School?!

sorry for the short reply, Kaycee you seem like a Beautiful caring person. I hope your doing well. I too, hate my looks, body . Just look at my Profile picture. I don't like my picture taken but I do have another one I could of used but chose this one. I am not Naive to think I won't get hurt. I know it get's better, that is what everyone says and I believe it. I have a double wammy, Coming out and being ugly. I know you need to love yourself first, that will be a hard one.

Any LGBT students check out www.PointFoundation.org.! They rate many US colleges on a LGBT-friendly scale and explain the programs the school has to be deserving of the rating. They also have lists of SCHOLARSHIPS and financial aid info specifically for LGBT students and their families!

Wow! What a rough time in school growing up! I am glad you made it through, and I am glad you have the drive to continue pushing through, and you have a plan in mind! I hope you enjoy your university experience. I myself am about to start back to school for Psychology, and I am excited about it! Let me know if there is ever anything we can do to help!
~Matt

Hey y'all!

The best way to hear my story about my past schooling is through the story below, which was written by my mom. It is a books we have been working on for some time. It seems it was written 4 years ago. So, it is a little out of date, but inspiring nonetheless.

CHRISTOPHER’S STORY

By Linda S. Nicholson



When our son, Chris, was a toddler, it became obvious to us that his speech patterns were uniquely his own. After the recommendation of his preschool teacher, we had Chris tested by a state educational center. The center gave us a diagnosis of Dyspraxia, a condition of which we had never heard. This was in 1997 when Chris was just four and a half years old. The specialists told us that day that Chris was about 24 months behind in his fine and gross motor skills, but had developed some excellent coping behaviors, would never enjoy team sports, would have learning difficulties especially in the areas of reading, handwriting and math all through school. They stated he would also have problems with tasks like learning to tie his shoes and other motor related tasks. Oh, but by the way, we were lucky because it seems that Chris was not one of the dyspraxic children who was so sensitive to touch that he did not like to be hugged or held. And he was not a kicker or biter. “Thank heavens for that I guess,” was all I could think to say.

Even going home and looking online did not give us much more information about dyspraxia back then. Most of the information seemed to come from the United Kingdom, seems they were ahead of us on it for some reason. So no help to be found online and very little in print at that time either. All of what the specialists said that day came true in the years to follow. But it was a lot to take in at one time. Especially looking at our beautiful happy little blue-eyed smiling boy who loved everyone and seemed to only need to communicate more clearly.

So began Chris’s journey through years of speech therapy and occupational therapy and physical therapy. Both at Lenox Baker Children’s Hospital, an affiliate of Duke Hospital in Durham, NC and later through his public school in Granville county, NC. As we felt the time allotted for Chris’s speech therapy by the school was not sufficient for his needs, we supplemented his treatments with a private therapist also for several months.

I remember very clearly when Chris began kindergarten. His wonderful teacher used to ask me every morning what we did to make him come to school so happy every day. It used to make me smile. That was his last happy school year. He repeated kindergarten at the school’s recommendation, “To give Chris a chance to catch up in his motor skills and speech areas.”

Chris became labeled “special” and was soon a Special Education student with all that entailed. If you are not sure what it means, it is like being the only black kid in an all white school or vice versa. Different. Of course, nobody says anything specific. But you and your child are treated a little bit differently. Meaning that if my son learns things in a different way than the other 20 children in the class, the teacher must talk to me in a different way also.

Without much information about dyspraxia to go on, we had come up with silly phrases of our own to celebrate words and images with Chris ourselves to stretch both his vocal abilities and his imagination. The school staff was not always sure how to deal with Chris. We were called into the office one afternoon by his pre-school teacher. “Ma’am, Chris is saying things like, Alligator toenails, to the other children and we just don’t know what to do,” declared his teacher. “The other children are getting upset,” she stated. I asked, “Has Chris broken any rules or called the children any names or said any bad words?” “Oh no!” she replied, “I think it only confuses the other children.”

And OK, I did not say what I was thinking, well you are a teacher and in this situation you could look on it as an opportunity to explain (another word for teach) that Chris has speech difficulties. And these funny phrases are exercises just like running and jumping are for all of them. You could even encourage the children to think up new and imaginative word combinations of their own to use!

No, instead of taking a stand, we just agreed to have a talk with our son and left.

Chris is Seventeen years old now. We took him out of public school after 4th grade and have home schooled him since. The most immediate result was that we had our happy son back. We ran our homeschool on an eleven month schedule, but always found time for special times. Besides the normal educational activities, we have done more wonderful field trips and adventures together than we’d ever been able to do with our other three older children.

As a result Chris has enjoyed concerts ranging from classical to the Von Trapp family children, every kind of show from the Nutcracker Ballet to Barney at Universal Studios. Chris participated in drama camps several summers. He has been to homeschool gatherings at the Biltmore Estate and Storytelling festivals, and camping to many beautiful locations.

Chris enjoys taking art lessons with a couple of wonderful artists and one of them has also been his academic tutor for several years as well. In fact Ms. Deb is an adopted part of our family now as far as we are concerned. He takes guitar lessons now and hopes to do well enough for a recital by Christmas.

Chris does beautiful oil paintings of landscapes and florals which are on display and for sale at an art gallery in an Oxford, NC store called Made By Hand. And he loves to participate in our local Granville Little Theater group. Watching Chris sing and dance on stage in one production almost brought me to tears one evening as I remembered how far he had come. I would certainly bet back in 1997 that those professionals would never have seen all these possibilities coming!

This book is our way of taking the stand we failed to take way back when Chris was in preschool. We are celebrating our differences and all that makes us special. We are hoping our story will inspire you and your children to love yourselves and each other for who you are.

It would be so wonderful if one day there would be no more “us and them” mentality, but just us!!!

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Anyways, that's my story, but now I'm 21 and a college student majoring in simulation and game development. In the fall I hope to try and minor in Graphic Design. Also, a reason the gay thing wasn't mentioned in the story is because I didn't come out until I was 18, and the story was written the year prior to my "news".

Well, that's all for this post, see y'all around!

-Chris