My name is Jarrett Michael Francois 

I come from what could be the most middle class of middle class.

I am an only child.
 
My two parents live nearby and have an incredibly strange relationship with each other.

While our relationship has had its struggles, 
I love them dearly and I would not be anything close to the man I am today without their sacrifices and hard work.

And their own unique fuckery…

Even though I am an only child, I grew up in a neighborhood with many other boys my age who I once considered my brothers.

We lived Within a mile or 2 from the local elementary, middle, and high schools and within a few pockets of woods 
Just big enough to hide in.

I spent the majority of my childhood in the woods, behind the shopping center with a skateboard, at a friend’s house, or in my bedroom doing something suspicious.

I’ll get into it more later but I’ve battled with severe ADHD and depression my entire life (and a super genius IQ but nobody wanna care about that).

Addiction has infected both branches of my family tree and was coming hot for yours truly.

And to keep it real further-
I experienced sexual trauma at the ages of five and seven (that I remember)
& I never told anybody until I was 28 

I was a sneaky slithery kid but never bad, mad, or overly glad. 
Just mostly confused why everyone didn’t seem to care about caring.

I never had an issue with God or the idea of God, but I certainly was not going to be religious type.

I had many friends like I mentioned but 
I spent most of my time with a friend who was a year older than me who was “a bad influence” 
He taught me the ways of the dark side at a young age - more on this later 

But To illustrate a bit,
In fifth grade, one of our favorite things to do was to “inconvenience” the construction workers destroying the woods nearby to build the new neighborhood 
Ya know, by Throwing dirt balls at their tractors and such

After we failed to protect the woods,
The new neighborhood became our airsoft battleground.
Many battles were fought over the next three years.

Speaking of which I had one of the most bad ass airsoft arsenals you would ever find by seventh grade but I digress 

When not running the streets,
I played all the best video games or at least the ones worth playing, 
My favorites were RuneScape and the Elder scrolls series.

I would go on to become an absolute savage at call of duty for a very short career when I was fresh out of rehab, but I digress again

My mom was the strict “by the book enforcer “
The bread winner , the workaholic, the fixer
The borderline narcissist who would save my life then my lifestyle
 (loving and gaslighting me along the way)

My dad was the creative, artistic, engineering type who was silently suffering behind the weight of his own ego and mental health,
effectively sidelining him throughout my entire life. 
Truthfully, it’s taken work to have a “neutral” relationship.

But I have zero resentment towards my parents and I’m incredibly grateful for everything they’ve ever done for me.
They overcame so much themselves, a lot of it before I was ever born, 
and so much so that I brought on them after they brought me into this world.

However, I owe the world the truth, and to pretend that things were anything close to perfect (on the inside) would be terribly misleading.

I met all my neighborhood bros at elementary school. And as was tradition, we were slated to go to the local middle school. But alas, this is where my life took its first “wtf” turn

After a Wednesday night call with a classmates nervous mom,
I was switched to a private Christian school starting sixth grade
 where I only knew the one person (who had the nervy mom)
& Nothing against him, but he was super awkward. all the time

Full disclosure -i was a band geek. incredibly skilled with the clarinet, even though I “didn’t enjoy it”
I wanted to play the guitar but couldn’t afford the extra attention for long.
I had found The skateboard & required too much 

Getting back to the plot-
I was 12 when my mental health really began to tank
Or atleast when it became clear some shit wasn’t “normal “
This was due to a bunch of reasons which I’m sure I’ll cover in time 

I’m sure the hormones and a Christian middle school did not make it easier.
But neither did the pop tarts and Diet Coke diet. 

Like I said, people didn’t really care about caring about health. Just appearances and conveniences…

I remember having very dark thoughts even in seventh grade.
But Thank God for RuneScape so I could
E-scape

And I believe that is where I first fell in love with the idea of training.
And yes, my dude was like level 120 or something
(I would later sell this account to a friend for clean urine to pass a drug test at 15 years old)

Seventh grade was also my transition to the medium cool kids lunch table.
Not the most popular table, but the second most popular table.

But only when there was an available seat.

Each table was only allowed to have eight people, Even though it could squeeze in one or two more.
There were always six or seven consistent cool kids who basically had reserved seats .

I and a couple other kids were essentially the alternate cool kids.
So it was first come first sit.
And I often was not first.

So I’d sit at the table that I sat that most of the year prior.
With the booger eater , the dandruff dude, and some guy that was like a human velociraptor.
This was also the year I tried to grow my hair out for the first time which naturally took all effing year.

By eighth grade, I had improved my status marginally and my transformation to be becoming The skateboard rebel was nearly complete. 

Eighth grade was a little easier because my hair was longer and I was funnier. 

