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Real life story

Jordan_90
Jordan_90 Community member Posts: 83 Courageous

Here is my life story so far and I was wondering if you could help me find publishers and also feed back is welcome 

         My parents lived with my grandparents before they found out they were expecting me, when they found out they were expecting me they asked my nan to write them a letter to say that she was kicking them out so they could get a place of their own and expand their family. 

         I was born in a city called Bristol at St Michael's Hospital on a Monday 12th November 1990 at 6:57 Am. Unfortunately this was 11 weeks before my actual due date, due to complications at birth because of this I weighed just 3lbs 3oz and was placed in an incubator as soon as I was born. Bristol has memorable and uptown history. The harbour of the city's amplitude has many centuries behind it.The architecture of this city was listed in the Anglo-Saxon journal of 1051 as harbour affairs regularly with Ireland. Bristol was hugely critical in sea commerce for many years. Things like employment and industrial progression grew across the city so did the desire to evolve the limit and somewhat microscopic embarkment. This  city is located in the South West of England. 

        At the age of two, I was diagnosed with a medical condition called cerebral palsy diplegia.  This is a muscle weakness in the legs which causes your knees to turn inwards and your feet to turn outwards. There are many forms of this condition 

         On 28th December 1991, we welcomed my brother Jake into World and I remember us being quite close as a family, always going to the park together and waiting for both of us to be in the same room at Christmas time to open our presents together however this all changes on the 11th January 1995, we welcomed our sister Jessie into the world as she followed our brothers likes and interests and I was also starting pre-school the same year. The result of our sister following our brothers likes and interests meant that I was left in the company of the adults. 

    When I started primary school, I had a lot of friends and was a very happy person despite having to face many obstacles. I must say unfortunately this is where the Happy memories end. 

   We stayed at our grandparents house every weekend with our three cousins and I remember being left behind alot of the time feeling sorry for myself as they would all get new bikes and scooters for Christmas and go out and ride them together. 


  I was going swimming every Monday afternoon and beavers/Cubs on the evening. I was attending swimming sessions right up until the school closed in 2010. 

    As you can tell I used to lead quite a social life as I was part of beavers, Cubs, Scouts, brownies and guides as time went by I was given the news that I could no longer attend Cubs and brownies so I had to make a decision on which one I wanted to attend. This was disappointing to say the least but I decided to give up brownies. 

    When I was around the age of 6/7 I joined a drama group at filwood community centre as the group was run by a family friend and we did all sorts of shows here. We acted out scenes from Annie and I remember being one of the orphans. In another show I sang a song called reach by S Club 7 and I receiving a standing ovation from the audience. 

         In May 1999, my parents got married and I remember my sister being really awkward on this specific day in the fact that she would not wear her bridesmaid dress unless she could wear her football kit underneath. I and seven other people were bridesmaid on this day too. Was this where the awkwardness ends? I hear you ask. I wish I could say yes but unfortunately this is the case as we all went through the pain of a professional hairdresser pulling at our to put it into a French plait and my sister wouldn't have it done because it hurt so much and she wouldn't get in the family photo as she wouldn't leave my nans side

         I was part of a horse riding group for disabled people at Avon riding centre, here in November 2000,I had the privilege of meeting princess Anne although I don't remember exactly what she said to me, I do remember we put on a Robin Hood themed competition in which I came second and sixth sadly I don't remember what the competitions entailed. I remember how much I loved horse riding and the names of the horses I rode and these were Mr. Bean, Red and blue. This sadly came to an end for some reason and I am not sure why. 

       As I got older my disability got worse to the point where it was too painful for me to walk. I remember visiting the hospital so that the physiotherapist and surgeon could film me walking so they knew exactly what procedure they had to perform but whilst they were filming they were so concented on my feet that they didn't realise how much discomfort I was in until I broke down in tears! 

    In 2002  I started secondary school unfortunately I couldn't attend the same school as my family members due to accessibility so my siblings and cousins got a lift into school every day together with my mum and auntie and I had to take a taxi to school with complete strangers. I attended secondary school with three friends from primary school who all turned against me when they met new friends in secondary school. 

         In September 2002, 12 of us went to Las Palmas de Gran Canaria. It was a great holiday, one day I was in the swimming pool, they had a slope leading into the pool and I struggled to crawl up the slope to get of the pool, my cousin who was a baby at the time grabbed me by the ankles and pulled me back into the pool

      I remembered in year 8 during a sports day event, I took part in a race and my LSA was pushing me so fast that as we turned the corner I tipped onto two wheels and somehow we won! 

