Life story
Life story
My life story as it pertains to health
Audience: the basket of normals
Sally from Southbridge, Michigan, USA
Jimmy from Perth, Australia
Takeo from Kyoto, Japan
Sophia from Puebla, Mexico
Murray from New Plymouth, now Hastings, NZ
Setting the scene, it is a WhatsApp group chat with 5 relatively normal people. They aren’t members of the fae (aka philosopher-kings). They don’t like it.
Sally: Where shall we start? There is a lot of ground to cover after all. We are trying to understand your health, and how you ended up being crippled for so long. And all of the problems that occurred along the way.
David: I reckon that we need to start somewhere sensible. It would be daft to start too young. Maybe we should start in my teens?
Sally: Well, exactly where do you think we should start? How far back should we go?
David: I think that we might go back to the age of 16. That seems like a good place to start. There is some stuff prior to that, such as a significant bout of what I call “electromagnetic nervous system related harm” back at the age of about 14, after my trip to Japan. Which left me feeling quite unwell. But perhaps 16 is the right age at which to start. [I might do that story elsewhere, because it is such a good story.]
Sally: What were things like for you back then? Both in terms of your health but also for your life in general? Let us set the scene.
David: Okay, that sounds good to me. Let’s set the scene. I was fine. Life was going well. I was a high school student. I had a part time job cleaning school classrooms. I went to the Coast Community Church (CCC) on Sunday mornings, and on Friday night for youth group.
I liked video games and played a lot of them. I used to arrange “halo days” at my home on the weekends and organise large group nights on Friday at the local internet cafe. I boxed and played table tennis. I used to do a fair of exercise. I did pushups, jumped rope and rode my bike, amongst other things.
I socialised with people from church and school. But I preferred my family to both.
Sally: Tell me about your friends at the time? What were they like? That might be a good way to get started.
David: I’m not sure where to start. I suppose that I could give you a list of names, and a bit of background, and we could go from there. Here is a list of my friends back then. This is back in sixth form by the way, and maybe a little bit before that and a little bit after that. I would have been between the ages of about 15 and 17.
The first two worth mentioning are Amanda Ward and Jesse Orchard. They were my best friends in Paraparaumu at the time. The next bunch worth mentioning are Max Macfarlane, Aaron Oldcorn, Phillip Tiller, Nathan Thatcher, Kieran Rayner, Scott Mulcahy, Liam Cunningham, Michael Burton, Chris Westwood, Chris Barber (Amanda’s boyfriend in 5th form), Rachel Burston (Amanda’s best friend at the time).
Some of my other friends, associates and acquaintances include: Jess Mackenzie, Jessie Hendy, Jacob (I forgot his surname), Chips (aka Jono), Taras, Daniel Han, David Walker, Ben Jack, Ashley King, Grace, Emma McKay, Jenna Rowland-Skelton, Joseph Chapman, Chris Wilkins.
And a few family and family friends include:
Andrew Brody-Pop, Glynn Periam, Uncle Jonathan Foster, Andrew London (my father’s employee), Mike Hocking (my father’s former employee, as well as being a pastor and celebrant).
At this point, I had recently moved from Taradale to Paraparaumu, as I have mentioned elsewhere. And so I had recently made a bunch of new friends.
Sally: can you tell me more about these people?
David: Of course. When I first moved to Paraparaumu, I didn’t know anyone. And so I just met people at school and church. My father chose the church that I ended up attending (we ended up going to the Coast Community Church on Hinemoa Street, aka the CCC). Basically he just took me along to it, and then I ended up getting into the habit of going to it. After a while he stopped going to it, but I kept on going. He then went to a different church (or churches). He went to the Meadows Church (a local Pentecostal church), Waikanae Baptist Church and a third church whose name I forget that used to meet in the Paraparaumu College auditorium. The CCC was a nice church though. I liked the youth group as well, and I also enjoyed going to the youth group’s shared lunch on Sundays, held shortly after the Sunday morning sermon. I also went to the Sunday evening service which was put on by the youth group and the youth pastor Andrew Crawshaw. And at school, I met people in class. I went to Paraparaumu College, and I started going there in fifth form. Amanda and I ended up sitting next to one another in three classes (Accounting, Japanese and Maths). I think there may have been a seating plan that caused this to happen, but I’m not sure. We became friends fairly quickly. What else? I met Jesse Orchard at church. His father is an elder there. Back in those days I think he was a deacon, but he was promoted to being an elder a long, long time ago. He is now the chief elder. I ended up being a part of Amanda’s set of friends. She and her friends were very friendly, and easy to get along with quite quickly. They invited me to go to the swimming pools in Porirua with them in the first few days of school, and invited me to go to the boxing club with them too. IIRC, I had never taken the train without a parent at that age, and I think that it may have been one of the first times I had been to Porirua. Also, I doubt that I would have gone to boxing without an invitation from them (Chris Barber, Amanda’s boyfriend at the time, and I sparred and boxed together a bit at the club. We all used to hang out at Chris’s place to watch dumb videos online). The following people came along with Amanda’s set: Chris Barber, Scott Mulcahy, Liam Cunningham, Rachel Burston and Grace. The following people came along with the church set: Jonathan East (aka Chips), Chris Westwood and Ashley King. I later met Max Macfarlane because he went to the Meadows church (my father went there, and took me along sometimes) and he was Matthew’s friend. I met him through Dad and Matthew (his parents later became missionaries in India). Also, Max is adopted. We played a bunch of Halo together. I asked him if he knew any other good Halo players, and he introduced me to his friend Aaron Oldcorn. Who was supposed to be good at Halo (he was okay! But not amazing, but so what! I was desperate for more players in Halo). Aaron was asked the same question, “where can I find more Halo players who are good” and he then later introduced me to his friends Philip Tiller and Nathan Thatcher. They weren’t amazing at Halo, but quickly became my new set of friends. A lot of my social life revolved around video games back then. Where I meet Brynn? Brynn and I sat next to one another in Japanese class (I actually sat in between her and Amanda in 5th form, and we sat together in 6th form). We were thrown together on work day, and painted a roof together. She and Joseph also dated.
