Hi, I'm Christian, and I have Sensory Processing Disorder

I'm Christian and I'm 23 years old. I currently live in Boston, Massachusetts.

This is my story.

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Born in Providence, Rhode Island with a difficult birth. Some complications (toxemia, placental previa) arose and my parents were told I might suffer from some neurological difficulty.

I didn't cry.

Close in on my own little world where noises, sounds, voices, music, people, faces, places, scenery, faded in front of my eyes. I failed to understand any of it for I was so overwhelmed trying to process things at my own pace.

Once I started to understand what friends were and that I should try playing with them, my difficulty handling loud environments like schools and shopping centers... had forced me aside. I had unintentionnally isolated myself from social gatherings and this persisted until this day in adulhood. I'm just too slow at reading body language that I'm so behind to the point where I only understand what is going on until minutes if not several after the person has stopped speaking...

I'm slow to execute but one thing that I always had a grasp on was technology. It felt so natural. The keyboard allows me to type at my own pace.

And so it began.

Put a Peanut butter and Jelly sandwich in the VHS player at 3 years old in 1996
Took apart the desktop PC when I was 6 in 1999, and put it back together
Started learning HTML when i was 8
Got a soldering iron and a set of tools when I was 11, and started soldering mods for my everyday electronics
At 12, I said goodbye to Windows XP and installed Linux. My first distribution was Fedora Core
At 3 Moved to France
At 14, I started learning GNU Bash, and got quite good at Linux, so I moved on to OS X, and then to SUSE, because I really wanted to learn about all the UNIXes in general.
At 15, started offering PC repairs in my small village of Poussan, France
From 16 - 21, I stayed up most nights until 4-5 AM on IRC chats debating with developers on open source projects and mods which I was a part of... felt like I had finally made some friends
At 21, I moved back to the USA
At 22, started working at Staples part-time as a Resident Tech, doing computer repairs

Then I was offered a job.

A guy named Jason came in to the store that day and needed help finding a router. So as I usually do, I started explaining how the Linksys router would be better because he can load DD-WRT (a Linux based firmware) and his eyes lit up, he looked surprise I knew about what I was talking about. He said: You're really good at this! Are you into tech?

I told him my passion for technology.

He handed me and a business card and said call if I want an opportunity. I went in for an interview, did a test judging my knowledge of technical terms and a SQL script quiz, I got the job.

Worked as a Business Intelligence Administrator and Linux Administrator.

Big racks, IBMi on POWER8 systems... always-on systems. Really cool job innovating new ideas as a team, setting up git and helping everyone organize their work. I felt like I wasn't as strong as my teammates in BI but I contributed to the team in other ways and areas that I was passionate about. But of course I met with VPs and discussed sales and business details. I learned so much.

But then, it all crash down on me. Despite my difficulty in social skills and being in loud environments... I had been given a once in a lifetime opportunity... they even let me listen to music on my headphones and said I could install Arch Linux on my work laptop!

They made me feel at home, despite some initial misunderstandings and me explaining my condition, things were going well.

But my divorced mother got ill. She started talking smashing things in the house and it got scary. Her job was threatened because of her behavior... she was lying about going to work... we lost our house.

I had to move back to Massachusetts. I ended up homeless living in my car. It was the most difficult time of my life but I made it through. My fiancee Lashauna was with my living in our cars. Because she came to Massachusetts with me...

Since then we finally found a place and got in. She's working now and so am I.

Things are rough between us. I think she blames me for the troubling times. But I don't blame her, I'm happy we're still alive and well.

But medical issues among other tiring times have put me back to square one. $5 in my bank account. Scraping by and it's hot. I can't afford an AC. Sometimes I don't eat.

This is my letter in a bottle. Is anybody out there? Can anyone hear me?

My name is Christian and I have Sensory Processing Disorder.