Part of an ongoing series of feel-good ideals leading to hopeless outcomes

2005-2007

I was able to claim the “Class of 2005” in some ways, my second out of district program. In fact the Eagle Tribune had a photog, but none of the pictures ever got to print. I was hoping I’d have a moment. Again anyone with behavior challenges must be damned from soup to nuts, meaning we were the least underfunded program of all the programs at that site – because no one has sympathy to people who have chronic behavior issues.

The “school to work” program commenced at the start the 05-06 school year, with the summer time being spent 1/2 the day being what became my former program and what would be my new one. By end of the summer program, the program I left was 3 years to the day, the longest I would be in three out of district programs.

The “hours” were brutal, middle school at least at a 8:00 to 2:00 schedule, with me getting home before 3:00 but struggled to get out of bed every morning. We still had analog cable, broadband DSL was installed just months earlier in 2005. It wasn’t that I was intending to be a night owl either. Anxiety and paranoia was a bitch, and it would accelerate in the next 2 1/2 years, As I written previously, I would fight to stay awake to watch first-runs of Law & Order because it was airing on 10:00 Friday nights – not a school night at all! Even watching SNL was fight…

All the teachers were prime Gen Xers (for those who need reminding, this is the generation that didn’t tolerate any whining, “suck it up”, “teenage years end at 19”, and must act like an “adult” at all times in all contexts. Whatever the hell that meant.) The teachers I think happened to look down at us as the stereotypical entitled Millennials, when in reality it was far from that. Xers looked down at anyone younger and everyone older than them.

For the first school year, I began going to school in the mornings, then going to work at volunteer gig at the hospital in Lawrence. This was a mess and a disaster in retrospect, the job trainer had an obnoxious personality. In the classroom, I was learning very outdated practices in finding jobs and paying bills. A lot of the curricula was not up to date, in fact one could argue I was the early adopter of new technology as a true digital native

My schedule was academics in the morning, then work in the afternoon. But to make people learn adversity, in the following school year after some students had moderate behavior issues by switching mornings and afternoon groups around, forcing people like me to go to work in the morning, and study in the afternoon. Again zero-tolerance was the norm.

I built some friendships but they all disappeared by my choice after graduating.

In 2007, I really wanted out, earlier that year I started an intake process with the local area agency, which in retrospect looked like they should’ve been part of my life as far back as 16, nearly 4 years prior. Without repeating too much of that history, the involvement of the “transition coordinator” was literally my responsibility playing email and phone tag and trying to get someone to show up on a January day in 2008, no less than 2 months to my graduation. Is this what “self advocacy” really means?

Later on I realized despite the importance to work, a balance was necessary, while in 2025 Generation Z (Gen X’s offsprings) are often made fun of for being whiners and not wanting to work… is that really the case or is there more to the story?

In that same year, I thought, well… hell let me try to graduate at 20, whose counting? I got many threats of “you may loose services”, “if you drop out instead, you may loose services, but hey I am from Massachusetts”, I contemplated dropping out for a number of years. I was technically not a Londonderry High School student at all, despite policies just a few years before allowing students to access similar resources even if they were out of districted.

In fact at the program’s voicemail system, they received 3 or 4 different calls placed by the Londonderry School District Office in trying to get an IEP meeting to resolve conflicts and address concerns such as graduating. This would be considered to be one of those all-hands-on-deck. However these calls were not returned by the head of the program.

They wanted me to write pros of cons of staying vs. leaving. Another part of this Massachusetts backwards program, was violating IDEA polices that require the school to comply with the family or districts need to meet. The program coordinator (the “manager” type) basically said to me to learn to “kiss their ass”. In reality i felt I was held hostage, and it wasn’t until after the fact, how I knew calls were placed but not answered.

2007-2008 School Year – Steven Sucks it Up (but actually goes to work more)

In short, i accepted the rape stuck with the abusing program. Regardless, my job trainer at the time and I clicked very well to the point she was my natural support until 2022 where I cut the ties, because I felt drained. 15 years… jeezum I feel for every contact I have made in my lifetime, that I have gone beyond the “2 year rule” and actually have a relationship that lasted. There was some crisis at home, our house was burglarized the second time in nearly 13 years, then my grandmother fell on her head on the icy steps that looked so bad I told her she couldn’t go to work. Also gram got into a slight accident leaving the doctors office leaving her car to have a dent until she traded it in 2017.

Knowing the “ass kissing” manager was going to be not there emotionally, I was able to get extra work hours (which worked as a blessing a, it wasn’t counted against my benefits and b it lasted into September.) In order for my work program to be successful, emotionally available support staff with a pleasant personality is a must, which this is hard to find.

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