When we first met, Amanda claimed to have had a troubled past. She said that her father had been an alcoholic, and used to get blackout drunk. And sometimes his friends did drugs while she was there. And it was so bad that on one occasion she thought that he was dead (passed out drunk). She also claimed to have been molested as a child, by her step father. But her story changed a few times over the years. I think she was lying. After we were married, she claimed to have mental issues and various dysfunctions as a result of being molested. Ugh. Hindsight? But she was intelligent. And fairly sharp. Or at least I thought that she was. That was the bit that made her worthwhile as a friend. And she liked books! And basically she was just friendly and welcoming. But basically she just fell into my life because she was there, sat beside me in three of my classes. Jesse Orchard’s father was a major player in the Church. And so I got dropped into his life a little bit. The way it worked was that my father knew his father a little bit, and so my father placed me into Jesse’s house to stay when my father was out of town. He eventually became a friend. And was by the age of 17 was my best friend at that school (which is kind of sad, because I never really felt that I knew him that well). But he was best I could find, and enjoyed video games. He loved Warcraft Three, especially footmen frenzy. He also liked World of Warcraft, which I never got into (after Ragnarok and RuneScape I wasn’t willing to get into other MMORPG). So, oh well. It’s sad. It really is. He was one of the leaders at the youth group, along with Ashley King. The youth pastor was Andrew Crawshaw. I also met Leah and Helene at that youth group. I had a crush on Leah, but hardly knew her. Helene was a leader in the youth group, and later on she ran it herself, after it basically died. That’s a long story, but not interesting enough to retell. Jesse and I actually ran a couple of events (or tried to! I was terrible at it, or we were). They were fun though (and no one got hurt). So it didn’t matter. [Note: my theory is that the rule is that if no one got hurt, and people had fun, it probably wasn’t that bad of an event. Ahaha, Jesse once broke his ribs at youth group.] I liked youth group.
What else did I do?? I used to arrange to have nights at the internet cafe where I booked out the entire local internet cafe, and then get 20 or so guys together from school to play games like Battlefield 1942. I didn’t even like Battlefield that much, but it’s what we played. It was at this internet cafe (Cyberjacks) that I first played the Half-life One modification known as “Natural Selection”. Which was my one truest love in life (not really, maybe it was books, or Morrowind. Haha. No, actually the thing I loved most was my father when I was young ahahhahahahahhaha. What a horrible life). Anyway, I loved video games. I used also to arrange Halo 2 gatherings at my home, usually on a Saturday, and invited my friends to those. These friends included such people as Matthew Solt, Aaron Oldcorn, Max Macfarlane, Andrew Brody-Pop, Reuben, Jesse, Phillip, Nathan and a few others. Chris Wilkins came a few times. Emma McKay’s brother came along a couple of times (he and my brother were friends). We took a break for pizza and coke halfway through. We could usually manage to get about ten or more guys to come along.
What else? We also had LANS sometimes. But that was later on in high school. Similar set.
Taras and Daniel were foreign born students living at our house. Taras was German and Daniel was Korean. They were teenage males, one year younger than me. They were both fairly likeable, Taras more so than Daniel. We spent a fair bit of time with one another, because they lived with us. Taras dragged us on runs sometime (he was training for rugby).
My best friend back before the age of ten was Ben Jack. We were still friends at the age of 16/17, but becoming pretty distant. We had both changed. We still saw one another. His mother was a lesbian. Ben and I both loved video games when we were young. We had known one another since before we started school, I think. I can’t actually remember meeting him.
David Walker was probably my best friend for 2-3 years back when I was younger. We met at the age of twelve, and we were fairly good friends up until the age of 15. We shared a love of video games. We met on athletics day and talked about games all day. His father was a Presbyterian minister. David Walker has cystic fibrosis, and I would prefer it if people didn’t bother him. Sadly, he wasn’t 100% honest as a friend, if you know what I mean. But the years I knew him and his family were nice at the time. I still stayed in touch with them after moving town.
Jess Mackenzie and Jessie Hendy were friends in high school. We were in the same class as one another. They were quite smart and loved books. Jess has a degree in English (1st class honours), and Jessie Hendy studied archaeology and chemistry.
That’s it for now.
Sally: Okay. What next?
David: let’s keep on setting the scene.
My mother was still living back in Napier. I saw her sometimes. I was living in a yellow two story house on Mazengarb road just a few minutes away from school. I was still getting adjusted at school in fifth form. It’s actually hard to make new friends when you move around too much. You meet people. And you make friends. But maybe the quality control when it comes to friendship isn’t what it could be. You don’t always find the most worthwhile people? You sometimes just take what you can get or whomever shows up. Or I did. And at the time I didn’t know how to find the best friends, because I was quite socially naive. I was very religious, and followed rules and believed the stuff. I had a literal, supernatural, fundamentalist interpretation of the Bible. But I was sociable. I would do things like round up twenty guys to go to an internet cafe to play battlefield. And I met people for that purpose. I was always looking for more people to play video games with. I needed talent and fresh meat! Haha, I jest.
What else.
I tried some karate (Kempo), kickboxing and boxing. I settled on boxing because I enjoyed it and appreciated the challenge. And then boxed on-and-off until half way through sixth form. I also bought some affordable dumbbells within the first week of arriving in Paraparaumu. As you can see, I was shopping around a bit before I settled on what sport to do. Table tennis was a strong contender, as were fencing, hockey or maybe rugby. Maybe. I had always wanted to do a season of rugby (as a young child I lamented the fact that I was put in soccer, not rugby). I was playing a lot of Morrowind at the time (5th form). I loved that game. I was also playing a lot of the Sims (which is an amazing game, unironically. 200 million happy customers can’t be wrong). Matthew and I played a lot of both of those games. We were playing computer games together all of the time, it was how we spent time together. Video games were a huge part of our relationship as brothers. It’s what we did. We also played them with our cousins.
