Change Is Real (Auto-Biography) Part 2

It was august of 1999 and i was in fourth grade, the twins starting second grade, Phil was in the fifth grade, and Julie was in kindergarten.Travis moved away to Cleveland Ohio and i never got to say goodbye even though his dad got mad at me because he thought i swore at him but i didn't i was just repeating a phrase i heard on TV over there. Nute was still a bad influence and the waterfront just opened up and there were some stores down there but Nute got banned from all the stores the day after the water front opened up but oddly enough we were still friends.Phil and I still went over each others houses and we got introduced to a online computer game called Neopets from this kid at school named Billy Sarver. So Phil and I was playing Neopets and Super Smash Brothers on the Nintendo 64 because it was so competitive and addicting. I started having a passion for computers and started learning Hyper Text Mark-Up Language because i thought it was cool to edit your Neopets shop using little codes to make it look prettier. My dream was to create video games because it was a blast playing them and you get paid to do something fun. I started getting mad at Lynda again and she threatened to put me back into Western Psych again if i didn't straighten up but i didn't believe her.

I told her to go fuck herself and there i was again, back in Western Psych for the second time and this time i was put on different medication. I wasn't as cooperative when ever i went back because i guess i knew how they worked and i never seen the bad sides to Western Psych and i figured being there five more days wasn't to bad. I didn't want to go to school there or go to group or keep my room cleaned, so they put me in this patted room with a magnetic computerized locked door and told me that i would have to stay in there until i decided i was going to participate and cooperate with my treatment. I eventually agreed and i told the doctor that i was going to be good and to please let me go home but he said if i was good for a week i could go home.There were new kids there and different staff members but some i was familiar with.This kind named Asa was into witch craft and satanism but he was really cool to talk to. He had this Gothic Religious Book he told me i couldn't read but the cover of it looked interesting but i took his world for it and decided not to open it. I hated being at Western Psych and all i wanted to do was go home, i felt like a caged animal with no say in anything i did. I didn't last a week without doing something bad so they asked me to go back into the quiet padded room but i told them no and they called security and about two minutes later these two guys came in in black suits, they were huge, i mean my whole body was as big as one of there arms. They looked like they could bench five hundred pounds easily. I was afraid of them to get close so i agreed to just going there, i spent a whole day in it.

A week later i went back home and told the kids once again that i was sick. I continued to talk to Tim, Lisa, and John and they still tried to help me. Lisa never really did like Lynda because Lynda wasn't really raising me right, she still continued to spoil me and basically give me money to act good. Peggy and Ken still argued and Peggy met this creepy dirty guy with long hair named Ian. Ken moved out and Peggy and Ian got married and moved into this house right next to ours and i never wanted to talk to Peggy again, i never liked Ian either. Ian was gross, he washed his hair once a week and his body with shampoo, he abused my sisters but Peggy was to stupid to realize. Peggy worked at giant eagle and Ian just robbed people but Lynda and I weren't apart of that. The girls were to young to realize what was going on but they didn't like the fact that there dad wasn't around but i couldn't really blame him because of how Peggy was.

I spent the rest of the year going to school and hanging out with Phil,Jeff and David and trying to be happy. I had a lot of friends at school and we all played Pokemon together, I eventually started to collect the cards and i got a game boy with a Pokemon game and i played that a lot.I got introduced to some other family from the Carrick area,they were my cousins. Cindy Adams, her boyfriend Jim and her kid Steven.Steve is three years older than me but we had a lot in common so i started hanging out with them as well. Lynda and Cindy got into arguments a lot but Cindy is two faced. By blood Peggy is Cindy's sister which would make Cindy my aunt. My grandma Evelyn always invited me over to Payne Hill and I would spend a lot of time in the pool over there hanging outwith Nicky, Bobby and Lindsay.

Susan and Uncle Bob had good jobs and had a nice home up there and i would visit them all the time and play video games with them. Lynda and Susan got along so well but Bob was always out of town working construction.It was fun up there though because of the huge field and cousin Bobby was a big sports jock so we would play football, baseball, and basketball in the court area. We were all one big happy family and i couldn't really be any happier because of that. My family always thought that I was ashamed because of my skin color but it never bother me one bit because I was used to it. I never really questioned my fathers side of the family because all i heard about him is that he was a bad influence who walked out on Peggy before I was born and that he wasn't worth mentioning. I spent the majority of the summer of two thousand either at Susan's, Phil's, or Cindy's.

I was ready to start my fifth grade year at Barrett and I was still seeing John, Lisa and Tim. Peggy left Ian and the girls moved to Washington County and I was still with Lynda and just trying to finish up elementary school. I missed my sisters really bad but it didn't really phase me to much because I was young and we didn't even live with each other full time anyway. I mainly hung out with David and Jeff a lot and we started to get into a new cartoon called Digimon, we allstarted collecting those cards and traded them and we watched the TV show.

