Jayson Rowan

I am a normal person. My childhood wasn't the best, but it had it's adventures, fun, and laughs. I grew up in Pauline and Topeka but lived in Topeka most of my life. Apart from that I have lived in Kansas City, Missouri as an adult, but only for about six months. Topeka was the city, and Pauline was "the country". My half-brother and I used to play in creeks and woods. We would play with scorpions and collect fresh water from a spring. Drugs were common in my family. My father was schizophrenic, abusive, and an attempted murderer. My parents separated after the attempted murder but never got divorced. I have had sleeping issues for most of my life. I think having an abusive upbringing may have had part to do with it because my family would be woken from deep sleeps just to be physically assaulted by my father. There were nights that I vividly recall staying up just so I could hear what was going on in the house. I was a child who on numerous occasions looked out for my mother's well-being, mostly failing as children usually are incapable of even protecting themselves. For most of my childhood, Pauline and Topeka, I lived in a trailer. My household usually had one half-running vehicle. We were poor. Due to this and simply being raised around poor role models, about half of the cousins on my maternal side(7 total) resorted to crime and I was one of them. Thankfully most if not all of us have matured since our teenage years. I did meet some of the best people I've ever known when I was in my criminal teens though. There is one person in particular who glows brightest in my mind. There were sporadic but many times that our utilities got shut off. Probably largely due to my lifestyle at the time, even though I got great grades, I would miss a lot of school. Also, in sixth grade my major joints started to dislocate on me. As a child it was just my right knee, but as an adult, that would turn into my right knee and both shoulders dislocating repetitively. We couldn't afford health care so emergency visits were the only thing I had growing up. I only had one dentist appointment as a child(for a teeth cleaning). At fifteen I got an under the table job with a man who got out of prison and opened his own business. He was a hardworking man who was convicted of murder. I met him on pure chance as I was job-searching and he liked the fact that I was actually trying to work. He was a good man who ended up knowing people I was familiar with. At sixteen I finally started getting myself together. I was getting great grades, going to school, not committing crimes, and I was working over the table. I graduated high school and went to college. Due to not having health insurance, I was unable to afford getting my sleep problems treated. This led to me having a repeat of high school happening in college. I was placed on academic probation without hearing or seeing a single person ask what was going on and/or try to figure out a solution with me. Nothing changed my life, so things continued that way until I dropped out. I moved to Kansas City with one of my best friends and his family afterward. We lived a crime-infested neighborhood which we helped with through the use of firearms. Thankfully, we never had to shoot any; just holding them or waving them around was enough to get people to take their crimes down a block. After about six months my friend and his wife got into a huge argument and it resulted in me being homeless in that neighborhood for a night. I tried to sleep in an abandoned apartment, but there were only two milk crates and a recliner. The apartment was cockroach ridden so I sat up on the milk crates for hours just watching out the window until I grew thirsty. I went to my friends house and got a drink out of the outside faucet. From there I went to a water park to sleep. The water was turned off by that time though. When I got to the park, I was looking for a comfortable place to sleep. All of a sudden I heard voices from behind me. It was two homeless people already sleeping underneath the slide. I asked if I could sleep there and they told me that I could. I held my possessions and a screwdriver tight to me that whole night. The next morning I woke up to police. They wanted us to get out of the park before children started showing up. The officers didn't bother asking why we were homeless or if they could help. They just didn't want children to see the society that society built. The two homeless people ended up being really nice though. It was a Hispanic male and an African American female. They invited me to breakfast with them at a church but I declined as I had to find a way back to Topeka, which involved finding a way to charge my phone first. I went to a friends house, charged my phone, and called the friend I was staying with. He came and picked me up from Topeka, not knowing that his wife kicked me out after their argument, and I moved back to Topeka. That is when I really began full-time adult work in order to pay off my student loans. Due to not having a college degree, jobs were limited. I decided to go into manual labor jobs, during which time my body only deteriorated faster. That is when my shoulders started to dislocate(specifically my left). I was unloading freight for Walmart and couldn't afford my bills on $7.65/hr. Eventually, I lost the apartment that I had worked so hard for. But, it was at Walmart that I would meet a woman that I would later date. She already had a child by another man, which wasn't attractive to me, but it wasn't a "turn off". I warmed up to the idea and ended up dating her, becoming the child's stepfather. His biological father was only in the picture from time to time. When he did appear he would perform horribly as a father and even as a human. The woman that I had dated had mental health problems that she didn't treat properly. I was probably drinking a little too much. After two years and many arguments we broke up. I continued to take the child on the weekends for three years following the break-up. I had a lot going on in my life. My right shoulder started to dislocate repetitively, I quit my call-center job, I was filing for social security disability benefits without an attorney, working with vocational rehabilitation, helping raise the lovely child of a deadbeat and a woman whom I could never see eye to eye with, dealing with bed-bugs, had warrants for my arrest due to my brother using my identity, and continue to look for jobs and lawyers even though no jobs fit my case and no lawyer would take my case. I had a mental break. I truly felt like murder. I knew it was going to happen. My whole life had been physical