What else? I had left my friends from Taradale behind. These included friends such as David Walker, Jesse Hendy, Jess Mackenzie, Daniel Sanson, Scott Young, Sam, Matt van Pelt, Adam Kendle, and a few others. I still saw David Walker and Jess Mackenzie sometimes. They were both still friends. Jess visited us a few times, and vice versa. And we exchanged letters. I had multiple stays with the Walkers after moving to Paraparaumu. The Walkers felt like family to me. And still I spent plenty of time with my family. And time with my friends at church. I know I’m rambling and repeating myself, but I’m trying to get plenty of information across.
David:
Who else? Looking back? I spent a lot of time with my family. Here are the names of some other randoms, I met Kieran, Jacob and Ben Boland. Jacob was in my English class, and form class. He was a massive martial arts enthusiast. He did Kempo and a few others things, and had quite a bit of experience. We got along okay, but he faded to the background pretty quickly. I met a guy named Byron Mallet, who played violin and was good with computers (he got a masters degree and now works at a university). And was in a long term relationship with Brynn in their mid to late twenties, before breaking up suddenly. I think that it was a fairly bad breakup. They were living together. Byron Mallet and Jesse Orchard were friends. Although Jesse seemed to look down on Byron, somehow? Kieran was an opera singer, and went into show business. He likes Shakespeare, Gene Kelly, show tunes and all that sort of thing. He was reportedly very good at wc3 frozen throne: melee, but I never played against him. I used to invite him to things like Halo at my place, but he wasn’t a massive gamer by the time he was 16/17. I think he came to my 20th birthday. I used to see him on and off. Actually, he and Jess Mackenzie dated! And they were in a long term live-in relationship together. Which is bizarre!! He got good marks at school and I think, and university. I met him on the first day of 5th form. He invited me to play “sogby” with he and his friends (soccer combined with rugby). It is soccer when the ball is on the ground, and rugby when you pick it up and are carrying it. Which is what I played on my first day of school. He is (or was) a mutual friend of Jesse Orchard and Amanda Ward. Amanda and I were friends. We were in accounting, Japanese and mathematics in 5th form. And in economics in 7th form together as well. We sat together in all of these classes. She was also in 6th form Japanese class with me, until she quit. She invited me to go swimming with her and her friends when we first met. And so we went to the Porirua pools, and the local pools. Which was nice. I met Rachel and Jenna through Amanda. We quickly became friends. I used to hang out with her and her group of friends at school. She, Chris and Rachel were the ones who invited me to boxing. They all went for a while. And then faded out. A lot of guys from school went to boxing for a little while before quitting (such as Roman, Chad, Ben Boland, Kieran Corlett). I liked it at the boxing club. I liked it so I stayed. My father actually didn’t want me boxing, and neither did my mother. I also tried out kickboxing. Brynn’s step-father (Barry) ran the kickboxing club. I tries out his club, but it didn’t “click” for me. This is because we had to wear a mouth guard while doing pad work, and then jogging at the start of each season left me exhausted. I don’t like jogging! The club was otherwise fine. I had previously really loved my kickboxing club in Taradale.
I knuckled down to study a bit harder in 5th form. The thing is that I had been a little bit slack in fourth form (back in Taradale). Maybe this was because of the divorce, or maybe because I just played too many video games. But I was slack. I still passed fairly comfortably! But I wasn’t winning prizes and stuff so much. Note: I did however win the most humorous speech award for my speech in 4th form haha.
Now in fifth form some annoying stuff happened when I was getting streamed into classes. I took the test at the last minute, for being selected into classes (I will tell that story elsewhere). And then I did badly! And got put into mainstream classes! For science, maths and English. And so I had to work harder to get out of those classes and into the proper classes the following year. By the way, this harmed my social life. Because I ended up meeting “mainstream” class level people instead of “extension” class level people. Which meant that making friends was difficult in general. Anyway, I put in the work to do well. And I did do well. And I did even better in 6th and 7th form. It was okay. I didn’t study hard all year long, but I put in the work when I needed to. Such as at the end of the year before exams, and before minor “internal” assessments.
I was at one point planning to go to Japan on an exchange with AFS. But I decided against it. We had got through the planning stage a bit. But I backed down because I wanted a bit more stability and certainty in life. So I spent 6th form in New Zealand. And also I didn’t know how to afford it. Was I supposed to engage in a bunch of fund raising? Should I have asked my Grand parents for money? I’m not sure that it really matters. But who knows. It is one of those “what ifs” I ask myself about. What if I had gone to Japan for an exchange. How might that have changed things?
Some teenagers gravitate more towards their peers and friends in their teens. They pull away from their family. But I actually stuck close with my family. Especially my father and brother. I liked my family!
My father and me:
My father and I were close when I was growing up. Or at least I thought we were! He was my favourite parent, out of my mother and father. He was smart and he was good company. He was easy to talk to. We used to spend a lot of time with one another. For example, we spent a lot of time in the car together while he did stock transfers or deliveries. He used to own multiple shops. At one point he had a shop in each of Taupo, Napier, Hastings and Paraparaumu. Or we spent time together while he set up new music shops, or we went to music festivals together, or we sat at home talking, or talked while running around town doing errands. We spent lot of time together. We were always together. Or, very often together. We often enjoyed listening to music together. Both at home and in the car. He enjoyed showing me his favourite songs from his collection of CDs and records. We would talk about music and listen to music together. He also was a fairly decent pianist, and song writer. And so when I was young, I would enjoy listening to him play his songs for me. He would simultaneously play the piano and sing. Most of his songs were Christian songs. He was my first piano teacher. But he would teach me through demonstration and copying and memorisation. This is why I ended up getting into the habit of memorisation over reading music. And why I never became a truly excellent sight reader. I was always worried that he would forget how his songs went and how to play them, and I always wanted him to record his music, so that it wouldn’t be forgotten. But he never did. I loved the songs he wrote. We spent a lot of time together growing up. And this continued when I was a teenager. When I was in my teens, we would still spend plenty of time together. Talking, debating, arguing, and going for drives in the car, I would work at his shop sometimes. We played cards together (we enjoyed playing games such as hearts, blitz and other games. He also taught me to play chess). We also played board games (such as monopoly, polyconomy, risk and a few others), although not as much as we used to when we were young. We also had his cousin Glynn over a fair bit (second cousin), and sometimes Uncle Jonathan (Uncle Jonathan is my Uncle, and my mother’s younger brother, he is my father’s former brother-in-law). They were both close friends of Dad, and also were very good company in general. When they came around, we would get coke and movies from the video store. As well as “hard jubes” (which were lollies that Uncle Jonathan was obsessed with). And watch movies together. we would all watch movies and dvds together. What else? I saw a not insignificant of any amount of my father’s employees and friends growing up. People like Mike Hocking and Jaime. They were nice, and very easy to get along with. They were a big part of my life at some points. I also saw a fair bit of Andrew London and Aidan (employees of my father).
