hour (much to our parents dismay) playing that damn game. It really became and addiction. I got so involved so as to avoid my RL that I ignored school and RL events to play. From AC I found ACVault and the VN boards. I posted a lot on FF, and my disturbed RL status showed through fully. I was banned many times for being an idiot but I made lots of friends. Finally ACF opened and the local mods were like “PLEASE! GO! Look they made a place JUST FOR people like you!†So I went and now here I am…
Anyway—
On March 17 2001 my father passed away after being in the hospital for various things on and off for a few months. What finally killed him turned out to be pneumonia. My mom picked me up from work, asked me if I wanted to go see him. I didn’t, I just wanted to go home… She fought me for a while trying to get me to sleep at her house but I had no interest in that. So for several months at age 16 I lived alone in my fathers old place. My life could not have been any worse. I rarely went to school… My best friend in HS tried to pull me through, but it didn’t wind up working. I finally dropped out and got a GED. Finally I had to move out of his old apt. and in with my mom. That was very difficult. We were far from “fineâ€. I started working full time at Best Buy and moved around and up very quickly. It was really the only thing I enjoyed in life. I made some very good friends and worked hard, and soon I was in a leadership role and loving it.
My home life was still poor, but my friend from HS along with my new friends from work really got me out of my rut. They showed me that there was more to life than what I had seen and I ate it up. I quit playing AC (that was a good thing for me) and started to go out and do stuff with friends. I am 100% convinced that my friends saved my life. There is no 2 ways about that.
At work I met someone who wound up playing a huge part in my life. We became very good friends over the course of 2 or 3 years. At first it was just talking some at work. Then on the phone, then hanging out, then being together A LOT. She was incredible, I could not have ever wanted more in a person. The ideal girlfriend if you will. She was beautiful smart funny and caring. She helped me get over some very bad anger issues I had. Being with her was all that mattered. We always went to lunch together at work, hung out, everything. Many followed my drama on the FF boards, me being a little wuss and not asking her out, posting dumb 16 yr old stuff and updates on her and myself. Well it never really worked out. You may or may not have seen my post on the end of that friendship, but after many years it turned out she had started sleeping with my roommate, had lied to me about several things and was just overall not well in the head. She now hates me and wont even talk to me, but I know that I am better off in the long run for having had that relationship and though she caused me lots of pain I am truly a better smarter wiser person.
I moved out of my mothers house Feb 2004 to live with 2 of my friends from HS. It was a great 6 months. How could it not be? We had a blast! After our 6 month lease ended I moved in with my boss (lol) he was the roommate that above mentioned girl was sleeping with. I like the guy a lot. Learned much about work and life from him. I learned how I will never treat women. For all his good qualities, he treats women like crap. I will never be that guy. He was married while he was sleeping with my friend.
After about 6 months of that, my mother convinced me to move back in with her, go part time at work and go back to school full time (I have 15 hrs of college credit). Over the last year we had grown together a TON. Not living together made our relationship much easier to patch. So after much thinking I did it. I now live with my mom, and we do pretty well together. I start school Monday, and hopefully this time I can make it work.
Sorry this got REALLY long and I got tired of writing near the end. Hopefully I didn’t leave much out. It got kind of long winded in the middle, but it was a really important part of who I am. My dad was the greatest man I have ever known. I may add more later…that’s all for now
Chris Schools
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Thanks to n00ber for the early holliday gift!!
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