Hello Welcome – Who am I
First, I am happy you are here. I am currently an Infomation Technology (IT) Profession currently working as an IT Manager. I am the leader of a team of various individuals who are all on different paths of starting and along the way of their IT journey. Each person of the team have different talent, skills and experiences, in my many years in IT, I have never met two individuals who have been alike. Everyone is unique, and Everyone is Important! I have never met someone who wasn’t important!
My Life
I started like most kids do learning computers to play games. However When I was young. The Personal Computer or The PC wasn’t really a thing just yet. Apple and Microsoft were only founded a few years before I was born. Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniacki, and Bill Gates were not household names yet!
Growing up my parents, put together everything they could you provide me a great life, I am sure now that they struggled, but they never let on to me at least! At some point they were about to get a hold of this new way of playing games called Atari, at the time I was memorised, I could interact with the TV. It was cool fun and different. Games like pong – firefighter, donkey kong started my journey.
I was a child at the dawn of the age of computers, I am not sure how but my parents were about to get a hold of a Commodore 64, Today I think what an invention! I remember the Blue Plate Special, some sort of magazine, that came with software to use with the Commodore, my first memory of the 1st games I started to learn on the Commodore was called Chernobyl! In that game, I was learning on to startup a Nuclear Reactor, and how to prevent a nuclear disaster. I didn’t get far, I don’t know if the game was missing the manual or instruction at the time, without the internet there wasn’t much I could do. I remember I was able to look at the maps, dials, and blueprints, in the game, but I never go much passed the starting of the reactor and it does a self initialized SCRAM every single time I started it.
I remember going to “service merchandise” as a kid on the weekend. There I was able to browse the shelves for software and games to play on the Commodore 64. I do remember picking up the game called “Silent Service” I read every page of the manual, I learned everything about the game I would. Thus began my fashion with the Navy and Submarines in general. Looking back at my life now and knowing what I know now, I really wished I went into the Navy.
Games were coming out, and I was learning them as best I could. The problem was that I was never very good at playing them. About this time as well I was having trouble in school and was struggling to write and understand basic Muiplication in math. I was having the worse time in school, I couldn’t grasp some of the basic subjects and was very bored and frustrated with school. This was either the 2 or 3 grade. As time went on I struggled more and more. Changing schools tutors, extra studying, nothing was working. At some point, with my parents growing concerns, I was taken to Children’s Hospital, there I was subjected to endless tests, I honestly don’t remember how long it was but it felt like forever! They diagnosed me with Fine and Gross Motor Control Dysfunction! Now I will be honest, I don’t remember much about the diagnosis, or what they said about it. Well truth be told, I can’t write (by hand anyway), I can’t spell most words, and my brain goes 10x times faster than my hands can type or write. I have ideas flowing through my head at lightning speed but getting them into a format to use later is nearly impossible.
Again I was a young child at this time, I don’t remember much. But I do remember a few key takeaways 1, I was different!
2, I was going to need a lot of help.
I am not sure who, why, or how I was this was said, but I do remember my parents were told,
“At best I would have the basic life skills, but at that time, the best they could hope in my life was me working at McDonalds flipping bugers, if I could even do that and hold down that job. Graduation from Middle or High Scholl was not going to be possible, and beyond that was not even considered. “
Again I don’t remember much, but the gears were turning, I was shipped out to a completely different school and school system to give me any chance of learning. I was bused to a completely different city school. There I had resource room classes, and while most kids my age were able to go to different classes for different subjects, I was in one class all day long for years.
Disabilities
While I have an actual diagnosis, of fine and gross motor control dysfunction. I think more underlining issues than just that. I feel this might have been the only thing the Doctors could have come up with at that time. I wonder if I have dyslexia and something like ADHD, additionally at the time been diagnosed with depression. Well, who honestly wouldn’t with that diagnosis!
While at school there was no hiding the disability. Evey Student there knew I was very different, I would talk to someone in homeroom, and then I would disappear into the resource room, then reappear for lunch, then disappear again. Like I said most students would only have at most 1 or 2 subjects in the resource room, they who see me there, and now kids are very smart, it doesn’t take a scientist to add everything up. This and the fact that I was bussed to and from school every single day. I felt very different, and this led to more isolation on my part.
As I got older, I was able to make a conscious decision that I wanted to be more like a “normal” Kid. I started pushing myself harder in certain subjects that I liked. By high school, I was able to get out of the resource room and into more mainstream classes like – Science – Health – Biology – Geography, and Social Studies. I struggled with Math, Reading and English. Pushing myself harder I was able by my senior year of high school to get into a normal English Class and took one year of Spanish. Both here hard but I was able to pass them at least just pass them (nearly).
When I started my professional life. I did everything to forget and hide my disability from everyone, and every employer. For the next many years I hid this! It wasn’t until I decided that I would move towards cybersecurity, that I wasn’t ready to share my story. My hope is that I can help others with unseen disabilities to reach their goals and have the life that they desire.