       In year 9 we took part in something called the Kielder challenge which is where people from different schools across the UK take part in a number of different challenges focused on team building skills and how well each member of team communicated with each other and we came second!! There was also an advertisement put in the evening post about us to show our achievement and what sort of challenges we took part in. 

      In 2005, I attended a youth centre and during my time here I met many awesome people although I was limited to what I could do there, the reason I continued to attend the youth centre was to get out of the house for a while and I thought that I had met a man I was going to spend the rest of my life with until he showed his true colours after I had got to know him properly as he became controlling to the point he tried to stop me attending my school prom.

    In 2007, I went to Annfield to watch Liverpool vs Birmingham football match. It was a disappointing result as it was a 0-0 draw, unfortunately I don't have any of this event in my life as the person I was dating at this moment in time was controlling and told me to delete all the photos of this day and convinced me they were rubbish quality. I wasn't strong enough to stand up for myself at the time! 

           In September 2007 we went to portaventura. It was a lovely holiday until me and my dad popped into my nans apartment which had steps to the door and my dad slipped over and I caught my side on the corner of the step which was damaged so it made the injury worse than what it should have been. 

        In 2008, I attended City of Bristol college, College Green and studied a two year course and achieved a  merit grade in BTEC National Certificate in Health and Social care. I met some awesome people during this course and they did everything they could to make sure I was included in the group. The best bit about this part of my life was the fact that I completed the entire course before the rest of the students because I was going home college and continuing with the course work we had to do and attending college on our 'study days' to hand in work I had done at home and get feedback from my tutors. During this course we had to take part in four different placements to complete an health and safety module and other parts of the assignments that included things we did whilst we were on placement. My four placements were st. Anne's Children's centre, Knowle Park Primary School, New Fosseway Special School and Banfield Lodge Care Home. 

 He got banned from the youth centre we both attended for being  physically harmful to me and because he wanted me to stop attending youth centre too. I stuck up for myself as I still wanted to attend, he bit me to the point where he drew blood!! 

        This horrific event happened right outside my home as my mum was unsure of what was happening, she thought he was kissing me. 

          He wouldn't let me go home and reveal what he was really like so we end up going to a nearby pub to clean all the blood off my face and he had told everyone that I had fallen out of my wheelchair!! After cleaning the blood from my face, we headed to my nans where he had the cheek to ask her to wash my coat as it was covered in blood and me nan didn't even ask what had happened. 

    In 2008, I should have been celebrating my 18th birthday but unfortunately I was in a controlling relationship at the time and I wasn't able to have any friends and even decorations around the house were critized. 

As you can imagine I was absolutely terrified to be in a relationship for a while but in 2011 I plucked up the courage to start a fresh so I'm met someone else and everything was going so well until he wouldn't talk to me one evening at youth club despite the fact that I asked him numerous times what was wrong. This year I celebrated my 21st birthday and I was actually able to have a party! The highlight of the evening was that everybody turned up and I had two alcoholic drinks, one in each hand at some point and on the way home I almost dropped my birthday cake which was made by my boyfriends mum at the time. 

        Later that evening I received a message from him saying that he no longer wanted to be with me. 

      I attended job centre appointments for many years in this time they sent me on a 6 month temporary contract at Remploy, this is a company that helps people with all kinds of limited mobility issues with improving their cv's, personal statements and search jobs. 

      One of my temporary contracts was based at one of Remploys factories in Bristol. During my time here I met some awesome people even though they were a lot older than me with the exception of one or two members of the team. My job title was a scanning bureau operative and my responsibilities here were prepare paperwork for scanning. This is done by removing staples, colouring in any barcodes with a black permanent marker and removing any creases to the best of our ability. 

When my contract ended I was extremely disappointed to say the least because I loved the atmosphere here, I had a right laugh with other team members and I actually felt like I belonged as part of the team 


       I participated in a number of different programs, the first one was at the salvation army and here I had assistance with job searching and the second one was at Phoenix Social Enterprise, whilst I was on placement here, we did alot of data entry type work on their in-house computer system and answering the phone. I also helped prepare for a raffle this was done by sticking prices on the prizes.

       They made it perfectly clear that they would not be hiring anyone after my placement duration had ended. This was a breaking point for me as I felt like no matter what I did to find a job it was never going to happen as every job interview I had turned me down as soon as I mentioned that I use a wheelchair! You may be thinking why did I have to mention this? Here is the reason I didn't want to deal with the awkwardness of turning up for the interview and they sayl "oh I'm so sorry but our workplace isn't suitable for you" however I did attend one interview where they wanted me to work on the front desk alone whilst everyone else was upstairs laughing and joking with each other. 

