My name is Jaden Perkins, I’m 19 years old, and I grew up in a small town in Texas. I spent most of my life in financial stress and struggle on both sides of my family, my parents were separated by the time I was born. My father divorced twice after my birth and my mother is actually in the process of divorcing my stepfather. Neither ends of the family could support me well enough for the luxuries that some of the other kids growing up in my area did, so I started working early. I got my first job when I was 14 and was working near full-time hours by the time I was a junior in high school, managing a local Dairy Queen. Along with the stress outside of school, I dealt with continual stress within my 8 hour escape from my work and home life in school. School got harder as I discovered I had epilepsy and I started missing school due to my seizures. Despite my hectic schedule, broken family, and medical conditions; I still graduated with both honors and distinguished achievement from my high school and was ready for college. My mother and stepfather had raised me in the ministry and convinced me that was my path, but after a couple of months at one of the top private baptist colleges in the country, I realized that wasn’t the path I wanted to take in life and had to make the decision between my happiness or my parents. Seeing as it was loans under my name paying for it, I chose my own happiness and withdrew, left with $10,000 in students loans over two months of schooling, which has since accumulated to almost $12.5k. I bounced from job to job, taking every chance and opportunity I could make for myself to be successful. I had done everything possible to make the independent life work for myself, but with seizures holding me back, it was hard to make it work. I couldn’t take any kind of high paying labor job due to the seizures, need for my medication kept me from enlisting in the military, and the lack of a degree kept me from being able to find a true career. I fell into a dark state and started drinking. I found that wasting my time living towards dying relieved my stress and felt that the former associates I used to call friends were there for me, though they only used me for support with alcohol. All of that led to a DWI in October of this year, which is when my life took a turn for the worst. I’m having to come up with an extra $750 a month on top of paying the insurance on the truck I’ve owned since I was 14 that’s 20 years old and is falling apart, my student loans with an insanely high interest rate that almost forces me to triple up on the payments to make a dent in it, my phone bill, groceries, electricity in the apartment I’m staying in with a friend, and gas to be able to get around the metroplex here in Texas where I’m working. People look at me as a young man who messed his life up. They see me as a kid who graduated at 17 with honors and distinguished achievement, yet has nothing to show for it. Those people would be right, but I want to change that. I want to get back on my feet and finally change the reputation of my last name. I want to take care of my debt, right my wrongs to society, end the alcoholic chain in my family, go back to school, and be able to support my children better than any of my parents were able to support my siblings and I. I, actually, want to go into psychology and open my own therapy firm. I want to spend the rest of my life dedicated to pushing people through the struggles life puts in front of them, but first I need someone who can help do the same for me. My debts are overwhelming, I took what I thought was an incredible opportunity as a salesman for a roofing company out of Fort Worth, but the company wasn’t as honest as what they made themselves seem to be. Now all I’ve accumulated is a higher cost of living on top of my bills and lost opportunity when I left the two jobs I was working in Graham to pursue an opportunity that once again let me down. Money can’t buy happiness, cure my epilepsy, fix my depression or anger issues, though it can help provide stability. It can help propel the potential and work ethic I know I have within myself to a future of success, so that I can reach others in the future the same way I hope to be reached today. I’m not here as a typical lazy teenager who doesn’t want to work, I’m here as a man who needs help getting his life back onto the right track so that he may give his family the best future possible. My category is listed as “Wishes” on this post, not because I’m asking for help to buy myself some high end car or go on a splurge for name brand accessories. It’s listed as wishes because I wish to be a better man, I hope to provide for my family where they weren’t able to for me growing up, I have been working for my future since I was a kid, and I want to be able to help others one day. I hope someone may find the kindness to help me fix myself so that I may be better for my family, my future, and our society.
paypal.me/JperKins3
(Please disregard previous post if it was uploaded, my PayPal link was not included)