Maestro-Behind The Music Part 1

You know how VH1 does "Behind the Music" specials on various artists? Well, after watching many of them, I decided that I was going to give it a shot. I know doing one about myself seems pretty big-headded, but rest assured, it's not just a vanity project, I truly do think it would be interesting to explain why I love music so much, and how I came to be the person I am today. Disclaimer: I'm only 19, so I'm still a work in progress :)

So, believe it or not, I've actually lived a lot in just 19 years. I can't believe I made it, to be honest with you. After years of bullying and almost losing my mind, I'm proud of myself for never qutting and not letting other people change who I am. So now the million dollar question: who exactly am I? Like, not just the basic stuff like "favorite color" or "favorite animal", like who is the man behind the blog? Well, you already know my name is Nick, and that I'm currently a student at the University of Wisconsin Eau-Claire, but there's alot more to my story than anybody realizes. So, the story I'm about to tell you is the story of me, 100% honest, no bullshit, nothing to hide, and nothing is made-up. I realize that this may not be the happy story that you were probably expecting, but in the grand scheme of things, all of my life has been essential to making me stronger, so keep that in mind as you go along.

Here goes. I was born in February 1994 in Fayetteville, North Carolina. Actually, I was born in Fort Bragg, but we set up home in Fayetteville shortly after. And I was a very sick child. About every six months or so I would have an ear infection, I once had a double hernia, and every single little disease that was floating around I caught (except for the chicken pox. go figure). My dad was currently in the military doing office stuff, like getting supplies ready for soldiers and other house-keeping. He did serve in Germany for some time, but that was long before I was born. My dad was 41 when I was born, and my mom was 36; the age of my parents has always been a running joke in my life, it doesn't bother me though. My mom was basically a home-maker, since my dad didn't really like the idea of my sister Natalie and I being alone with a baby-sitter. It did happen every so often, though, but that was only when my parents went out on dates. Most of my young childhood I don't remember, for obvious reasons, but I do remember going to Miami beach, getting a nasty splinter removed, having fun on my swing-set, and also playing with my cat Smokey.

So, fast forward to when I was 4. My dad, being in the military and all, was needed in a base called Fort McCoy in Wisconsin. So he did as he was instructed, and he took my whole family to Sparta, Wisconsin. I was enrolled in pre-school there, and my mom also formed a really close knit group of friends who all had kids of their own. They formed a mommy play-date group and while they talked, us kids were left to interact with each other. I didn't really make a lot of close friends, but I still had some fun. I don't know, I've never been the outgoing, social type, so I usually just kept to myself. We lived in Sparta for a few months, and when I completed pre-school, my dad once again had to move us. However, he still stayed in Fort McCoy, but we for some reason couldn't stay in the house we lived in anymore, so we were transferred to A01 housing in Tomah, Wisconsin. Now be prepared to see that name ALOT throughout this blog, it's where all of the life-changing moments will happen. I was 5 when we moved there, and I then started kindergarten. That was an interesting experience. I was so, so painfully shy, so not alot of the kids ever really played with me, but I do remember it being relatively easy considering how hard the rest of grade school was going to be. 1st grade wasn't that much different, although I hated story time so I would just keep working through our work books when the teacher told us storytime was upon us. So at school things were pretty normal at school, at home, now that was something. At home, I was pure, unadulterated evil. I broke things, I screamed, kicked, even bit on occasion, and whenever I didn't get my way...Lord have mercy on my parents' souls. I really don't know how they put up with me for so long, since we butted heads all the time. And my vile behavior wasn't going to let up for awhile, I'll get to that in a bit. So, I said that Kindergarten and 1st grade went pretty well, 2nd grade...that's a completely different story.

2nd grade easily goes down as the worst year of my schooling EVER, and there are a number of reasons why. First off, I switched schools. I went from St. Mary's catholic school to LaGrange Elementary School. For a super-shy kid like me, adjusting from a small private school to a big public one was not easy. To make matters worse, nobody really adjusted to me, either. I was a very weird child, I didn't like what everyone else did, I was socially inept so my communication skills were very sub-par, and I was just flat-out un-cool. That was the year that my class-mates started bullying me, not just simple little-kid teasing, it was straight-up bullying. Every single day I was called terrible names, I was shunned from pretty much everybody in the entire school, they just did not like anything about me. They didn't like the way I dressed, the toys I brought to show and tell, they way I played sports (I completely suck at sports, by the way), I just wasn't good enough for them. Now, I did make a couple friends, there was this one girl Cheyenne who was just the nicest person and she never teased me, her brother Hunter liked me too, and I remember a couple other kids who would sometimes just talk to me and we'd just mess around on the playground. That was the only good thing about that school, however, because 2nd grade is when my anger issues reached an all time high. I started to lash out at my class mates and started calling them the names they were calling me. It sometimes reached physical confrontation, but not too often. And another really sucky thing about that situation is that the bullying didn't stop at school, alot of those kids lived in A01 housing too, so everywhere I went I was being ruthlessly picked on. This definitely carried over in my house, and I also started taking my anger out on my family, I was just uncontrollable at that time.

So that's when I started taking anti-depressants. Yes, the bullying got so bad that at 7 years old, I was already taking adult drugs and I was also in therapy. However, the worst part of 2nd grade was not just my class-mates, but the adults were assholes too. My teacher was never the one to stick uup for me, actually, whenever I told her about a problem I was having she just told me that it was my fault and that I should be the one apologizing to the other student. Yeah, this was a trend that I was going to deal with for the rest of my time at Tomah. Nobody ever believed me when I said another student started to fight with me or was calling me names or anything like that, both teachers and the principal just said it was all my fault and that the other students were perfect little angels. Just to be clear, I was rarely the one who started conflicts, I'm painfully shy, remember? I tried not to step on anyone's toes, they just saw a weak prey and decided to go after it. I was now eight, I didn't know how to defend myself without calling them names back or going straight for the juggular. The school counselor didn't help because once again, she just said it was all my fault and didn't actually sympathize with me at all. No one believed that I was having any problems, so they just decided to ignore them and point the finger at me. It didn't let up a single day throughout that year, and that's when I started to just stay in bed rather than go to school, I just couldn't deal with the kids, or the adults, anymore. I ended up getting suspended at the end of the year, appraently elbow-ing a kid five times constitutes expulsion, but then again, remember, nobody in that school liked me. Needless to say, I've never stepped foot in that horrible establishment since, and I really don't wish it well, either.

But that was just 2nd grade, remember when I said this was just the beginning? It would continue, but in another town. In 2002, my dad officially retired from the Army, and that meant we could no longer live in A01 housing because it was for active military members only. I think my parents knew that something had to change, because I was having so many problems, and my sister wasn't really doing that well, either. She was doing alot better than me, but I think at this time my parents were fed up with the school system in Tomah, so they decided to move far away. 3 hours away, to be exact, to the city of Kenosha, Wisconsin. I'm pretty sure you can already tell how absolutely thrilled I was to finally get away from all the drama of LaGrange, and maybe start making some real friends and start getting along with my peers. That didn't happen unfortunately, but a bigger victory awaited, since the next year also began the most important decision of my life. Want to know what that is? You'll have to wait until part 2 comes out!

I'm gonna warn you, though, part 2 isn't going to be any happier than this part, and it's about to get a little graphic, because after 2nd grade I started doing things that weren't good for me, and I almost didn't make it through the next five years. But until then, thanks for going down memory lane with me to this point, it feels so good to finally get some of this out, because I never once told anybody that I was on meds or in therapy. Like I said, I hated LaGrange and everybody in it, but that was still an essential part of my life. The next part is even more essential.