Next my brother, Matthew.
The truth is that I loved my brother. But I hate, hate, hate saying things like that. We weren’t all “softy”, ooey, gooey about stuff like that. But in a context like this, it’s easier to speak in a straightforward manner. I prefer to speak with understatement and reserve. And I loathe, absolutely loathe, too much directness when it comes to topics like this. But I did like my brother, and I cared about him.
Sally (and the other normal people): can you tell us a bit more about you and your brother growing up?
We used to bond over video games, music and books. [I hate, absolutely loathe, the word “bond”. But given the current circumstances, and the fact that there is an international audience, and a group of people nitpicking my word choice, it might be the best word to use. Tbh, I want to vomit with rage and despair at the fact that I am forced to use words in a manner that to me feels absurd, abhorrent and daft. So many of the conflicts I have had over the last few years relate to the manner in which I want to use words, and how that comes into conflict with the way that other people want words to be used. Either out loud or in subvocalised speech]. You can’t even use hyperbole, irony or sarcasm properly inside your own mind!! [And I like to be quite definite about words, and to have particular and sometimes peculiar choices of words, and my own personal definitions of words. Without this, I struggle to organise my mind correctly. I use words to organise my mind. And downstream of that, I use of a lot of discipline in how I train and manage my mind].
But anyway, both Matthew and I liked video games, music, books and TV shows like the Simpsons. And much of our relationship involved playing video games together, talking about video games, planning to have our friends over to play video games, listening to music together, talking about music, talking about books and sitting around reading stacks and stacks of books. We also loved shows like the Simpsons and cracking jokes with one another. Going further back back into childhood, as little kids, we used to spend hour upon hour playing with Lego in our room, or playing with hot wheels cars and tracks (especially the loop the loop track and the electric boosters), or building forts out of furniture and blankets. Or building fortresses and habitats for our cats out of cardboard boxes (we used piano boxes), and other household goods, using kitchen knives to chop them up. I’m sorry if this seems like somewhat bland conversation, but I think it’s better just to get on with it.
We both played table tennis. I was older than him, and had more natural ability in table tennis. He wasn’t very good at many things in life! I tended to be fairly good at many of the things I tried to do. Dad wanted to train him up in table tennis, so that he could win tournaments. He started to get good, and I thought of working at it to overtake him (knuckling down and practising), but instead I quit table tennis to let him have his own thing. Matthew and Max began to win tournaments. And they kept playing.
Matthew was a weird kid. And he had asthma and eczema. He has weird autoimmunity issues that affect his skin and hair, and half of his eyebrow fell off as an adult and had to be pencilled back in. And he has to wear makeup sometimes (or chooses to) because he has some weird skin issues that ruined his face. Also, he had Aspergers and has been officially diagnosed. He was diagnosed as a child. My father used to take him to special meetings. And they had a support group that Dad went to. This aspect of their life was probably riddled with dishonesty. At the time, I thought he was fine. He didn’t seem that weird or socially awkward to me.
In our teens we played a lot of Halo 2 together. And I invited his friends to my house to play Halo 2 along with my friends. We played a lot of Halo 2. They were good times. We both liked Halo 2. Back then: Halo = life.
***
Sally (and the rest of the normals): what other games did you guys enjoy growing up? Were video games an important part of your life? I’m asking about you and Matthew, what sort of games did you play?
David: I’m glad you asked. Video games were a huge part of our lives growing up.
We liked games such Red Alert, Command and Conquer, Red Alert Two and the expansion pack, “Yuri’s Revenge”, Gran Turismo, Tekken Two and Three, and Tekken: Tag, Worms, Pokémon Red (we both loved and adored that game), Leiro, Age of Empires, Morrowind (and expansions), Sonic the Hedgehog, Jill of the Jungle and many, many shareware games, Icy Towers, Duke Nukem, Jetpak, Age of Empires Two, Halo One and Halo Two. We liked Tiberium Sun and the Sims. We had all of the expansion packs for the Sims (the Sims is one of the best, and most popular, games of all time). We liked Sim Tower, Sim City 2000 and 3000, Theme Park, Roller Coaster Tycoon, Gunbound (Original), Heroes of Might and Magic 2 and three, Oblivion. Golden Eye 007, Lemmings, Abe Oddworld, Tony Hawk, Gex the Gecko, Batman Forever, Star Wars: Rogue Squadron, Grand Theft Auto Two, Diablo Two, Star Wars: Shadows of the Empire (1996), Wipeout (racing game), One Must Fall: 2097 (fighting game), Various arcade games. So much shovelware and plenty of shareware. And many others.
We were both massively into video games growing up. I cannot over emphasise this enough.
My dad owned a computer shop!
We also had a similar sense of humour, and enjoyed things like Simpsons reference humour. We would just hang out and watch cartoons and stuff plenty too. What else was there to do? Who else was I going to spend time with? It was me, Dad and Matthew. We were actually pretty close.
Sally: what else?
And I cared about him. And I liked spending time with him. We did argue and fight a bit. But brothers often do.
It turns out that he was actually a bad person, and he was a big part of running “games” against me. My family were horrible people.
Sally: That’s awful. Shall we move onto the next thing?
David: Sure. I had a variety of jobs as a teenager. Let us talk about those quickly. I feel that I need to make it clear that I was good and healthy before they suddenly made me sick.
I worked a number of jobs as a teenager.
I worked at my father’s music shop. I unpacked and carried boxes of goods. And I helped with deliveries (carrying heavy objects). I also served customers. I usually didn’t have many hours. I entered goods into inventory and helped with the stock take.