confrontation. I wasn't afraid of it and I wasn't afraid to cause it. But, I didn't want to cause it. I knew that murderous intent that had seemingly ballooned and popped without rhyme or reason would lead to murder as an outcome. I was and still am against murder for stepping on somebody's shoes or cutting in line. Since I knew something as simple as that would set me off I stayed indoors. I went to bed thinking that the feeling would go away, but I woke up the next day and it was still there. I didn't know why it was there, but I knew it's presence wasn't good. So, I immediately called and got a ride from my aunt to Valeo Behavorial Health Care's Crisis Center. I separated from the child I was helping raise for his own benefit, as the communication between his mother and I had gotten quite intolerable for a child to be around. This would in turn become another battle to fight. At Valeo I was diagnosed with depression and for the first time in my life was medicated for my sleep problems. General employees at Valeo weren't well trained and some had very poor social skills. The first night I was on my sleep medication my psychiatrist told me to take it right before bed. I ended up going to bed quite late. It was between 11pm and 1am. I asked for my medication and the lady behind the window refused to give it to me. You can imagine the aura of the room; a man with murderous intent and a lady who won't give him the medication he was prescribed. I was probably yelling all of the things that you would predict. Somehow, I kept myself from breaking in the window and jumping on her. I told her I would call the cops on her for it. Around that time the supervisor walked over and found a solution to the problem. It was some dumb rule that they couldn't give certain drugs after a certain time(I think it was 10pm). My medication was one of those drugs. Nonetheless, I was given my medication and we didn't have a problem with it after that. But, it was when a patient had pushed a door open and the employees sat there looking at each other, literally asking each other what the alarm was for, when I realized that I had received all of the help that Valeo's Crisis Center could offer me. I had my aunt pick me up and I moved in with her. I continued my medication as prescribed and eventually, as suggested, was able to get psychological services at Washburn University. All costs have to be pre-approved by vocational rehabilitation before they are able to pay it. For some reason, communication with my vocational rehabilitationist(counselor) had gotten strained. Nonetheless, Washburn's psychology clinic worked with me, providing free therapy for most of my sessions, which ended up spanning about three years. I dealt with the death of a friend due to gun violence, another friend due to police, and my grandfather after a long battle with cancer. Through it all, I was able to cope. It would had probably never been possible with Washburn University's psychology clinic. Eventually, I was off my depression medication and even released from therapy. My Social Security disability claim ended up making it to being a federal lawsuit against the Commissioner of Social Security. But, not having a cure to depression overnight, the whole time I was working to better myself I was still having negative life experiences. In order to follow through with therapy, it would at times result in me spending decent portions of time writing letters to people in order to solve conflicts hat seemed to have arisen. Since I was busy with life, including two shoulder surgeries and still continued dislocations, I was unable to turn in the proper court documents in time and my case was dismissed. The Commissioner had at least two attorneys that I knew of, and since it wasn't a criminal case and I was so young, no attorney would represent me as they had no legal obligation to. But, if I would have never applied for disability benefits and started working with vocational rehabilitation, I would have never gotten my shoulder surgeries, which, it seems the second one is holding up decently well on my left shoulder. So, the hardship, as ridiculous as it was(and still is), was worth it. Vocational rehabilitation has helped me get back in college, Washburn University was kind enough to take me back, and so far I am doing pretty well. I just started a less physical job back at Walmart so it is almost like my life has gone full-circle in a positive way so far. I know that this was supposed to be some resume' thing to make myself look good for potential employers in the future, but that is obviously not what I am using it for. I appreciate all of the recognition that Washburn University has given me this year for my achievements. I really do. But, I don't care about the common idea of resume's, and even if I did, it doesn't change the fact that I have had a normal life that has resulted in me only being capable of certain work and many gaps in employment to explain. I don't want somebody to hire me because Washburn University said I was a good student. I don't even want them to hire me for having experience in the field. In fact, other than hopefully graduating and having a degree to show employers, I don't really believe my work or education history is their business. Judging people on their past is biased and discriminatory. Sucking up to people in order to win their employment only after they start looking appealing is two-faced, selfish, and generally fishy. I don't want employment from this page. What I do want is for people to realize that I am a normal person. If they like what this normal person has done, then I beg them, please treat everybody with love. I can only dream about what my life would had been like if I had health insurance growing up, a safe and stable home, schools that cared more for their students than how the student made the school appear, and perhaps most of all, if mental health didn't have the stigma that it did. My early life is gone and I am no more than a normal person. But, there is some child, some young adult out there, a human, some variation of brown, that is going through things for the first time in life. They don't know how to handle it. They feel stuck. Life has always been against them. Everything is falling apart and the only thing they can think about is ending themselves or somebody else. That person is losing or has lost all hope. Thanks to Washburn for recognizing my accomplishments, but for employers and anybody who reads this, please, give your attention to those who need it most. Give them a real shot at life. I will do what I can if I make it to being an experimental moral psychologist.