Things About Me

I was born and raised in San Diego California. I attended public school and graduated June 1979. Although San Diego is located on the coast, I did not see much of the Ocean. The house my parents bought was approximately 5 miles from nearest beach. During summers there were family excursions to the beach, but they were rare. Neither of my parents seemed interested in it. My father worked a lot, and at home, he wanted to be left alone. Some would say that he had a strong work ethic, but for him work was a convenient way to avoid other aspects of life. Neither my brother nor I had a real relationship with him. Dad did spend time with my brother, as long as it involved sports. My brother played for several years in Little League Baseball, and one year my father even coached his team. But even their relationship was not a personal one. I attempted sports, but was not athletic, which seems to cause my father to become even more distant. The one time my father actually tried to show me something sport related, he became extremely frustrated and gave up before I caught on to what he was trying to teach me – how to do a proper basketball lay-up. Even though I know I had done it right by the end of the lesson, he still insisted that I was doing it wrong. My father did not believe in positive reinforcement. Throughout my life I rarely received praise from him, and when I did, it was rather weak, as if he did so grudgingly.

It came to my attention, from the physical during my first attempt to join the Navy, that I have a physical deformity. In examining my chest x-ray for potential TB, the doctor found that I had minor scoliosis. From the base of my skull to the tip of my tail bone, my spine is not straight but has twists and turns in it. Between some of the vertebrae the padding is missing, and the vertebrae are fussed together. And there is a bit of arthritis on the spine too. Among other things, this caused my shoulders to line up unevenly. At closer examination, it was determined that I've had this condition from birth.

This was obviously the cause of my lack of ability to achieve in sports. But this revelation did nothing to help end my father's disapproving tone towards everything I did.

I also had difficulties with school work. As I've explained here before, I had an extraordinarily difficult time with the subject of English. And upon English, the means of communication, all other school subjects are taught. Having difficulties with English made learning all other subjects all the more difficult. Although I was mostly failing at English, I was still doing acceptable work in all other subjects. If I could have overcome my problem with words earlier in my childhood I would have excelled at academics. But, instead of getting me help for my school work, my parents instead labeled me as lazy and lacking proper character. And they denied any other reason for my lack of achieving. I think it important to note that during standardized testing, I scored in the top ten percent of my class throughout all of California.

This inability of mine to achieve anything, in addition to my parents continual berating and degrading remarks for my lack of achievement, I soon developed a deep psychological depression. In addition to that, I was suffering from social anxiety. The feeling of worthlessness was easy for my school mates to pick up on, and so I quickly became the target for all the cruelty that children can bestow on one another. When I asked my mother for advice on how to deal with the other kids, she only advice was, “if you can't get along with them, just stay away from them.” And thus began my descent into social isolation.