I worked as a paid cleaner. Cleaning school classrooms after school. I liked that job. I vacuumed, swept, mopped, polished and scrubbed floors.
I picked raspberries in summer. In Hawkes Bay.
I sold coke and other fizzy drinks at school for a profit. It was a “black market” good because coke and other sugary drinks were banned at school. The canteen wasn’t allowed to sell them. I enjoyed that job. The only downside was that bag was heavy, when it was completely full of cans of coke, sprite and other drinks. It gave me a sore back. But it was fun being the only guy in school who could supply you with a cold(ish) can of coke, and at a $1 NZDprice point too.
David: Next, I want to talk about my study habits.
Sally: okay, tell me about your study habits.
David: I was a little bit slack in third and fourth form. And didn’t think that it mattered too much, because only 5/6/7th form really counted, or so I was told, and so I believed. This meant that I wasn't willing to put in that much effort or otherwise exert myself excessively at school. I still studied and practised for tests, and I still showed up to class and did the work, but I wasn't trying to get the best marks out of everyone. I wasn't trying to be top of my class is what I mean. I was still an avid reader though, and trying to learn technical skills on the computer. I learned some programming, web design, CAD and animation.
I still got pretty decent marks in third and fourth form, just not spectacular marks. Perhaps they were even fairly good marks.
If I had set myself the goal of being a top student, and then worked to accomplish that goal, I probably would have succeeded at becoming one of the top 2-3 students in my year. I also could have skipped a year (4th form) if I had worked towards that goal in 3rd form. But I decided against it (also, my father advised against it, suggesting that it would be "bad for my social life" to skip a year). I was a genius, after all. And academically talented/gifted. That sort of thing was easy for me, and I had the work ethic for it.
My parents had just gotten divorced (or separated). And so that was a demotivating factor as well.
I moved house and moved town (I wanted to live with my father Paul, not my mother. My belief was that their marriage ended because she was unfaithful, and that he was the aggrieved party. And that he was a good, moral and decent Christian man. I also preferred my father to my mother, just in general. Unbeknownst to me, my father was man-ho. Which I actually think is kind of gross).
At the end of 4th form, and just before the start of 5th form, I moved from Taradale (Napier) where I lived with my mother (and her boyfriend Nico) to Paraparaumu where I then lived with my father, Matthew, Tomoe Takahashi and a rotating cast of foreign language students (please note: I did not know that there was any kind of inappropriate relationship between my father and Tomoe Takahashi at that point, I found about about it later, after moving house).
I started at Paraparaumu college at th start of 5th form.
Just as an aside, we had streaming at that school. Streaming is where you get placed into classes based on ability and test results. They had three streams: extension, mainstream and alternative. They placed me into mainstream based off of a hurried test I took in February, just before the school year started (more about that elsewhere). Streaming only existed for science, math and English. It was a hurried test because the decision to move towns occurred at the last minute.
The class for mainstream mathematics was a zoo. The mainstream classes for Science and English were tolerable. But anyway, I put in the work and got good marks anyway. It was in 5th form that I started working properly at school to try to do well, and I succeeded. I got good marks and won awards at the end of year prize giving. Being in mainstream classes had a negative effect on both my academic performance and on my ability to make friends easily (or at least what I consider to be the right sort of friends).
Just because I don't know where else to mention this, I briefly joined the debate team in fifth form because Amanda was on the team and they needed someone to fill in. And I still loved both video games and reading.
I put in the work in 6th form as well. That is, I worked hard. And I got good marks. I was in extension mathematics that year. But due to a scheduling issue, I was placed into mainstream English again. I was top of physics that year.
And then I worked fairly hard in 7th form too. More about that now...
Let us talk about exams.
In seventh form I had ten exams in total. Each exam was three hours long. I had five ncea level three exams, and five scholarship exams. That is thirty hours of exams in total. But before we got to that, there were the mock exams.
Scholarship exams are worth cash money.
I studied hard for the mock exams. And then sat them. And I rested after that. And then a couple of months later, I studied for and then did my main set of exams (both level three and scholarship). It was pretty gruelling.
And that was high school and exams done and dusted!
**
I got good marks in my exams. Both the "internal" mock exams, which counted towards school level prizes and the award for dux. And the "external" exams, which go on the long term Government records. As for the scholarship exams, I won $500 for my statistics exam and $500 for my accounting exam. I came within just a few marks of passing the economics scholarship exam. If I had passed the economics scholarship exam, they would have paid me $2000 per year for three years. Or maybe it was $3000 per year. Either way, that would have been nice!
So anyway, I finished my ten exams (full disclosure, I skipped out on two hours of my calculus scholarship exam. It was too hard! I didn’t get a single question right in it. I did just fine in the other calculus exam though.
I was exhausted…
I had just done nine three hour exams, and one exam lasting an hour.
**
And now the next step is that I went off to Europe to visit my mother.
I got very sick on that trip to Europe. After that, my life became characterised by wave after wave of crippling fatigue. It became characterised by persistent chronic illness that consisted of fatigue, exhaustion, brain fog, digestive problems, an inability to exercise, and an inability to sleep, serious back problems, breathing problems, and many other symptoms and issues. I was always tired! I eventually was diagnosed with chronic fatigue syndrome. My life also became characterised by people disbelieving me when I said that I was chronically unwell. They acted like it was just psychosomatic, including and especially my mother and father, as well as my doctors. Even though they actually knew what was wrong.
And now I will go for a cup of tea. I will be right back.
Sally: sure, I’ll be waiting for you. See you in 15 minutes.
David: oh, one quick mention. I got sick a few times in my final year of high school. Just colds and flus and a stomach bug. Also, this possibly included glandular fever. I had to take a week off of school a couple of times. I suspect that one or more of these bouts of illness may have included cell towers and satellites, or some other type of foul play. One more tiny note: my brother actually cooked a long expired pie for me, in an attempt to make me sick. But that’s a story for another day. And there was a digestion thing that may have included foul play (drugs and/or cell towers or satellites, but we can discuss it elsewhere).
So I had a few minor bouts of illness in 7th form, but overall I was well. I was the "jump up to doorframe to do pull ups guy". I was fine.