During the middle of my fifth grade year i was acting bad again and my mom put me in Western Psych for the third time, i spent Christmas there and that made me really upset. I was there for twenty two days that time and I got different medication and they upped the dosage because of my depression. By that time I didn't even care because I was starting to get into the habit of being hospitalized and i started to grow hated towards Lynda because it seemed like she didn't care. The sad thing was she still spoiled me by buying me stuff so it made me not hate her and that wasn't the right way to be.

I finished up my final grade of elementary and my sisters and Peggy moved in with us during that summer and Ian was in his own house but they would sneak into our basement together just go have sex and steal money from us just to live. Lesley and Jodi were on the verge of starting there third grade year and Julie was going to start her first grade year at Barrett. I started my first year of middle school up at the middle/high school in upper Munhall where I would walk to everyday.I was fine for the first few weeks than I got lazy and didn't want to walk up there. Lisa would call me and tell me to go to school or that she is coming to pick me up and make me go so I just walked up there because I didn't want the kids up there to know that I had to see therapy. Kids went there from Barrett and the other elementary school called Park Elementary.

September11th, 2001 happened and I was in sixth grade in my biology class and the teacher turned on the news. Shortly after kids were sent home early and every one was traumatized by the whole thing, it was a tragic thing but It didn't really bother me because I was a stupid child with no emotions for people. Lisa was so sad because her brother was around there the time it happened. It was October and a lot of people were afraid to go trick-or-treating because of it. Cars had the American flags on there windows and people were just quiet for the longest time because of it. I finally started going to school more and Peggy and Lynda were still arguing about the stupidest things ever. In February of two thousand and two, Lynda asked me if I wanted to move out of Munhall just to get away from Peggy. I don't have a clue why,but I decided that I wanted to move.

Chapter 2: One Way Ticket

Lynda hada friend she was working with that knew a land lord in Crafton/Ingram so we looked at the place and we liked it so we just moved on in. We went a few weeks without cable or telephone and I had to get enrolled into a school so Lynda drove me to Robinson Town Center and she enrolled me into Montour School District at David E. Williams Middle School. The school consisted of mainly white people and a higher level of educated teachers with higher curriculum . I didn't fit in so well because I was the new guy and the work was harder. I spent the last few months of the school year there than during the summer Susan told Peggy where we lived and she showed up at our door and her and the girls moved right on in.

I was going on twelve years old and was happy to see my sisters again,I wasn't to happy to see Peggy but at the same time I was. She gave me some money and I let her use my bed room and I slept in Lynda's room on the floor next to her bed. The girls all had to sleep on the bottom bunk bed i had and they went to Ingram elementary. I received another type of therapy, i got a Mobile Therapist (MT) named Tom Obiecunas from Community Alternatives in South Side and i was no longer seeing John and Lisa although Lisa and i still communicated a little bit on the internet. Tom was a great guy and a positive role model although he could be a little strict he was only doing it because he was tired of Lynda and I arguing.

Peggy was still secretly seeing Ian and other guys she messed around with in many different areas mainly in Homestead though. I was pretty angry about this whole situation and i flipped out and kicked a whole in the wall in Lynda's bed room so she called Tim and they decided that Western Psych was to short termed for me so they called this Residential Treatment Facility (RTF) and I went there to visit and well, to stay fora longer time. Tom wasn't allowed to be my therapist while being in there so i had to discontinue his services.

South Wood is different than Western Psych because it was more of one big house rather than a huge hospital. There were four sides to it:Parkside, Woodside, On Residential 1, and on Residential 2 there was Deerside and Streamside. Woodside was for the adolescent young teenagers and young kids and that was where i stayed. Park side was for the older teenagers, on Deerside and Streamside that was where the mentally challenged and handicapped children went to to live. I had to share a room with John Long, he was a weird character who slept naked and was obsessed with being annoying. There was many other boys on my side, and i made friends with some of the people on Parkside.J.R Sethman, Travis Blackburn, and this huge nerd which i forget his name.The staff members are were really cool and i had the biggest crush on Mrs. Jamie. Other staff included Mrs. Katie, Mrs. Kaye, Mike Sweenie,Matt, and Tim Amos. Mike Sweenie was the outgoing adventurous type who took us into the woods to pick berries and climb trees and other naturist things. Matt was the ass hole staff member who was just very strict and a lot of chewing tobacco. Mrs. Katie and Mrs. Kaye were awesome staff members. Being there was a big change because it was actually a fun place to be and there was a lot of stuff to do.

I was able to use the phone if I wanted but i didn't even miss Lynda til about the third week I was even there. I had to go to school there and that's where i met Frank Horouse and Cody. They were commuters which means they come from there home to the school because they didn't make it in there home school. Frank was a former resident at South Wood and we were friends from the day i saw him at the school. He was cool but also a little on the tough side because he was just tired of having to go to that school. I was given medication there and i remember we had to stand in line to take the medication but we all thought it was a game to race to the line to get our medication first. Some people pretended to take there medication but kept it in there mouth and they would hide it than sell it on the unit so people could get high off of it. This onetime some one put a used condom in the orange juice and stuck it in there refrigerator and it went into somebody's cup.