         In 2013, I met someone else, it wasn't the best relationship looking back even though I tried to help him the best I could we were always arguing but somehow we came through the other side to the point we were talking about moving in together. 

           In 2014, I lost my grandad and he was by my side through all the tears, frustration and he even encouraged me to go to the doctors as he suspected I had depression. 

   On March 1st 2015 I received the most unexpected shocking news of my life, we received a visit from the police with the news that my partner had passed away. He told me that he didn't have anything to do with his family and despite never meeting them I had no choice as given the circumstances I had to tell his family the devastating news!!! A few weeks later I found out that the cause of his death was pneumonia, when I found out this I blamed myself for his death as he had a cough for weeks and I kept pestering him to go to the doctors but he insisted he was fine. 

        Later that year, a short time after the tragedy I met someone else. This wasn't because I did not love my late partner but because I felt like if I didn't move forward as soon as I did I would have been stuck in some sort of rut and not be able to move forward in my life because of how long I would have been grieving over him, we had so much planned that we would like to have done together that this would have been all i thought about and I discovered that even though my first relationship was horrendous I didn't like being alone. 

         This sounds ridiculous I know but since I had started secondary school, my relationship with my parents hadn't been great. I was bullied all through secondary school and I didn't feel I could talk to them about it until I came home with evidence and if I didn't lend them money I would receive the silent treatment for days or sometimes weeks. This relationship lasted just over a year or maybe less as he said I was too 'clingy' despite the fact that we were making memories together such as day trips to long leat and watching Mamma Mia at the Bristol hippodrome.

             In 2016, I decided to give online dating another shot which was absolutely horrifying but I knew that it was the only choice I had if I wanted to find a long term relationship as I didn't have friends I could go exploring with instead I had the type of friends that would say they would keep in touch but never did anyway let's get back on topic, I met my soulmate, Sam. Finally! We met in the centre of Bristol for the first time and he was very timid but we got along like a house on fire and from this day we have grown stronger not only as a couple but as individuals too. I'm not saying it has been all sunshine and roses because I can certainly assure you that it hasn't been that way at all and we have had our wobbles to say the least but we talk through them and come out the other side even stronger! 

          In July 2017 we went on a day trip to London as my boyfriends family and their family friend had tickets to go on a big slide called Arcelor Mittol orbit. A friend dragged me onto the balcony type thing at the top of the slide when I wasn't expecting it, it was very high and the flooring had holes all over it and you could see right through. I was terrified for some reason and for someone that is supposedly afraid of heights she stood there for quite a while chatting to someone we had bumped into and I was sat there, gripping my arm pads tight thinking to myself I want to go back down with everyone else now! Other than that it was an awesome day with awesome people and the weather was beautiful which was a bonus! 

         At Christmas time 2017, my beautiful man only went and bought me tickets to go and watch John Bishop at the Bristol hippodrome in March 2018. I was absolutely exstatic to receive this gift as he is one of my favourite comedians!! From the day I received the gift right up until the day we were scheduled to see him I did not stop talking about him, how excited I was and how much I was looking forward to seeing him. You know when you watch a comedian on the TV and you quietly chuckle to yourself but the audience watching him live laugh hysterically? I thought that I was going to be like the audience watching him on the TV but my I was so wrong, I actually laughed the whole way through! It was one of the best evenings of my life but I was extremely disappointed that he didn't do "meet and greet!" 

       In January 2018, I witnessed my uncle take his last breath, although when I reached the hospital they were literally just waiting for his heart to stop the main thing is I was able to say goodbye and hold his hand, as soon as they gave the news that its over, his heart had stopped I started crying uncontrollably. 

       On the 9th February 2018 he decided to pop the question! Not only that, he did it at one of my favourite places, the aquarium!! I am now guessing that you are asking yourself, I wonder how he proposed? Well let me put you out of your misery and fill you in on exactly how it happened, he asked me to close my eyes for him to put the ring on my finger only to open my eyes and find he had put it on the wrong hand, as I swapped the ring to the correct hand I ended up dropping it and we ended up searching for the ring in the dark. 

      Since we have met we have made so many memories from birthday parties to random family catch ups day trips and here we are four years later. Engaged, living together and annoying each other to each others wits end. 

     

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