David: and another thing
Amanda became a Christian. Which was a pretty big deal to me.
She and I started dating sometime later.
We got engaged.
Sally: you got engaged? While still in high school?
David: yes. I got engaged in high school. And then later got married.
I got engaged and then married young because I was religious (we were religious). It was unwise and I regret it. But it is something that I did.
Stories for another day: Matthew and the pie
Dad and Imodium and crabby old octopus lady.
Which was sad. And so I didn’t try as hard. I still had decent marks, and I still studied, I just didn’t work as hard as I could have. I knew I was a genius, I just didn’t put in a ton of work. I probably should have been of the top performers and best students in 3rd and 4th form, perhaps even skipping a year, but I just didn’t put in the work. I was still above average! I was okay, just not winning a bunch of prizes at prize giving or whatever.
I moved from Napier/Taradale to Paraparaumu. And then started studying at Paraparaumu college. This was in 5th form. At that point I knuckled down to work harder.
And so I worked harder. And my grades improved and I started winning awards again at prize giving (I didn’t win any awards at 4th for prize giving! Only the most humorous speech award). I studied even harder the following year (6th form), and then a bit harder in the year after that (7th form).
Just a quick aside, I had been put in mainstream classes in fifth form. This was due to a testing mixup!!!! I decided only in February of 2004 to switch schools, to move in with my father. And then I had to take the previous year’s tests without a chance to revise, and without sufficient time. And so I did badly in those tests.
In seventh form I had ten exams in total. Each was be three hours long. I had five ncea level three exams, and five scholarship exams. That is thirty hours of exams in total. But before that was the mock exams.
I studied hard for the mock exams. And rested after that. And then a couple of months later, I studied for and then did my main set of exams (both level three and scholarship). It was pretty gruelling.
A few more things...
So anyway, I finished my ten exams (full disclosure, I skipped out on two hours of my calculus scholarship exam. It was too hard! I didn’t get a single question right in it. I did just fine in the other calculus exam though. In my scholarship exams, I won a $500 scholarship in each of statistics and accounting. But missed out by just a couple of marks in the economics exam).
I was exhausted…
I had just done nine three out exams, and one exam lasting an hour.
And now the next step is that I went off to Europe to visit my mother.
I got very sick on that trip to Europe. After that, my life became characterised by wave after wave of crippling fatigue. After that trip my life was characterised by persistent chronic illness that consisted of fatigue, exhaustion, brain fog, digestive problems, an inability to exercise, and inability to sleep, serious back problems, breathing problems and many other symptoms and issues. I was always tired! I eventually was diagnosed with chronic fatigue syndrome. My life also became characterised by people disbelieving me when I said that I was chronically unwell. They acted like it was just psychosomatic, including and especially my mother and father, and doctors. Even though they actually knew what was wrong.
And now I will go for a cup of tea. I will be right back.
Sally: sure, I’ll be waiting for you. See you in 15 minutes.
David: oh, one quick mention. I got sick a few times in my final year of high school. Just colds and flus and a stomach bug. Also, possibly included glandular fever. I had to take a week off of school a couple of times. I suspect that one or more of these bouts of illness may have included cell towers and satellites, or some other type of foul play.
Notes:
Note 1: there was a situation involving stool hardeners, a stomach bug and perhaps some sort of satellite or cell tower related interference/harm.
Note 2: I sold Coca Cola for $1 a can, and usually bought it for between 53 and 60 cents a can. I had to account for some stock losses due to explosion of cans in the fridge. It was a decent money earner, but no better than a part time job. But it was fun.
One more tiny note: my brother actually cooked a long expired pie for me, in an attempt to make me sick. But that’s a story for another day.
*****
*****
David re-enters the chat/call after fetching/having a cup of tea.
Sally: You’re back!
David: Yes, we were going to talk about my trip, weren’t we?
Sally: Yes, the Europe trip. Where you got sick?
David: Okay, first of all, it wasn’t just Europe. It was the USA as well. So instead, let us just call it, “I went on a long trip overseas shortly after finishing high school. I got sick while I was overseas and I was never well again.”
That is our next topic of conversation. Let’s talk about it.
Ben Boland used to sell Coca Cola out of his backpack. I copied his business idea, selling coke out of my backpack too. But I think I shifted more merchandise than him. I sold a lot of coke, and at a price point of 1nzd a can, even though margins weren’t great. It was briefly a competition thing, but then he rapidly didn’t seem to care. I just enjoyed it. The money was fine, but it was actually just really fun. Because people wanted to see you. I might sell up to 50 cans a day, for 47-23 cents margin on each can (depending on prices at the store). I miss those days. So might be making $80 profit in a week? I can’t actually recall. We got shut down anyway. It was a “black market good” after all. Healthy eating being a thing, you weren’t allowed to sell coke.
https://www.instagram.com/reel/DUfSgW4Ei6P/?igsh=ZmwyOGl1NHJjaGZ0
My relationship with my father:
https://www.instagram.com/p/DV4agadk3Ok/?igsh=MWRqb3c3M3ExMDk3Zw==
****
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Life story part two
Europe trip
David re-enters the chat/call after fetching/having a cup of tea.
Sally: You’re back!
David: Yes, we were going to talk about my trip, weren’t we?
Sally: Yes, the Europe trip. Where you got sick?
David: Okay first of all, it was both America and Europe. So instead, let us just call it, “I went on a long trip overseas shortly after finishing high school. I got sick while I was overseas and I was never well again.”
That is our next topic of conversation. Let’s talk about it.
Sally: Okay, let us get started. When was it?
David: I was overseas for about seven weeks. I spent one week in America and six weeks in Europe. When I left New Zealand it was 2006 and when I got back it was 2007, so I spent Christmas overseas. I visited California, France, Germany, Austria, Italy and Spain. Matthew and I went on the trip together.
I will now explain why and how I ended up getting tickets to travel to both the USA and Europe. I will also talk a little bit more about the itinerary. And then I will get to the details of when and how became so sick, and how the various people in my life responded to it. I will tell you about the trip in general.
Here goes. It’s a fairly long story.
