Monday, November 10, 2008

Sacrafice for family

Have you ever had to give up two thirds or more of your belongings for the sake of moving your family somewhere safe? I have. From 1998 to 2004 I served my city as an Animal Cop. I did my job well and always made my raises. I didn't change my work habits but when I was diagnosed with bipolar disorder in early 2004, causing me to start taking medications to control it, my superiors decided that I was no longer worthy of my badge. They started to harass and discipline me even outside of company policy. For example, they wrote on my last review that I was afraid of dogs. Line that up with five years of prior service, decorated service. Does that make sense to you? Not me. I was forced to leave a job I loved and it started a whirlwind three year exchange of misery. My conditions were worsened by stress to the degree that I may never have a regular job again (never mind that my conditions have become degenerative due to other factors). If not being safe at work isn't enough, let's remove safety at home as well. I didn't live in the best of neighborhoods and one of my neighbors made a complaint against me for taking a snapping turtle away from her. You can bet they used that against me. The took the word of a crack snorter with a six page criminal record over mine as an officer with no other witnesses. She lived four houses from me on the other side of the street. That's no where I caught her with the turtle, I can get more into that later. This woman circulated a petition to have me evicted from my home. Fortunately the landlords knew about her and laughed her right out of the office. She rallied neighborhood kids and encouraged them to yell slurs at me and my young son whenever we were seen outside. Terrible and gross pranks started to occur, such as leaving used condoms on our front door handle and sickening medical rubber gloves on our porch. Needles were found in the yard on more than one occasion. I did try to find another job, but everyone who called my prior employer, even though I told them there was a legal disagreement (pending court) wouldn't hire me. Three of them told me that the city called me "unstable" and directly said not to hire me. Yes, that's illegal, but I couldn't prove it. It took over a year for the Equal Opportunity Commission to finish their investigation. They never questioned any of my witnesses, but still gave me a right to sue letter. Attorneys were afraid of fighting the city but I finally found one who seemed promising. After another year of back and forth garbage the judge miraculously decided he didn't like my evidence and dismissed the case without trial. My attorney dropped me like a hot rock. At home we were being bullied and threatened by a neighbors drunken son. I had to avoid a fight with him for legal reasons. Police weren't helping, since I tried to sue the city. It took three years to start getting my disability pay. By then, I was diagnosed with my Autism along with Loss of Identity, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (for the second time in my life), and a long list of comorbid factors. We had to leave, not just the neighborhood, but the city as well. We needed a safe place, that could handle our medical factors and my son's autism along with the possibility that one day, I might have a new career. We had already done a great deal of research and that landed us here in Sheboygan. There are still so many jobs that I cannot do because of my limitating conditions, but I still push to do what I can, especially for my kids. My son, is in a great school and doing well. We are finally safe from all the threats. A noise outside can still make us jump and we aren't doing as well as we would like (but who is?). So that's our story of why we moved in a nutshell. I'm open to questions and I hope that my posting this may help someone out there. Have a great day.

Friday, November 7, 2008

Who's thewildeman?

Who’s thewildeman?
Hello, I am aspiring writer, David Wilde. This is my introduction, meant to give you a view into the facets that are me. It’s really amazing when you take a good look at yourself and realize all the things that you are. For starters I am a father and husband. I have the worlds most awesome kids, three daughters, one son and one stepson. Only my youngest currently lives with me, but I am in touch with all my kids. I think that’s important, even if you can do little else. Professionally I have done a lot of amazing stuff. My jobs in life ranged from planting trees to flipping burgers, to running a pizza restaurant. Mostly, I’ve worked at protecting and helping others. I have 19 years experience in doing jobs of security, protection, and law enforcement. Most recently I was an Animal Cop, helping people and their pets through education as well as law enforcement. I wrote tickets to people who violated laws like cruelty or neglect and brought lost pets back home. Now, I’m physically disabled and slowed down in life quite a bit, but I’m still kicking and trying to help others. How I do that is all that’s changed. I am a survivor of severe abuse from childhood. There are three forms of abuse and I was thrown into all three. Yet, I survived and defied statistics for male survivors. I refuse to become like my offenders. That’s how I beat them ultimately and brought myself up in life. I’ve been on my own since I was 14, I lived in a cardboard box at 15, and yeah, I still became an officer of the law later in life. Not only did I survive all that, but I survived being an undiagnosed Bipolar Autistic. Yes, I have autism as does my youngest son. I have spent the last several years learning as much as I can about what it means to be autistic and I have posted many blogs and even videos on the subject. I want to help others learn and cope. I overcame PTSD from my childhood and know the daily struggle of living with these combined conditions and their co-morbid factors. As with anyone, there is still even more to me than that. So I hope you will follow along with me on my journey and maybe together we can make the world a slightly better place. As I say often, ROCK ON!

Another blog comes to light

I already have a lot of blogs, but the more I get, the more people I reach right? So here I am and I will be back soon with blogs to make you think.