Brandon Stanton's Blog, page 88

“Sometimes my brain processes things difficult. I just need...

“Sometimes my brain processes things difficult.  I just need more time.  And in school everything needs to be fast.  You always have to know what’s going to happen next and it can be hard to make friends.  My dad was always my biggest supporter.  He’d come into my room at night and we would talk for hours.  He’d tell me: ‘Your stories will make you famous one day.’  He’d show my writing to friends and family and I would get compliments.  I didn’t know what to do after he died.  I stayed in my room for six years. I wrote thirty-one stories.  All I did was write.  I only came out to eat.  I wouldn’t speak to anyone.  Last year my sister convinced me to visit an art studio for people with special needs.  She asked me every single day, until one day she finally said: ‘I’m going to the studio and you’re coming with me.’  At first I stood in the corner.  After so many years of doing nothing, it was hard for me to see people having fun.  It was like a burning anger and then it came out in tears.  I decided to join the group.  The studio slowly opened me up to the world again.  I began to make friends.  I realized that so many things had happened while I was locked away.  And while some things die, other things are being created.  I understand now how beautiful that is.  And I’ve started talking again.  For the longest time my sister would beg me: ‘Please Asma, say something.’  Now she wishes I’d talk less.”
(Special Olympics World Games, Abu Dhabi, UAE

“My name is Ariel and I’m from Costa Rica and my dream is to be...

“My name is Ariel and I’m from Costa Rica and my dream is to be a journalist.  I have an Instagram page where I am going to put all my interviews.  This week I would like to cover the feelings of the athletes and parents and coaches.  I ask questions like: ‘Are you having fun?’  And ‘What is your favorite sport?’  And ‘Are you enjoying Abu Dhabi?’  My mom is helping me think of the questions to ask.  I don’t know what I would do without her.  She tells me to be patient and says that if someone is busy, we need to wait until they are finished before asking questions.  She reminds me to talk slowly.  And to say ‘yes sir’ and ‘no sir.’  And to love people.  And not to say bad words.  I want to thank her so much for all her help.  I would also like to thank my job at the IBM infrastructure department for letting me come here.  I would also like to thank my grandmother who has come to help us.  It hurts for her to walk but I feel confident when she is here.  Her job is to have fun.  I would like to thank her so much.  Thank you so much for this interview.”
(Special Olympics World Games, Abu Dhabi, UAE)

The opening ceremony for the Special Olympics World Games is...

The opening ceremony for the Special Olympics World Games is currently being held in Abu Dhabi, UAE.  For the next couple weeks, I’ll be sharing stories from a wide range of participants including athletes, coaches, and family members.  The main theme of Special Olympics is inclusion, and that’s what these stories are all about.  Having an intellectual disability can be isolating.  Society might not be understanding of your needs.  Classmates might be confused by your behavior.  In some places you might literally be hidden away.  Special Olympics is a refuge from all that.  It’s a place where you can play and compete and succeed without being made to feel your difference.
Thanks to the HONY Patreon community for funding this series. Thanks to Special Olympics for organizing everything and letting me hang around.  And thanks to all the athletes who shared their stories.  Hope you enjoy!

“I haven’t been able to work since my heart surgery. It’s been...

“I haven’t been able to work since my heart surgery.  It’s been several years since I lost my apartment.  Now I have memory problems.  I can remember things from my childhood, but lots of important things I’m forgetting.  I think I’m about sixty years old but I lost my social security card and ID.  When I have a thought in my brain, I forget it before it comes out of my mouth.  I sleep on the street.  I come here every day for warmth.  During the day I can’t go anywhere else because they don’t let me inside.  There’s a lot of provocation out there.  I can’t stand anywhere for long.  People call the police.  They don’t trust me.  They think I’m a terrorist.  I have to keep moving because my heart can’t handle the confrontation.  I get very weak.  My whole body trembles.  Sometimes I pass out.  People approach me from agencies but I don’t trust them.  I don’t trust anyone.  They want to get my benefits so they can steal them.  When your memory is bad, they steal your benefits.  I just need to get healthy so I can remember exactly what happened.”

“We’re just taking a trip to the city to celebrate our fifth...

“We’re just taking a trip to the city to celebrate our fifth anniversary.  We met in a college theater production.  It was a dark comedy about the Catholic Church set in the middle ages.  Our characters were engaged to be married, but then I thought she jumped off a bridge.  So I became a monk.  And she became a lady of the night.  Luckily we reunited when she tried to steal relics from my church by pretending to be a corpse.  We did have a kiss scene.  But she couldn’t kiss back because she was pretending to be dead.  The director envisioned an upside-down ‘Spider-Man’ kiss because that had just come out.  I leaned in over the top of her forehead.  It wasn’t much.  No tongue.  At least not on stage.”

“My mom had her own issues, so I was never really parented. I...