First of all, how did Matthew and I end up with tickets to go overseas to Europe and America? The answer to that is that my mother’s partner’s (Arnold) work paid for the tickets. He was working for an electrical engineering company in France at the time. The company used to pay for tickets every year to help them stay in touch with family. Sometimes my mother and Arnold used the tickets to fly to New Zealand to visit family, sometimes they used the tickets to fly other people in to visit them in Europe. This was so that they could maintain their relationships with and connections to family back in New Zealand. It was a part of the compensation package and one of Mum and Arnold’s conditions of his taking the job.
So anyway, I finished with my exams, and a few days later I hopped on a plane to go to California. My brother Matthew was with me. We flew from Wellington-Auckland-LAX-San Francisco. Our Aunty Wendy and her husband Uncle Chris were there to pick us up, and drove us to their two bedroom apartment in Los Altos (Los Altos is a Silicon Valley “bedroom community” sandwiched just between Palo Alto, Cupertino and Sunnyvale. It is veryclose to Stanford University and it is also the birthplace of the Apple 1 computer). They lived there with their two sons Andrew and Ben (my cousins).
I arrived at my Aunty Wendy’s apartment in Los Altos, California. This was after a fairly long journey in which I had three separate flights, a long lay over, and a bit of driving to get to-and-from the airport at each end. When I arrived at my Aunty’s apartment, I was thoroughly exhausted. But all the same, it was nice to see everyone again. I really liked my Aunty Wendy and my cousins Andrew and Ben. They were important to me! I also liked my Uncle Chris, although we weren’t enormously close (this was probably because he wasn’t a Christian, but I digress).
Sally: So how was your visit to see your family in California? What did you do while you were there? Also, you tell me more about your Aunty Wendy, Uncle Chris and your cousins Andrew and Ben?
David: Yes, I would be happy to tell you about my visit to California and what I did there. And of course I can tell you more about my extended family, but I might do that a little bit later on (in the notes section).
David: We had already done the tourist thing in California before, so we were just there to spend time with family. Uhhh. What did we do? We just spent time with them. Hanging out. Doing nothing much. We played video games, watched movies, went to get food at restaurants once or twice, we visited the San Francisco waterfront once. We ran errands. We went grocery shopping and clothes shopping with them (I needed some new clothes). We visited the Microsoft gift store to buy a t-shirt or something? I can’t recall everything we did, but that is the sort of stuff we did. It was just time with family. Ben and I both played Natural Selection and Day of Defeat. I let him have my steam account because he wanted to have a copy of half-life two to play on his own PC, and I didn’t play half life two based games, only half life one. His Dad had HL2 and CS:Source, but Ben didn’t have it on his own computer. I think he was really into Day of Defeat: Source at the time. So that’s what we did.
I played a lot of NS1 while I was there. I enjoyed having a low ping.
Mostly we just socialised with one another. Just as an aside, Aunty Wendy and the others were kind of surprised that I got engaged so young. But she shouldn’t have been too surprised. We were Christians? It sometimes happens that people/Christians decide to get married young. She wasn’t 100% supportive, but she was actually nice about it. She didn’t seem that bothered. I suppose that it is somewhat unusual for people to get married or engaged that young, so I suppose it is surprising for her. And she gave me some earrings to give to Amanda. They were actually really nice earrings.
(On a prior visit to California we visited Disneyland, Six Flags, Universal Studios and a place called “Great America”. We also travelled by road between San Francisco and LA and back again. We visited Hearst Castle and a few road side attractions and stuff like that).
My energy levels were bad though. I was exhausted. At first I thought I was just tired from the flight. And then I thought it was jet lag. But then I was still exhausted. I was just being hit with what felt like wave after wave of exhaustion. And no amount of sleep could seem to fix it. Not that I could get enough sleep while I was there, because all four of us boys were staying in the same bedroom.
I just couldn’t get enough sleep. I was tired. No matter how much sleep I got in life from then on, I was always tired. Fatigue became a part of my life from then on. It was the beginning of my “mystery illness”. I also felt groggy and I also started getting the first significant inklings of what you could call brain fog (iirc).
Exercise. I tried to exercise but I ended up feeling pretty bad. It gave me post exertion malaise. I just felt grotty and horrible afterwards. Exercise wasn’t working quite right. I also felt a bit constrained and tight through the neck, shoulders, and chest and upper back at the time. But I didn’t think much of it (I didn’t know about the cell towers, satellites and other em spectrum weapons at the time). What sort of exercise did I do? I did some pushups, sit-ups and Swiss ball stuff. My Uncle had some exercise equipment, and I used that. I also did some cardio. They had equipment at the apartment complex.
What else?
Oh, the source of these symptoms was my Aunty Wendy. She used electronic weapons on me. Which is very nasty. I didn’t even know that these weapons existed. I thought that it was jet lag, but wasn’t jet lag. It was my Aunty Wendy.
It was my aunty Wendy! It was a family member that I liked!!
She was using electromagnetic radio wave weapons on my body, mind and nervous system. She was harming me on purpose. In hindsight it is horrifying. It is horrifying to me that someone would harm a member of their own family like that! Just like it would be horrifying to attack and beat a member of your family black and blue! But I did not know at the time that such weapons or social customs existed, let alone that she was using them on me.
****
****
Anyway, I was still feeling bad and a bit unwell at the end of the week that I was there. That week was the first week of my long term “mystery illness”. I did get quite a bit worse in Europe though. It was in France that it first hit me hard. It hit me properly in France. Hard like a ton of bricks. It was kind of just the first taste of it in San Francisco, intermingled with jet lag and ordinary tiredness. Back to the story. I flew to Europe. Matthew stayed behind in California for a few more weeks. I flew from San Francisco Airport to Frankfurt Airport to Paris Airport. I met my mother at the airport, after waiting for perhaps half an hour. And then it was a car ride for 45 minutes north to a little village in Normandy called Douains, which is just 10 minutes drive away from the nearest town, Pacy-sur-Eure.
****
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And so I arrived at the house my mother was renting in Douains. I was exhausted. I had already been feeling exhausted when I was in the USA. And I was feeling even more exhausted in France. I had wondered at the time if it was jet lag or something more. I had been feeling very tired for a while.
