This is my story.

The following isn't meant to gain sympathy, it's to share the journey I went on, the path that necessitated my obsession with restoring health and to share what I overcame.     

 I came into this world artificially induced over a month early without functioning lungs, alive only due to the technology of artificial respiration.

     Born to 2 foolish parents who would abuse neglect and gaslight me up until I left the country at the age of 20. I was fed food depleted of nutrients, left to cry on my own in an area separated from my parents by 2 large doors, multiple walls and a hallway. There are memories of me as an infant being smothered and choked to prevent my screaming or as a result of the anger it incurred. 

     New-borns have an instinctive sense built in to the human race to know if their parents are useless. This pattern presents in two ways. They die from the lack of love, or the mind creates illusions to protect itself. These are some of the deepest rooted dysfunctions that affect our society. 

      I was an excitable, curious, highly intelligent child. I needed space to run and specialized education. Instead, I was forced to sit still in a standardized environment at the age of 2 or 3. When I acted out as a child deeply unhappy with their surroundings does, I was sent from therapist to therapist, medical specialist to medical specialist for them to poke prod and try to find problems where none existed. This culminated with my mother forcing powerful mind-altering medication down my throat at the age of 5 while I screamed and begged her not to. 

     God forbid I be unique / an unideal student in a standardized school. The doses quickly increased, new medications were added on, more doctors now at an age they deemed acceptable to call me the problem. Labels were placed on me, and freedoms were taken away. The physical abuse was mostly replaced with gaslighting, neglect, emotional abuse and screaming. 

     Everything was my fault. Nothing was the responsibility of my parents. Apart from the dinner my dad cooked, very rarely was I provided with adequate sustenance. Breakfast and lunch often little/skipped due to medication and fear. I learned to ignore hunger in my stomach. Eventually, they took classes on restraining - designed for dangerous mentally handicapped children, those that might try to harm their parents. I was not one of those children. 

     Whenever I would get upset, shout, or display normal healthy emotional behaviour for a child my age, they would grab me, restrain my limbs and sit on me until they decided I was calm. This did immense damage to my nervous system and personal boundaries. This is where my chronic pain began. Every year my posture declined as I retreated in on myself, disassociating with reality. I remember after having something I was beyond excited about at age 12 taken away, I kicked the dishwasher and when I thought I broke it. I was so scared of how my parents would react and what new way they find to take away what little happiness I had in my life that I considered plunging a kitchen knife through my heart. 

     I had no friends. At all. No allies. No one I could go to if things were upset. My parents created such a dysfunctional socialization model I didn't even understand how to communicate with other people. There was no one to hold my parents accountable. The closest ally was my grandmother, who made frequent the joke, "Do you remember when your parents restrained you, and you screamed "help help nan, she/he's killing me." 

     Divorce happened at around 13. The first thing my mind did when I heard the news was try to make the best of it by going "yay two Christmases." The first thing my dad said to me was "now this doesn't mean there's going to be two Christmases." That Christmas was the worst Christmas of my life, and I don't believe I've ever received fewer presents despite the lack of financial hardships. 

     I was afraid of my dad. He'd done things like spit in my face, pick me up by the shirt and push me against the wall to scream in my face. He was spoken to by both Child Protective Services and the police about his conduct towards me. He can be very charming. He lied about all encounters and got them to go away. No matter how egregiously he behaved, he spun the story to make himself the good guy/victim. 

     My mother liked to threaten to call the police if she deemed I was unmanageable. We were yet again onto new practitioners after the last one got arrested for multiple counts of sexual abuse against a minor. I had two new psychologists, Idaho's very own 'Tyler Whitney' (my dads tennis friend) and 'John Anderson' (someone with an expired license who practiced in the literal ghetto in an office so full of cigarette ashes, your clothes smelled when you left), They made it a game to belittle me, create what they called 'thinking errors' and bestow those upon me. John Anderson had me as a vulnerable, deeply upset 13 year old, wracking my brain under the threat of punishment to come up with different reasons why I was a piece of shit according to his chart of "thinking errors" This was glorified brainwashing/psychological abuse and it had me believing things such as "I have no self worth" or "I don't deserve to be happy" no matter how many times my partner and close friends would tell/show me otherwise.)

     I could never be right, and I could never win. My parents were never examined for their role in this equation; it was always "how can we identify that Kyle is a piece of shit and find new ways to punish them" Tyler's first idea was to have me spend a week at a place for at-risk/homeless teens called the 'Hays House' (I was 12, I already had abandonment issues and was repulsed by the touch of my family) I cried and cried but it did nothing. 

