As I previously touched upon, my teenage years had their fair share of tumult and heartache. A lot of the issues even predated my teens. I was born with what is now commonly referred to as a non verbal learning disability. I also had a speech impediment. As a result, I spent a number of years in the special education system. The combination of being in Special Ed and talking funny resulted in an endless barrage of being called “Elmer Fudd”, “retard” and numerous cracks about riding on the short bus.

Eventually, I was able to go back to the so called “normal” school system and I did get decent grades. Through speech therapy my speech impediment became less evident (even though a number of people mistook the impediment for an accent).

 In elementary school I g...

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