national suicide prevention awareness Day. trigger warning! My personal story. technically Lenard

what's up everyone I wanted to do this video today September 10th 2024 because today kind of has a special meaning for me that hits close to home in case you don't know today is National Suicide Prevention SL awareness day and for many of us suicide is a real kind of problem I guess you'd say um depression is a huge problem in our society and many of us deal with depression now before I go forward disclaimer here my talk here is going to discuss some issues of self harm or attempted self harm and don't really mean to bring anyone down but it's necessary to get my story across again if that if you're bothered by that kind of thing please stop now click away now you know I won't be offended I understand anyway let's jump back a long time to my childhood years um I dealt with depression a lot as a child and I'm not I'm not wanting attention I'm not wanting sympathy I'm not wanting sorry no it's not nothing like that I just want to raise awareness you know of the struggle that many of us live every day with dealing with depression and suicidal thoughts and anyway going back to my childhood I had a rather complicated childhood I am legally blind I've dealt with it all my life and this made a lot of aspects of Life very challenging as a child and as an adult but anyway um to compound this I had a lot of issues with my local school system um I had a lot of issues with teachers that were kind of ignorant regarding things and just a lot of lot of issues in general I won't get into everything here don't don't want to make this video an hour long but anyway um long story short in school pretty much well in elementary school things were pretty good um I had some struggles but I was forced to sit in a kind of pointless underfunded so-called Braille class for hours on in many days and missed out on a lot but then there were times when some teachers had the backbone to kind of stand up to things and you know say hey lonard needs to be in regular class so least temporarily I would be you know put back in regular class I would get my grades up things would get better and cycle would repeat but it wasn't too bad in elementary school fast forward to the middle school years things got really bad um basically in the sixth grade I went to middle school and at first I thought things were going to be okay um I had a few issues but was managing to get most of them worked out was you know they were letting me participate in regular classes was doing okay and then it started we kind of had this principal for our Middle School who for the sake of not being mean I'm just going to say he was not a very good principal and he you know kind of didn't maintain things as a principal should with the school um I guess a principal and at least in my mind is supposed to be kind of like the the manager and he didn't do a very good job of it well needless to say sixth grade went on things were okay started to have problems seventh grade comes up we kind of uh started to have a little bit of a staff shakeup at our school few new staff members and all and um well my seventh grade teachers were not the best and rather than trying to work with me for the very minor very minimal accommodations that I needed to be able to participate in class with others um my seventh grade teacher hom room teacher particularly decided she was just going to when she didn't want to deal with me send me to ISS in school suspension well we had a total Butthead uh for an ISS director yes I got sent to ISS for being legally blind well um our total Butthead of an ISS director very rather than because I don't know how many people were ever in ISS in school but the whole idea behind ISS is that you're still yeah you're you're in trouble but you're still in school and you're supposed to do your work had no problem with that that's you know that's what schools about however I was given Allowed no accommodations for my visual impairment I was you know everything I was put into a little plywood CBE cule where I was surrounded on three sides at least by a sheet of plywood basically framed up at the top some 2 by tws and yeah um this was where I was forced to spend many many many many many many days through my seventh and eighth grade years um I say years because because of the fact I was given no accommodation I used the machine for reading it was called a CCT V magnifier uh basically this was back then a fairly large device that you put books or worksheets under or whatever and it magnified it quite large to the point that I could read it well they wouldn't let me use a CCTV they wouldn't let me use large print materials they wouldn't let me use any special accommodation in the ISS so as you can guess I got way behind my schoolwork was not able to complete school workk because of this so then um said pain in the butt ISS director started to suspend me because apparently there was this rule on the book that just VI were in ISS consecutively for so many days and didn't follow the rules one of the rules posted was that you had to do your work but I couldn't do my work because I had no accommodations that that you were automatically suspended so they started suspending me well uh out of school out of school suspension um basically being told stay home so obviously I was missing out then they were giving me none of my work at home I was not allowed any I mean it just it went totally downhill well fast forward basically I ended up uh going to court um they I was put in ISS enough that they started suspending me and I was eventually if you're suspended for a long enough period of time and Miss enough days of school even for out of school suspension you are taken to court as a Trent student a Trent child well me and my family my mom basically my only real parent were taken to court luckily I had a got a judge that understood things he basically heard me out he questioned me and he pretty much you know he pretty much came back on the school and pretty much said how dare you you know this is not his fault this is not his mom's fault how dare you case closed anyway by this time I was so frustrated I had missed out on so much school I wasn't learning things that I needed to be learning was way behind I got really frustrated and quit I was 16 by this time and back then you could pretty much quit at 16 and there was really nothing said or done about it so at least in North Carolina so I dropped out officially and and I shouldn't have but fast forward a couple years I went back I got my GED um so I technically did finish school um and I attempted to start Community College I was so far behind however that I was put into a lot of remedial classes at in college and it would have taken me a very long time to have caught up combined with the fact that my college claimed they were going to do all kinds of things to accommodate me really the only accommodation again that I needed was a CCTV but when it came down to it they were doing very little to accommodate me in classes and it just it was not working so I got frustrated and quit with that and fast forward a short time later I managed to get a job with a big box retailer I won't name it here but there's one in every town most towns have multiples our town does at least very large big box retailer um yeah I got a job with them I was happy uh was an associate in the lawn and garden Department not a not a classy job not a dream job by any means but it was a job I was making money I they you know said retailer was working with me um they were said they were willing to work with me and and help me out with the very minimal accommodations again that I needed to get the job done and I was complimented because they said I was doing a good job you know I I put the customer first that's something that doesn't often happen these days but and anyway uh