I put my suitcase in the lounge (also known as my bedroom). Unpacked a bit. I don’t have enough warm clothes at the time. My bed was a futon couch. And I set myself the task of getting enough rest and sleep. I was exhausted, and I had a lot of sleep to catch up on.
We looked around a bit, and visited places like the local town Pacy-sur-Eure. It was nice looking around but I was exhausted. I felt a kind of strong fatigue or exhaustion that kind of settled its way into my body and mind. I didn’t know it at the time, but my mother was doing it to me. It hit me hard. [for the audience at home I have to repeat that that, “It hit me hard”
Sally: You weren’t aware of the existence of the cell towers and satellites at the time? Or the fact that people could use them to hurt you?
David: No, I was not. I was ignorant of the existence of this technology. I did not become aware of the cell tower and satellite technology until 2024. In late 2023 I started to find out about a variety of techniques and technologies, but I still at the time thought that they were built into the houses I was staying. Back in 2007 I didn’t know about this technology.
Sally: So that must mean that you had no idea why you suddenly started experiencing symptoms?
David: Yes, I didn’t know why I had started experiencing symptoms.
In hindsight, I think that my mother has decided to take me out. Part of it had to do with getting engaged. We had a brief conversation about my getting engaged, and religion. Her point was that I could possibly just live with Amanda. She at the time was still pretending to be a Christian. She and I were supposed to share similar values such as love, peaceableness, patience, compassion, truthfulness, integrity, no adultery, no living with a partner before or outside of marriage. She was currently living with Arnold, and was engaged to get married to him at some point. Long story short, Mum wasn’t happy about me getting married. But she actually didn’t engage in proper conversations about it.
Sally: Tell me more about the symptom. What were they like?
David: at this point, they involved fatigue, and seem to have involved muscle tightening. And so I was exhausted, my muscles were contracted, and I had a tight neck and back. I didn’t realise at the time that they were doing the thing where they tighten up my muscles. Like my chest, neck, shoulders and back were tightened up. The tightening up made me feel grotty and bad, but for some reason I didn’t cotton on to what “it” was. I didn’t realise it was remote control. I just felt a kind of general “badness”. This actually happened a long time ago. So I don’t quite know how to talk about it properly, nor do I remember properly.
So I had symptoms. You can actually see these in the pictures of me. I was pale and sick. I was as a dog. I was exhausted and felt horrible. You can see these in photos taken of me at the time.
I complained to my mother that I was unwell, but she didn’t seem to take it that seriously. And then set to planning out a trip around Europe. She was booking various places to stay and to visit. She was booking them over the phone. We were to travel around and see parts of France, Germany, Austria, Italy (especially Venice), Spain (especially Barcelona).
**
Okay, so let us set the scene: I was in France, I was unwell, I was exhausted, I had a variety of symptoms, I was engaged to be married, my mother wasn’t happy about it and wanted me to not be engaged, but failed to communicate effectively. We were then set to travel around Europe to see the sights.
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David: Hi Sally, If you don’t mind, I will just insert a summary into the mix:
Summary
They made me very unwell in Europe. I was never well again. That’s cutting a long story short. Who is they? I think that it was all my mother while I was in Europe.
That period of time in Europe was the worst period of time in my life up until then. It was awful.
I spent time in France, Germany, Austria, Italy and Spain.
In other words, my own mother ruined my health and I was never the same again. I was never fit, strong and healthy again.
I had been fit, strong and healthy in my final year of high school.
They did it with electromagnetic cell tower weapons on me. They did harm me. And also she worked to wear me out, by getting me to run about and march all about Europe.
I felt very unwell, and I wasn’t happy. I was very, very unwell. And felt horrible.
****
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And then we started travelling around Europe.
Visited sights in France, visited sights in Germany, visited sights in Austria.
Felt tired seeing stuff in France
Felt exhausted and horrible!
Ditto in Germany, Austria, Spain, Italy. Horrible! Horrible the whole time!
I told my mother again and again and again. That I just wanted to go home!! But it was like talking to a brick wall! I was sick and I was just getting stonewalled.
We didn’t ever get to sleep in. Every time we stayed somewhere, we had to get up early to go places. So I didn’t get sleep. Ummm. I was being harmed.
I felt horrible. I was sick.
I pleaded with my mother again and again to send me home. Or to slow down the trip so that I could rest. We hardly spent more than two days in the same place.
[[[This document isn’t even a draft!!]]]
It just the barest notes before the draft!!
The Chinese/kiwi partnership hurts me so much more when I even dare to write atuff from my story down.
And also I have notes on paper. And diaries from the past. But they don’t let me write. I actually have diaries from Europe. But they won’t let me have time or space to write.
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Really, really low quality random stuff incoming. Unfinished
I was exhausted!! I felt wave after wave of exhaustion. And I don’t know it at the time. But my mother was the cause.
There is no way to understand this!!!!!
My mother was blasting me with zap cannons. Ahhhhhhhh. Fatigue, constipation, Brian got, bad sleeps horrible! Horrible! But I didn’t know that these weapons. Existed!!! Horrible! And I felt unwell. I could feel very well that something was wrong but I didn’t know what it was!!! I had no knowledge of these weapons at all!!!
What did we do?
Itinerary, visitors, food. Visit places. Matthew still in the USA.
A lot of the reasons for blasting me was to cover it all up! They had been interfering in my childhood years! Since childhood. Trying to short change me. Genius, but undermined me in many, many ways.
They had motive. Because they had hurt me by undermining me, but I didn’t know. And they were worried about revenge, and “lava”.
I haven’t even been written this up.
It’s not even an article. I’m unwell at the moment. And my back hurts. It isn’t even a draft.
**
They made me unwell there. It was my mother. She did tons of damage to me with zap cannons and celltowers and stuff. It sucks. It is horrible.
[[[ healthy in 2006 - sick as a dog in Europe - never healthy again. Never in the habit of exercise. Never fit again. Strength was lost fairly quickly. Never came back. ]]]
I had posted this stuff just in case I can’t post it properly later. Just so people have a copy stashed away. It’s just basically notes at the moment. The part one is a draft, the part two is notes. It isn’t ready.
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