Just a few thoughts.

**Jaquan** · 08-02-2016 05:07 AM

I come from a pretty unremarkable household, in a pretty unremarkable town. I live in a small trailer that people would normally just gloss over, but there is more to that trailer than what's on the surface. I was that weird kid in the classroom who would do whatever it took to be noticed, but that craving for attention was just a need of validation. No mommy, or daddy, I was raised by my grandmother. I had wear hand me downs, and I had to make the best toys I could out of sticks and imagination. No kids noticed me; mom and dad sure as hell didn't; I was completely alone.

My uncle was an alcoholic, but between the bouts of anger and depression, he was a pretty nice guy. I never had any issues with him, even if he did scare me from time to time. Come Christmas 2010, a night of drinking goes wrong. He stabs his cousin, his best friend, right through the chest. Turns out that all the neglect, the abusive father, the bullying, the alcohol, all of it just came in and caused him to snap. "Fly" goes bye, another body in the ground, and a fourteen year old Jaquan, covered in blood.

My grandmother did the best she could. She was born in poverty to a working father, and a drinking mother. Thirteen brothers and sisters, she had grow up at the age of eight, just to give them a chance. She sacrificed her youth, and her education in order to carve out a chance for them. She got married at nineteen, to a physically abusive alcoholic, and gave birth to my uncle, the alcoholic, my father, the jailbird, my aunt, the basket case; and she did the damn best that she could to raise not only them, but their mistakes. My cousins, my sister, and myself.

Out of the entire family, I can't help but feel that I was the biggest mistake. No mommy, no daddy, no notice of my peers. Embarrassment of my hand-me-downs, and bullied for my eccentricities. Hungry not just for food, but for hope. I wanted some purpose, some reason to live, something that wasn't just handed off to me in a prescription bottle after a two week stay in the psychiatric institution. I wanted some validation beyond superficial friends who were only there for the laughs, but never for the hard times. I wanted some possibility that I could take my family's wasted wishes, and shattered dreams, and turn them into some kind of reality that we could finally be proud of. I'm sick of trying to survive at the age of twenty one, where you're too young to be on your own feet, but too old for anyone to care. I'm sick of crying because of the lonely nights at home, knowing that my grandmother who did her damn best for me is dying, without any kind of fanfare due to degeneration of the bones, muscle, and mind. I'm sick of coming home to a place where I can't be sure of my safety, due to an unstable father who's mental health saw no help throughout the entirety of his stay in prison. I'm sick of walking through life a somnambulant zombie going through the motions, but hoping that death takes away the strain. I'm sick of this cynical world.

Twenty-one years of nothing but write offs. Twenty-one years of dysfunctional families. Twenty-one years of poverty. Twenty-one years of pain.

An unremarkable nobody, from an unremarkable town.

I'm still standing.

Why can't you?

**pelko** · 08-29-2016 09:46 PM

Its good to pour your stress out, props 4 being so open.

Heres a few strange and random videos that might help u to feel better, for awhile at least :

Wintergatan - Marble Machine (music instrument using 2000 marbles)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IvUU8joBb1Q

This second one is a mostly an interesting documentary, (not just a japanese guy singing), so dont be fooled.

The Jellyfish That Holds a Key to Immortality
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eMOkXkw5TKc

**DreamyBear** · 08-30-2016 08:21 PM

After reading your life-story, what comes to mind is that. That is a hard path to walk.. That walk could not be walked by some unremarkable nobody, obviously. With such a clear expression of your life-story and emotions, shows that there is a great potential in you to blossom into who your true authentic self. You clearly got a awareness beyond the superficial outlook of life that is deeply needed by the majority of people. And gold and diamonds are always found in the dirt, and not at the end of the rainbow as so many superficial people like to believe.

No one can blame you for being aware of a cynical world. There is also a healthy world that do care and see that the world the way you do, even if they might be harder to find. But most important of all is to find you, because you matter in the world more than you can ever know.

Here are two of my favorite spiritual teachers who might be of interest to you. Eckhart Tolle https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCj9...1HUh7mSo-tB1Mg

And Byron Katie https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8d...9zM6KnkronGbzA

Thank you for sharing your story!

**pelko** · 09-01-2016 10:28 AM

I can vouch for ekhart tolle, hes helped me a lot. He can at first seem extremely sleep deprived because of his long silences and really calm way of being, but he quickly grows on you. He`s also got a really hard background ( deep depression for the first 30years or so of his life ) and moving from culture to culture and country to country.

My own life in regards to how difficult the “ conditions “ / enviroment is / are, has been really easy if compared to yours, but a few of my family members, especially my brother is a testament of mine to how much your way of thinking and seeing the world (despite your current enviroment) can affect your overall happiness. We’ve grown up in very similar enviroments, but one is, to put it lightly, living in hell & seemingly walking in circles (hard to make progress in life) and im living pretty level headed / im rarely in mental distress. Now, there are a dozen + different variables working here as to why we are as we are, but ive lived so close and so long with my brother and always tried to be as objective as possible. So, this should be a valid example, in addition to my own, but much less extreme past challenges in my mind popping like a balloon.

Peace can be found in the strangest places

**DreamyBear** · 09-01-2016 05:29 PM

"Desire leads to suffering" This quote from Buddha appeared as a reminder in my mind today. I remember the first time when I heard that statement. Back then I thought that, that was a really odd statement. But I wanted to understand or see if there was any truth to it. And that quote has really grown in me, more or less unconsciously. It's one thing to understand intellectually, because of the curiosity. But to realize it, even if it is just a glipse of it. That is really something powerful to that, and I got a taste of that today.

I just thought about sharing this little experience of mine. Since I now come to see that "Desire leads to suffering". Really is worth contemplating. And not just once or twice, since pieces of the mind-puzzle needs to be turned and moved around, inorder to fit. That is atleast what I will do more of now with this.