My older brother used to cry with my mom about how he wishes he could be like the other kids. My mom told me that when he would go to his track meets, he would join the other kids circles and try to have conversations with them. She said they would all just give each other this look and move away from him, and that he would put his head down and be by himself. And he knows hes different. He and I used to fight when we were younger, and in high school, he started drinking. He threatened me and mom, he put two holes in moms bedroom wall and one in mine. But he was always quick to apologize and say that were his family and that he loves us. I used to be real big into politics, but now its all so tiresome. I remember a few years ago, I think I was in 10th grade, I was listening to some politics podcast in the car. And he was asking me about it, and about the Supreme Court. And I gave him this dumbed down (thats one of the words my family and family friends use, its not an offensive term) version of whatever it was. And I remember looking over and he looked sad, and saying “how do you know all this stuff” in a quiet voice.
Reading the first page, those first two progress reports, of this book, hurt my soul. My brother isnt special needs, he attended regular classes in high school, but even amongst the “dumb kids,” the teachers knew he had an asterisk next to his name, if that makes sense. Charlie writes a lot like he used to. He’s gotten better, but I remember him being so sad and angry about being born like this. Even the parts about Charlie’s “friends” teasing him and not really being his friends. That’s happened to my brother so many times with so many different people. I remember always asking him about a certain friend, and he’d tell me what happened between them. Every time, they just kept him around because they would get him to do funny shit that they wouldn’t do themselves and just used him for entertainment.
I’m sorry for the blogpost. But I just...I haven’t felt this way about him before. Literature is a great thing. I texted him earlier tonight. He’s going to a cookout with some people he knows from AA tomorrow. Mom kicked him out a year or two ago, and he went through different sober living homes and halfway houses. He wants to join the navy, but mom doesn’t have the heart to tell him that they won’t take him. He left his last job because the manager treated him like shit and kept putting him down.
if you were moved by Flowers for Algernon you're unironically a simpleton yourself, its shallow melodrama with no deeper meaning or message than "be nice to the mentally disabled".
Wyatt Lopez
>He reads books for life advice pleb
Joshua Harris
Keep looking out for him
Adrian Rogers
I was twelve ok
Jose Peterson
>And I remember looking over and he looked sad, and saying “how do you know all this stuff” in a quiet voice.
Not all dumb people have brothers that look out for them. My brother died when I was a kid and I still think about him all the time. I wish my brother was stupid rather than dead.
Isaac Harris
>subtext and depth =/= life advice cringe
Chase Perez
nah bruh this shit is real I used to get bullied in high school for being dumb as fuck. It started because I messed up on calculating a quadratic in class. People would, to my face, discuss what learning disability I had and I was either too stupid or too scared to defend myself - I just used to laugh "with" them. I spent five years of my education in an environment like that, with teachers who either ignored me or lowkey encouraged that treatment. By the time I was sixteen I was paying zero attention in class and getting the worst grades in the year. I remember one of the popular guys saying "I guess SOMEone's going to end up doing crack", to which the teacher overseeing the class laughed. I told my mum about it that day and she spent the evening crying. Then my dad was suddenly like "You weren't a stupid kid when you were young, what the hell happened? Do you even read anymore? When was the last time you read a book?" Long story short he bought me a shit ton of books and, through reading, I ended up with an uncomfortable degree of self-awareness. I realised that all of the friends I had were just there to laugh at me and make jokes over my failures. I was there to make them feel better, because no matter their flaws and failures, at least they weren't a retard like Stephen ha ha ha. Now, I don't actually have a learning disability. I managed to drag my way out of my intellectual doldrums through a great deal of self-study and I've long since surpassed all of the average joes that used to make fun of me in high school. But when I read Flowers for Algernon, I could sort of relate. Undergoing a rapid change in your intellectual capability is an intense experience and while Keyes wasn't able to capture it's depth, he got the bare essentials quite well - especially the way people treat you when you're stupid.
Benjamin Long
>I realised that all of the friends I had were just there to laugh at me and make jokes over my failures. I was there to make them feel better, because no matter their flaws and failures, at least they weren't a retard like Stephen ha ha ha.
>with no deeper meaning or message than "be nice to the mentally disabled". That's a message plenty of people need to hear.
Tyler Perry
Please, just be nice.
Blake Brooks
Man this goes hard, there's something about retards that goes under my skin everytime, especially these ones where the line is just to blurry between simpleton and retarded, if it's not real then that was a good read.
Cooper White
The banal can suddenly become a bullet inbetween your brows and it's entirely upon what you've had happen to you in life. You are barely a human being.
Alexander Diaz
OP here, it’s real. Immediately after posting it, I curl+F’d to see if I accidentally typed his name in, since I caught myself doing it as I wrote. I didn’t. It’s really kinda fragmented and I left some stuff out, but it’s real.
Another text from over the summer. J is one of my best friends since elementary school, we kinda grew up together so my brother knows who I’m talking about.
> And I remember looking over and he looked sad, and saying “how do you know all this stuff” in a quiet voice. user... > Every time, they just kept him around because they would get him to do funny shit that they wouldn’t do themselves and just used him for entertainment user, please...
> He wants to join the navy, but mom doesn’t have the heart to tell him that they won’t take him. He left his last job because the manager treated him like shit and kept putting him down. pic related
>Every time, they just kept him around because they would get him to do funny shit that they wouldn’t do themselves and just used him for entertainment. That's horrible.
Hudson James
Eyes misted up reading through this.
Asher Cooper
/thread
Luis Morales
Based nice poster
James Barnes
This thread made me check my phone for a text.
Connor Morales
Nah, fuck retards and retard sympathizers
Hudson Baker
this guy gets it.
Kayden Hernandez
Read Of Mice and Men, OP
Carter Mitchell
Did he ever get his IQ tested?
James Baker
This book taught me to be nice to you.
Gavin Butler
Lmao, hell on earth awaits you
Justin Smith
that's a useful message to some people, though it should be common sense. It can be hard to look past being annoyed and see them as people too, it's a trap I've fallen into from time to time.
Levi Mitchell
it awaits all of us
Dominic Brown
I'm very happy to hear that you put in the effort to grow and learn. The modern US school system segregates kids based on intelligence and leaves the "dumb" ones to rot while the "smart" ones get all of the attention. Keep it up.
