“I create families within our nerdism”
I didn’t understand how to socialize with people, only later did I realize that’s due to my genius intellect. I have an impairment in my ability to actually communicate with other people. Things that people take for granted, like simple signs or words or passages that they just get on the spot, they just don’t click in my head. And because of this I grew up for a long time without any friends at all. It wasn’t until high school that I met anybody.
I had this growth period where I entered a ROTC program and had a live mentor who taught me how to speak socially. If I was lost as a kid, even up to middle school to high school, if I needed help and I talked to anybody I would actually have a panic attack just trying to talk. This mentor taught me to speak in public to the point where I can have entire speeches now in front of groups of hundreds without a problem. When I entered college I took this newfound ability to talk to people to seek outsiders like myself who were alone in the café where I lived. I would go out of my way to talk to them because we have something in common, whether it was a Pokémon shirt or they like a certain kind of music.
I ended up building a group of 20 strong people that were once all ostracized and built a little family together. Even to this day I go out of my way to find people that have good hearts that feel they aren’t being appreciated for their uniqueness and try to pull them in. I create families within our nerdism
As a kid I would always walk around with a teddy bear. It was my projection friend, basically, even until my teens I had a bear. My parents went through a divorce when I was around the age 5. And my dad gave me a teddy bear. That bear was my only friend for years. I did everything with that bear, I didn’t care. I traveled the streets of Panama with that bear. When the bear got injured I would go, “mom, fix him”. I had him with me until an incident in middle school where I was dealing with depression and they took me to a psychiatry center. There I couldn’t bring the bear in with me, so they were holding him for me and when I was checking out I asked for my bear and they claimed they didn’t have it. And that was a really rough time in my life. Even talking about it I get emotional. I went through a really hard depression phase losing him. Even now I can tell it really affects me. So I always have a soft spot for bears. I know when I have a kid I’m definitely getting them a bear. This is your homey. His name was Tedddy with 3 d’s and he had a brother Kennny with 4 n’s.