I had also met nearly everybody worth meeting and was probably the most average from a popularity status perspective.

Ironically, 
Most of eighth grade was spent outside of the nearby elementary school school on my board with my bros from the local high school.

During this time, 
I became friends with more neighborhood kids from neighborhoods that were slightly further away. 

These kids were a little older than me,
A little cooler than me,
And went to independence high school.

The most badass high school in the country 
(Literally didn’t lose a football game for nearly 10 years at one point - look it up)

Needless to say, I was hell-bent on transferring out of that Christian prison to the school of independence. 

During my this summer between my eighth and ninth grade years is when I became pretty close friends with these cats (and dogs)
and had experimented with the marijuana and alcohol for the first time.

Thanks to my “not a good influence” best friend.

Not his fault he just made it convenient.

My freshman year was not a smooth one.
I had gotten in trouble a bit outside of school for doing minor hood rat stuff.

Like sneaking out in the middle of the night 
And smashing garden gnomes. 

But near the end of the year was when I first got in trouble for the marijuana.

That Christian school suspended me for two weeks and did not make it easy to complete some of my classes without incident.

They suspended me due to a rumor that I had bought marijuana on campus.

Which I 100% had and was completely guilty of, 
but they had no proof so it was kind of lame.

Also, the punishment was objectively over the top.

I was not the only one caught up in this conspiracy.

I believe I was only one of seven or eight, 
And others received a more intense suspension or expulsion.

But this gave me the ammunition I needed to get the F out of there and get to independence.

That summer is when shit got crazy,
In the “only a white kid from the suburbs of Charlotte”, kind of way .

I had met even more neighborhood kids. 

These kids now occupied the homes that were recently built.
The same homes that me and the first group of neighborhood kids tried to stop.
 
So these neighborhood kids were kind of like the middle Ruffins.

They were a lot like me, but had less supervision and more access to pharmaceuticals and plant medicines. 
If you know what I mean 😉 

We spent all summer smoking that weed stuff,
Experimenting with every kind of 40 ounce, cigarette , and blunt wrap that the Indian dude from the store would sell us.
(Dot, not feather) 🪶 

I must admit that financed most of this by theft from family.

(Something that I was most ashamed of when I got it together at 17yr old
& gratefully was one of the first things that I made amends for)

But Alas, 
sophomore year had arrived and I was now free and an independence patriot.

The first day of class that year was the only day of that semester I was sober lol.

Now it’s not quite as crazy as it sounds 
Almost always it was just a light bit of weed stuff in the morning before math class

And even though it did not help my grades, it did help my happiness as my home was becoming an emotional trolling ground.

Now that winter, I began getting in trouble outside of school with local law-enforcement for extremely petty shit.

Literally just smoking weed in the woods or drinking four Locos in the streets.

(OK the last part sounds a little crazy)

But the heat was coming from some of my Dipshit friends who began car hopping.

There was no GPS safe in the mint Hill area in 2010 sadly.

Now I wasn’t necessarily a major part of the stealing, even though I was a part of the fencing.

During my sophomore year,
Independence was still its old ratchet self.
With fights every day,
Guns and drug bust all the time,
And just absolute debauchery in the bathrooms on a daily basis,

So it was easy for my pothead self to fly under the radar.

And after getting in trouble and disclosing my deteriorating mental health, I began Vyvanse.

(for those who don’t know, this is a stronger but less abusable form of Adderall)

Again, I was 15 and eating Cheez-Its for 1/3 of all of my calories .

So my second semester of my sophomore year, I made the honor roll lol 

No kidding.
I was still stoned as a box of rocks daily,
But them amphetamines know what they’re doing.

Now meanwhile, 
my whole life had begun to deteriorate further along with my parents relationship.

Which had always been kind of fucked and I knew it, but I don’t think they knew I knew it.

Anyhow, I was hell-bent on doing hood rat stuff with my friends and I was under the impression that I was too cool for school.

And my 360 flip and blunt rolling ability would confirm that.

I would begin my first job the summer between sophomore and junior year.

Get this - as a lifeguard

A ginger lifeguard 

In the south

Which is actually a lot easier of a job than people realize.

And most people realize it’s an easy as hell job.

You actually work about 20 minutes of the hour, and then go chill in the shade for the rest.
This made it conducive to smoking the weed stuff mid shift.

Now to clear up any confusion, I was not exactly smoking like a gentleman then
But I was smoking ya feel.

AnyWho, 
the pool company asked me politely not to return at the end of the summer lol…

this was in August 2010, only a couple weeks before my life would get absolutely DP’d.

Continued on yrs 16.3- 18.3

BACKGROUND 0-16YRS