The Viable Alternative

NOTE: The story below is a TRUE story but at the request of the main character of the story, the names have been changed. Also, the person in the picture above is not the person in the story.

Background:

I was the product of a union between a Jewish mother brought up in the Pelham Park section of the Bronx and a Puerto Rican father who was from what was then the predominantly Puerto Rican Co-op City section of the Bronx.

It was a whirlwind romance. My mother, 19 at the time, young, inexperienced and naive, fell head over heels over my father who was eight years older, and within three months of their relationship, she was already pregnant with me.

While my mom was pregnant, my father traveled to California to find a better life for his girlfriend and their unborn child, and promised to send for us when he was established. However, out in California, my father wound up meeting another woman and got her pregnant.

Needless to say, the relationship between my mother and father came to an abrupt end.

In addition to being heartbroken and alone, my mom had me via c-section and couldn’t see me for a week, so by the time we saw each other there was not a strong mom-child bond, and due to the fact I was a constant reminder of the man who broke her heart, it never fully developed.

Problem:

When I was four years old, my mom met another man who, owing to the fact that he came with the security of a house, a car and a job, married him within three weeks of meeting him. He moved my mom and I out to Jersey and adopted me as his child. Unfortunately, he was also an ex-con and an alcoholic, so he, along with my mother who suffered from depression and anxiety, physically and emotionally abused me on a regular basis right up until the age of 12.

On top of the troubles at home, at 12 years old I started Middle School in a predominantly White section of New Jersey. As one of the few ethnic minorities in the school, I was consistently on the receiving end of racial taunts, ethnic slurs and bullying, which caused me to get into a lot of fights. However, due to the unstable environment I had at home and the non-nurturing relationship I had with my mother, I had no one to turn to for support, reassurance or comfort.

At 13, my parents divorced and my mom and I moved out of the house into our own apartment. Shortly after, my mom found a new boyfriend and began spending most of her time at his house, leaving me alone by myself in our apartment.

Being left home alone at the age of 14 for weeks on end with no parental supervision, I started throwing parties in the apartment or would be out all night smoking cigarettes and sneaking into NYC clubs.

Living this type of lifestyle, I wound up skipping so many days of school that I decided to just drop out.

Eventually, my mom decided to move in with her boyfriend and took me along with her. However, right from the beginning, it was clear that he didn’t want me there and within six months of the two of us not getting along, he and my mom kicked me out into the street.

Now homeless I resorted to sleeping under stairs in apartment buildings and couch surfing between different friends’ houses.

While staying with one of my friends, Gina, the two of us hatched a plan to hitchhike to Texas via the New Jersey Turnpike. Shortly after, we execute the plan, do a hit of mescaline and over a period of days thankfully wind up making it unharmed to Texas where at one of the truck stops, a bathroom door came off its hinges and fell on my friend’s foot. At the hospital, one of the workers in the hospital called my friend’s Dad and he reported that we were both runaways. We get sent to a Youth Detention Center and from there back to New Jersey on a good ol’ Greyhound Bus.

Back in New Jersey, I moved back in with my mom and her boyfriend, and since I had been classified as a runaway, the Division of Youth and Family Services got involved, but after one meeting with me and my mom, they decided everything is okay and dismissed our case.

At 15 years old, I re-enrolled in school, however things still weren’t good at the house. My mom’s boyfriend and I still weren’t getting along, so I’m eventually kicked out again and I wound up having to couch surf once more.

At the age of 16, I decided to drop out of school again.

Soon after, two of my girlfriends and I hatched another plan, this time to go to Miami for a weekend and crash at a friend’s place. One of my friends swiped her father’s credit card, with which we purchase plane tickets, fly down to Miami, get a limo from the airport to a friend’s house and go shopppp-ping. While staying at our friend’s place, in the middle of one particular night, I woke up and decided to go next door to a neighbor who was part of the “party” and crash there.

When I wake up the next morning, I go back next door and notice that my friends weren’t there. It turned out that my friend’s Dad reported his stolen credit card, and the police traced the credit card to our friend’s house in Miami. In the middle of the night, while I was sleeping next door, they swooped in with her Dad, and took away all of my clothes and the girls back to Jersey.

So now I’m all by myself in a strange city with only my clothes on my back.

Luckily, my friend’s neighbor arranges for me to stay with friends in Coconut Grove, a section of Miami, where the owners of the place were going on an extended vacation, leaving me to have the place all to myself.

To support myself, I wound up getting a job at the Pink Pussycat, and my mom sent me my child support checks via Western Union. I started doing coke and experimented on one occasion with a heterosexual couple. Sorry to disappoint you dear reader, but the night was a dud and all I wanted was a dude.

After six months of this, I got tired of the whole scene and decided to go back to New Jersey. Although I did work at a thrift shop, a ticket back to NJ was kinda expensive for a 16 year old runaway, so I stole a few dollars from a few friends and saved up enough from my child support checks to fly away back home. Needless to say I did travel in style with the lovely black leather pants of the female in the experimental couple that I cherished.

Now 17 years old, I’m back with my mom who is now 38 years old, married to a Cuban refugee and pregnant.

Turning Point:

Back at “home” again, I decided to start to seeing a therapist. Several months after I turned 18, my sister was born. From the first time I laid eyes on her, I immediately fell in love and I decided from that point on that I was going to change so I can be a good role model to her. I subsequently gave up partying, doing party drugs, quit coke cold turkey, and enrolled in night school to get my high school diploma. Yes, in that order.

Transformation:

From the ages of 18 to 20, I worked full time during the day and went to school at night. After getting my high school diploma at 20, at 21, I started going to a NJ University, where in five years, I earned my Bachelors in Social Work with a minor in Sociology. From there, I got accepted into the Advanced Placement Masters Program for Social Work at NYU and earned a Masters 2 years later.

After I got my Masters, I got hired to work in a school where I’m still working to this day. It also seemed like the next natural step to get certified in psychoanalysis so I could work with the certifiable. Heck, I also self-identified with the practice so I enrolled in a 2 year certification course at a clinic for psychoanalysis, where I completed my training. From there I set up my own practice which I’ve had for the past 15 years.

In 2008, I went back to school for a second Masters and completed my Masters in Education in 2010, which enabled me to get promoted in 2012 to a job I love because I help runaway, throwaways and homeless children as someone once helped me.

Having both a sincere desire to make sure my family, which has always struggled financially, would always be well taken care of and to give them a chance to stand on their feet has driven me to become an entrepreneur and launch my own t-shirt and accessory company. Not only do I plan to use it as a vehicle to take care of my family, but also to sponsor homeless kids who are interested in studying the arts.

Final Word:

At the end of the day its not how you enter a room, but how you exit.