everything went good until we had a boss a manager in the department I was in who decided he didn't like the way I was doing things I made one mistake on one day and he basically fired me well I went back to the human resources uh director I talked to her same human resources manager that had hired me uh I should say Personnel manager and the story was totally different at this time she basically told me that let's call him Mr T had told her that I was not doing my job and they had no place at said retailer for anyone not doing their job not being a part of the team keep in mind I was I was working my butt off but anyway I was fired from said job this was another kind of big I guess you could say disappointment but anyway I managed to get a get another job after getting into a state program uh in Raleigh and this job was not very reliable at all basically it was with an agency that was kind of in and out things were very bad for this agency and they were on the verge of kind of collapsing at this point and so the work was kind of hit and miss you know they would uh call me to go to work I would move to Ry I was staying at the Y at the time this particular why had the B back then this we're talking the late 90s early 2000s had rooms for that you could rent by the Night by the week so I was staying there I was happy though things were going good I was you know things were okay but said program basically totally ended up collapsing that all went away and I was left again with nothing well our Department of Social Services SLS services for the blind counselor basically got me in with a job coaching program that was supposed to help me get a job um my experience was that they really didn't help I mean the few opportunities they kind of helped me get in on was stuff that they knew I wasn't qualified for and that would not work out and there was no way to anyway they basically they got me the first interview they got me was with an investment firm uh again I won't say the specific business name but they got me an interview with this certain very large investment firm that has an office here in town and I was obviously not qualified I I knew nothing about investing I was a at this time I was like a 19yearold kid I I knew nothing about no I'm sorry I was I'm telling you wrong I was in my 20s by this point it's been a long time folks I'm sorry I was in my 20s by this point I knew nothing about investing so I obviously didn't get the job they got me another interview with a now defont Office Products retail chain that kind of ended up merging with another large office retail chain anyway I thought that was going to go good the manager liked what I had to say I knew my stuff about computers and technology so he said I would be a real asset to the company however when the assistant store manager come in on things for my supposed to be first official day of orientation um he did not want to work with me or talk to me about things at all and he basically took me around the store showing me why with a vision impairment I could not do the job this knocked me down yet again totally discouraged me I tried I tried again I tried again at different businesses and different opportunities nothing ever worked out long time and I really became seriously depressed um just everything kind of compounded together and around around my I'd say 22nd 23rd year of life I got severely depressed and I ended up attempting suicide now this is what I was giving the trigger warning about I won't go into specifics and I I don't even know the specific numbers of things but best guest um they ended up saying that I or putting together that I took roughly more than 600 pills various pills a combination all kinds of pills you know uh whatever I could find painkillers vitamins you know whatever and it almost did the job and about a day later I don't I don't remember anything after taking the pills until about a day later I woke up in my hos local hospitals I seeu and the first thing I can remember was my doctor sitting beside my bed he was checking my vitals and everything and he basically told my mom that we don't know if his liver is damaged he may have to have a liver transplant this was a very scary very sobering Awakening um you know I I honestly when I took the pills originally I I wanted to end it but I did not want to end up you know messed up or on some trans transplant l just waiting for a liver transplant or having to take some serious medication for liver damage the rest of my life fortunately when the blood work and blood tests came back um they found out that there was no permanent liver damage I had some temporary liver damage I went through some un comfortable times I'm not going to lie um things were not all roses um I spent about a week in the hospital being closely monitored because when you take that much medication it doesn't just immediately get out of your system I don't know how much any of you guys know about overdoses and stuff but basically when you overdose what happens as soon as you're taken into the ER and it's found out what happened they usually will admin administer what is known as charcoal and it basically is charcoal um into your system these little tubes of stuff and it forces you to vomit said contents of your stomach out and um yeah this is why I said trigger warning um but anyway um I got most of it out of my system but you you don't immediately get rid of that much stuff um I know I had I had taken bottles of over-the-counter pain relievers and things and so you don't you don't get over that kind of stuff immediately so the next week was spent in the hospital kind of recuperating they were making sure it was okay no permanent damage um dealing with some lingering stomach issues obviously and anyway fast forward once I was discharged I ended up being committed to a psychiatric hospital here in town um that was one of the most pointless experiences in my life but anyway um I got through that um I ended up going in said psychiatric facility couple more times and a couple other facilities over the next couple years and it it was all a mess but anyway fast forward to today I'm a lot better I've learned ways to kind of shrug it off deal with things um uh not to quot an old Disney song but kind of Let It Go and I'm doing a lot better but I know firsthand you know I'm not going to say I know everyone's circumstance I don't we all have different circumstances we all face different struggles we all face different issues but I know what it is to deal with depression I know how low it can make you feel how worthless how hopeless it can make you feel but I'm just here to tell you you're not alone you're not alone there is help out there there you know talk to someone seek help don't listen to the negative people look for posit positive people um there is help if if all else fails you know contact the National Suicide Prevention Hotline I'm not in any way affiliated with them but it is a great organization I 100% support them uh you can contact them by text or by call at 988 please please please use these resources folks before it goes to the point I got to you you do not it is not a pleasant experience waking up coming out of a drug induced coma I guess you could say almost only to hear that you may be damaged for the rest of your life and you know you're you're worth it you are a great person you are a good person I promise you people out there care you are needed you are the reason this world is as wonderful as it is please don't listen to the haters please seek help please I beg you again this has been my story sorry for a bit of a long video but I wanted to kind of get everything out there let you know some backstory and what was going on I wish everyone the best take care of yourself treat yourself the way you deserve to be treated put yourself first seek help get help thank you for your time peace everyone