“My mom had her own issues, so I was never really parented.  I spent most of my time alone.  Cereal out of the box.  Packets of ketchup.  The occasional cold chicken finger that she’d bring back from a night of partying.  I left the house when I turned twelve and started staying with school friends every night.  By thirteen I was making my own money from acting gigs and extra work.  And by sixteen I was completely on my own.  I couldn’t balance school and work so I dropped out in the ninth grade.  I worked in record stores.  I started photographing bands and then moved into photography.  That’s what I’ve been doing the last twenty years.  Lots of commercial stuff.  Lots of happy family snappies in the park.  But these last few years I’ve moved into fine art photography. And the whole ‘art thing’ really requires me to put myself out there.  It’s personal.  So I’ve had to confront my past.  I’m sensitive about my lack of education.  I don’t have a degree or the sense of entitlement that comes along with it.  Sometimes it can feel like a closed door.  Like I don’t belong.  It can be difficult to self-advocate.  Or stay confident in the face of rejection.  Or own my space when I’m dealing with someone that is difficult.  Ironically my husband and I have a lot of friends who are authors, or professors, or film directors.  They’re all very educated.  I just never had the chance.  I had to zig and zag and do whatever I could to survive.  But I got here.  I’m attending my own art show this afternoon.  And you know what?  Talking through this stuff just made me realize that I’m proud of myself.”

“My entire childhood was geared toward college. My father...

“My entire childhood was geared toward college.  My father worked at IBM for thirty years, and he expected me to get a degree.  It was never toxic.  He didn’t push me toward a particular career.  He just always wanted me to work toward a goal.  I made good grades in high school.  I studied chemistry in college because that was my favorite subject.  I planned on being a teacher.  Freshman year went great.  But soon the classes got more specialized and difficult.  I tried working harder, but that didn’t seem to help.  I began to feel like a failure.  My behavior changed.  I started skipping classes.  I overslept my alarm.  Some days I wouldn’t even get out of bed to eat.  If I did get out of bed, it was usually just to play video games.  My grades began to drop.  But I remained in denial for the longest time.  I didn’t think I deserved to be depressed.  I had a great childhood.  A great family.  I did well in school.  But the denial caused the depression to snowball.  Because over and over again I’d ask myself why, and I could never pinpoint the answer, which made me even sadder.  My best friend suggested that I leave school and get a job.  He thought it would force me to get into a routine.  And he was right.  I started working at a silicone plant in Albany.  Some days I wanted to die, but it got me out of bed every day.  And that had always been the most difficult thing.  Soon I was going to the gym.  And hanging out with friends again.  It’s been six years since I left school.  I’m feeling pretty good.  I manage a liquor store now.  I work hard.  I make decent money.  Maybe going back to college is the next step, but I’m not in a hurry to find out.  Right now I’m fine with not progressing, because I feel content where I am.  If I’m stuck, it’s definitely not a bad stuck.”

“I’m on my fifth job in eleven years. It’s not that I don’t do...

“I’m on my fifth job in eleven years.  It’s not that I don’t do good work.  The layoffs have always been tied to company performance, or just being in the wrong position at the time.  But the instability has caused me to rethink my relationship to work.  My first job out of college, I lived and breathed work.  I managed a team.  I was always available.  I’d answer emails at midnight.  I took work calls on my wedding day.  And I never minded.  I felt like the magical cog that kept everything going, and that indispensability was a big part of my confidence.  So I took it pretty personally when I got laid off.  Dozens of people lost their job that day, but I still saw it as a personal failure.  After that I was forced to separate my identity from work.  I’m trying to measure myself on how I interact with friends and family.  Or how well I support my husband.  I’m not checking emails right before bed anymore.  Or right when I wake up.  I’m offline during the holidays.  Because I know the company will be perfectly fine without me.  And the work will always be there when I get back.”

“Venezuela always seemed safe to me. I grew up in one of the...

“Venezuela always seemed safe to me. I grew up in one of the valleys.  We lived in a gated community.  As a child I always felt secure.  We’d walk home from school.  We’d stay out late.  Nobody I knew had ever been robbed.  But when I was ten years old, my mother got kidnapped on the way home from the grocery store.  It was only for twenty-four hours.  The guy just wanted drugs.  But things seemed to change after that.  It didn’t feel safe anymore.  I was very lucky because I’m a swimmer.  I broke a national record when I was fourteen.  So it was easy for me to leave the country.  I just emailed my times to a bunch of coaches in the United States, and ended up getting a full scholarship to a school in California.  We were privileged.  So most of my friends were able to leave.  My dad and brother got out with tourist visas.  But my mother stayed behind.  She doesn’t speak English and wanted to remain with her friends.  We support her as best we can by sending money home.  She doesn’t tell me much.  She protects me from the specifics.  I just feel so helpless about the situation.  I try to avoid the news.  I stay off social media.  I’d rather not know if people from my childhood are eating out of trash bags.  Or if they’re dying because they can’t get medicine.  I can’t handle any more stress.  I already spend 75 percent of my day thinking about it.  Right now I’m on my way to swim.  It’s the only way I can escape the thoughts.”

“Me and my brother were both abused by the same person. I was...

“Me and my brother were both abused by the same person.  I was only five years old at the time.  It’s not something I can really tell people about.  I don’t want anyone looking down on me.  Or treating me differently.  I’m trying to be a professional boxer, it’s just not something I can tell people. But it weighs on me.  I want to bring it up and get it off my chest.  That way people might understand why I’m in a bad moment right now.  Or why I need to take some time off from school.  Or why some days I just feel like lying down and smoking weed.  But it’s just not something I can share.  I’m proud of myself for not giving up.  My brother became an agoraphobe.  He doesn’t like to leave the house.  He doesn’t have a job.  But that’s not going to happen to me.  I’m exercising every day.  I’m setting goals.  I’m going to get past this.”