     When that was deemed inadequate, I was sent to live In the desert for 60 days which my parents used the college fund provided by my now mentally impaired grandfather, who would believe whatever they would have told him (the end bill for SUWS was around $60,000, it achieved nothing and was one of the worst times of my life. I was 13 when they did this) The organization has been shut down under allegations of abuse and is tied up in litigation. If anyone is curious, there are documentaries made on these places and what we, as children, had to go through. I kept in touch with 10 different kids who went through the same program. Not a single one of them had changed their "behaviour" and not a single one of their other companions from the program had either. This was a glorified punishment space for neglectful/abusive parents.

     Highschool was more or less the same. The side effects of the medication got pretty nasty at times. I could go days without being able to sleep, experience surges of emotion that were so overwhelming they brought me to my knees, and come near to passing out while standing up. 

The only social connections I had were through my online friends on Xbox. Those were the only people I talked to, the only times I felt normal. My parents knew this was my only social connection in the whole world. It was their favourite thing to take away from me. I was never taught life lessons, finance, how to make friends, how to be a man, and how to fix things that broke. 

     Then college started. The first time in my life that I had any degree of freedom from my parents. They still demanded access to my grades, and horrible things occurred, but I had freedom. I decided to do everything, try everything, and meet everyone. I joined every social club I could find, I was introduced to working out and revolutionized the way I ate. I began to learn things. I could sing, I could make friends, people could care about me. I quit my medication cold turkey and for the first time in ages my brain started to wake up. It started doing what it does best, form patterns. I began to gain awareness of how wrong my situation was. A change had started.

     This is where picture 1 was taken. 1 month into me working out and making changes. This is where the next 8 years of my path began 

     I had a ferocious hunger for knowledge. I needed to understand my brain, my psychology, my anatomy, nutrition, how to heal, how to detox, how to restore my body. 7 days a week. Hours and hours a day, this was my life this was my obsession. Chips, cookies, alcohol, literally anything not classed as healthy, I did not consume no matter how strong the cravings got. 

     Thanksgiving, Christmas, New years? My gym was 24 hours and I was there. 18 years of psychological torture, neglect, massive doses of pharmaceutical poison and more. I did what I did best, push the reality from my mind and work on making each day better than the last.

     I began to build muscle, to gain strength and range of motion, to put on weight, to detoxify poisons, to meditate, to control my breathing, anxiety, nervous system. To understand and correct negative patterns of thought and more. I started training martial arts. Eventually, I gained the confidence that my parents lacked the ability to overpower me. 

     I was still dependent on them financially. I was still in an awful place, and with the absolute lack of life skills imparted, I worked as a lower-end waiter (thanks to the newfound social skills I created in college). They played power games. My mother's question when I acquired something new was never, "oh, how nice." It was, "where'd you get the money from." (I'd like to add in here, I wasn't going on shopping sprees, this would result from me buying 1 new pair of shoes a year) Stuff would be randomly taken from my room if it wasn't considered up to standard. My belongings would be ruffled through. Something incredibly important to me given by my now Fiancé was taken when my dad and stepmom decided to go on power trips and rifle through my belongings.

     I might be locked out with nowhere to sleep or kicked out under the threat of calling the police if I didn't leave (Not for behaviours such as violence but for not doing housework). It culminated in the night before my first day of work at a country club after being hounded for months to get a job. Around that time, I was driven to take "an aptitude test" to figure out what I was good at. By my dad and stepmom. I was not allowed to drive myself. I'm not stupid and I had been doing an enormous amount of research into psychology. I immediately realized it was a mental health evaluation and step 1 to gaining power of attorney/having someone committed. The test contained multiple separate sections with different worded questions to try and catch you out in a lie. Due to my memory and baseline subject knowledge, I lied through my teeth on that test, and I could tell the results secretly really annoyed everyone present because they suspected me of cheating. The existence of this was terrifying, though, and I needed out. So I booked a flight to England, Didn't tell my mom around 2 weeks before I was due to fly out and my father the night before his vacation to Hawaii.

     Over the next 6 years, I continued to heal. I had to learn how to breathe, to retrain my nervous system, how to sit, stand, walk, how to move. (I genuinely had gaps in my knowledge like how to safely sit on a chair) All of that had been taken from me. 

     I met some extraordinary people who made me feel loved and seen for the very first time in my life. I learned a healthy family dynamic and for the first time in my life, felt what It meant to be loved, supported and safe. I healed organs that were failing. I got rid of horrifying acne, digestive issues, and anxiety attacks. For years I spent every waking moment with chronic pain so crippling I often spent my time lying on the floor or in bed. I could not remember what it meant not to feel physical pain until, slowly but surely, I became free. I broke the limiting beliefs and shackles my family laid upon me and formed my own ideas. 

     Today I am free. I have travelled the world. I have healed from what should have been a death sentence. I train a variety of high intensity exercises 5+ times a week with no pain. Every day I achieve new heights, make mental and physical progress that eclipses the day before. I make real lasting friends and connections and I am authentically myself with no mask every single day. I have lived through absolute Hell and come out victorious and I am here to guide others to do the same.