I’m a 27-year-old man living in Belgium.
My life started with a lot of difficulties, partly because of what I think might have been undiagnosed ADHD — or something similar — that made me feel, all through my childhood, that I wasn’t “normal.”
I didn’t pay attention in class like other kids. The school noticed this and decided to place me, my two brothers, and my sister into a special aid school for children with learning difficulties. I stayed there for five years, and this reinforced my belief that something was “wrong” with me.
But one day, my mother began to question things. I had refused to go to school again, and after years of seeing the hate and judgment we faced, she started asking herself: Why are my kids in this kind of school? My parents didn’t really understand the Belgian school system, and they didn’t know they had the right to refuse this placement.
You have to understand — this school was designed for children with severe mental disabilities, like autism. I’m not autistic, but my older brother is. The problem was that the Flemish school system at that time was very strict, and because I didn’t speak Dutch well, I was placed in that school alongside my autistic brother. The authorities assumed that if my brother was autistic, then I, and my other siblings, must be too.
As a result, I spent five years in a school for severely disabled children simply because I didn’t speak Dutch well.
Eventually, I transferred to a regular middle school — but I had to work extremely hard to reach the same level as the other kids. The only skill I had at that point was speaking two languages at a young age. I managed to graduate to high school after two years, but those two years were hell. I survived by sheer determination, just trying to stay at 50% of the others’ level. I was still a stressed child, still believing I wasn’t enough.
In high school, I began to improve, but not enough. I also started working. But because of the trauma from my childhood, I struggled to organize myself and to find a clear path for my future. I neglected many important things, and eventually, I fell into a deep depression that lasted for a year. I had to pull myself out of it without outside help.
After that, I began a huge personal search to understand who I really am. My parents never supported me — financially or emotionally — so my brothers and I had to educate ourselves after adolescence. We learned through trial and error, through mistakes and small victories, and through the sheer will to not repeat the patterns we grew up in.
Now, I finally know who I am. I have even planned the next ten years of my life: I know which jobs I will take, what I need to buy, and the steps I must follow. I am disciplined, organized, and fully aware of where I’m heading. I speak five languages, and I’ve proved to the Flemish system — and to myself — that the labels they put on me as a child were wrong.
But in the process of finding myself, I had to self-finance my entire journey, spending €50,000 of my own money, because my parents never saved anything to help us. My mother suffers from psychotic depression, and my father drowns himself in beer, living in denial.
Even so, I will not give up. I know I am capable of doing enormous things, but I did not grow up in an environment where my talents and qualities could develop fully. I am simply asking for help to get out of debt so I can fulfill my purpose. I know for certain that if these debts are paid, I will never be in this position again. Even better — I know exactly where to invest, how to manage money, and how to create alternative income streams.
If you help me, it’s like adding €500 a month to my salary — and that would be life-changing for me. I promise you, I’m just a simple man asking for help online, not for drugs, not to steal from anyone, but simply to have my liberty back, with the intelligence and wisdom I didn’t have when I was younger. And I promise to give back that money, no matter what.
https://paypal.me/MBafranga