I am Benjamin M. Greer. I am only in my early 30’s, but I have seen enough in my life at this time to fill the lives of several individuals. By age 5 I already knew what it was like to be poor, living in your car, and not knowing where your next meal is coming from.
Before I finished high school I had attended around 16 different schools and moved over 20 times. I lived with my mother, other relative, with strangers, and in foster homes. At age 16 I had to have the State of Washington step in and take guardianship of me and allow me to return to live with my Aunt Lorrie and Uncle Dennis Baunach, so I could find stability and have a future.
The first time I can remember working for money was when I was 7 years old and picking strawberries for $2.50 a flat. You would have to get to the fields early in the morning before the sun would get to hot. I believe my first time I was able to complete two flats before it was time to go. Since then I have held over 30 jobs in a wide range of industries from farm work to high tech. I have a very unique understanding of hard physical labor and intense intellectual problem solving.
I am soon going to be 32. I have a son named Benjamin that is going to be 3 next month. My wife and I have been married now for about 3 and a half years and together for about 6 and half years. We are about to have our second child. This time it is going to be a girl and we have picked the name Summer since she will be due in July.
In late 2005 I had a wake up call that showed me that it is imperative that I focus on the correction of my mental and physical health. The many years of early child trauma, untreated depression, and Attention Deficit Disorder came to an impassable wall. No going over it, under it, around it, or avoiding it. The only option was to confront it and move through it. With the loving support of my wife, proper medication, individual and group therapy, meditation, and a strong desire for piece and wholeness I have developed a strong sense of balance and discovery of gifts that I always saw as disabilities.
I guarantee that those who know me and those who spend the time to be apart of who I am will tell you of my honesty, my conviction, and my love. I would give you the shirt off my back if you needed it more. I would share the last piece of food if you had none. I am a protector and fighter for people who are close to me, and things that I believe in and care about.
I have the ability to be disciplined and patient for those things that matter most. My out look on life is from a positive perspective even though I have seen lots of challenge and tragedy. I have the ability to bring light to darkness and happiness to sadness. My wise words are not just some empty quotation, but a foundation of life experience in it realest.
I am a husband, father, uncle, brother, friend, and spiritual being. I am not who I once was…
But now a true integration of whom I have always been…
Over the years I have met many people who have made an amazing impact on my life. Their influence maintains a strong roll in the successes I continue achieve. Being a great father; loving husband; and an all around community conscious person is not easy when it comes to finding a balance in life. These are not elements that just fall out of the sky. They all take life long work and solid foundations to succeed. It is by the goodness of my friends, family, and many generous strangers that I have risen above life’s challenge through a piece of each of their lives as they have shared it with me.
I grew up in a world where children learn fast that being a child is not an option. In this world you may not know where your next meal is coming from or where you are going to put your head down to rest at night. It was in a continually changing environment with no real place to call home. All alone I had to fight for my right to live. Even life at its minimum would be more than that I had at various points of the most important mental and physical developmental years of my life.
Fortunately for me I was given a gift. A random gift of nature constructed from a combination of biological, biochemical, and environmental factors. The medical field classifies it as ADHD/ADD (Attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder / referred to as ADD for those without hyperactivity). Technically it is classified as a disorder due to the nature of its ability to easily distract the person’s attention away from what society has set to be important elements of a regular functioning life.**
I continue to refine a balanced holistic approach to an individually tailor system of medication, meditation, proper diet, regular exercise, adequate rest, family support, and environment. The reality is they can not always remain in perfect alignment, but it is the understanding of honest limitation and ability to mitigate that will bring you back to center. When I am in tune a few of the gifts that I have to enjoy are being:
Self-respecting
Family Oriented
Photographer
Artist
Musician
Writer
Techno-Geek (a geek of all types of technology)
Entrepreneur
Innovator
Inventor
Extremely Knowledgeable
Ecologically Conscious
Economic Visionary
Diverse
Interested in development for the greater good with mindfulness of effects that impact the community at all levels.
I could go on… because there are many more benefits I have realized and discovered since I began taking medication, going to group therapy, individual therapy, meditation, and the evaluation of my approach to life approximately 2 years ago. Some parts of the gift are new and some parts have been with me all my life not seeing them because I was critical and rigid.
The best part of all that I have overcome and experienced is being the person that I am in this moment. More enabled, and less disabled, than any other point in my entire life. There is no other single element in my life that has been more consistent that the relationship that I have with my wife which began on Friday, Oct. 19th 2001. We just celebrated our 3rd wedding anniversary on December 12th, 2006. The next most consistent element in my life is my son that is now 2 ½ years old. Before now the next most consistent element of my life was a job that I once had that lasted a little less than 2 ½ years. Soon to surpass that job is the consistency of taking my medication.
Discovering the appropriate means to repair and set fee my beautiful mind has given me vision and opportunity that never existed.
Knowing that there are no handbooks or special mantras that work for all people I hope to share my experience here and in any other forum that will prove to be helpful to others that share similar challenges. Not that what I do will be right for some one else but that it might help them on to the path of their own discovery of what is best.
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