Hello Wrong Planet!

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I kinda knew about this website for about more than a decade, but I remember being told from friends at a time that "joining forums is weird", or something along those lines, or that I planned on joining Wrong Planet by high school, but never got around to it because school life caught up to me, that, and I remember being told "Social media is easier to manage, and not everyone has the time to read a book."

So, to preface, this is the second forum I've been on that has to do with anything related to support for people on the spectrum or other related 'illnesses', and I'm going to term that loosely as to not make others upset. I planned on going onto forums for the longest time, because of the fact that I used to be hiked up on social media as a kid, but as I've grown more and more, I really dislike the usage of social media as it's grown to be something that is now in days. I remember the first ever piece of social media I've been on was Facebook, which was given to me by my father when I was around 11. I deleted it when I was 17, 6 years later around 2018, about to turn 18 at that time, because I did not like how Facebook was going towards a more, surveillance-heavy platform, and the mass-usage of apps that they also added at the time, from messenger, their acquisition of other apps that I remember seeing from Instagram, Oculus, and rebranding it to Meta Quest, WhatsApp, etc., it really just, personally rubbed me the wrong way. Even with Threads, I just, really did not like how social media was becoming overtime, as I got into high school and into college, to which I really decided over the past few years after college to really just, shut away from the world, and not really use social media. I'm not saying that the usage of social platforms is bad or anything like that, I just specifically do not like using social media, and it doesn't just stem from like Meta, it stems from other platforms, like Twitter, or other platforms like Bluesky, alternative platforms like Cara, or even Mastodon, I've tried Reddit as well, I cannot see myself using for the most part, for mental health reasons.

I'm only referring to generally large companies, like again, Twitter, Meta, etc., I am aware that we don't have many options out there for using technology in terms of alternatives that try to be more on the safer side, outside of like using corners of the dark web, but to me, joining forums was never really something I ever considered to be like, a privacy security risk or whatever. To me, it's only when you overshare stuff to the max is when it's like, yes, it's a privacy risk, but you're the one doing it to yourself, not the other way around. Being on WP, and other sites like it, I see as: as long as I don't just overshare about personal things that, should reasonably remain personal, I think it's okay.

Joining forums just has always been the kind of thing that I've always wanted to do growing up, but apparently people just don't like traditional forums, and will just go on Reddit, and make a sub on there, when realistically, there's always been alternatives to reddit, it's just reddit is the first site people think of when you think of a "forum", or something that's "forum-like", I don't like reddit because it just tried to be both a forum-site, and a social media site like a lot of sites out there, I think 9GAG and iFunny do that too, but again, same premise. To me, outside of like using apps like Discord and YouTube, but YouTube I try to use sparingly in cases where, I cannot use it on normal search engines, I use it mainly on Brave, or apps like FreeTube on desktop, If you were to come up to me and use an app like WhatsApp, which is what a vast majority of my family uses, despite them using something that has all of the more modern features that we expect, they're tech companies that, I just have learned to not bother using them and to look for alternatives, because having ads shoved in my face a lot of the time isn't worth my time, especially when there's free alternatives out there to what's out there to remove those ads, when sometimes they don't, they just want what's in of your pocket, like YouTube Premium for example.

Getting that out of the way, because I could rant about that for days:

Originally I'm from Buffalo, New York, I currently reside near Daytona Beach, Florida, and with how things are right now, I've been trying to find a job in retail over here, and I've been looking to see if I can find work in a gas station for the same purpose, but let's see. I did used to work in food in the area, but I had many bad encounters with guests, or bosses, attempting to take advantage of me for the fact that I'm AuADHD (I have Asperger's, I've been told I have "a type of ADHD", but I genuinely do not believe that and I'll get into why eventually.). Worst was when I had a boss years ago, that would for weeks, spur racial, and discriminatory epithets at me, about the color of my skin, my heritage, mostly about my special needs status, and on several occasions would meet up to me face to face, and "apologize" on several occasions. This happened for weeks at the time, months, and there was nothing I could reasonably do in the state of Florida, Florida is Two-Party Consent, so I couldn't just record my boss at the time without getting a felony on my record. I can only give here-say on this, even as a minority, and special needs. The stuff she did to me, I will never forget, because it comes across as extremely disingenuous, extremely forceful, but in the end of the day, I'd rather be the better person in this case.

From the very start, I would term my family more as like "modern nomads", as everyone in my family have their own ambitions, from my parents, brother, sisters, etc. We didn't originally live in Daytona Beach when we came back to the US in 2019, we originally lived in Orlando, right by Full Sail University, which was also around the time I was in college, which I'll get into later. My uncle and dad had plans to like, make a trucking company, and they needed me as the designer to design the company itself, but because at the time I was a newbie at it, and didn't know what to really tell them or what to do, I kinda just let the whole thing play out, but what happened was that, from what I can recollect anyways, the deal failed because my uncle is the type of person to where he just wants things his way or or the highway, my father is the same way, but not to the same extent, and they apparently didn't have many agreements on what to do with the company, they didn't see eye-to-eye on a lot of things, and this is just me being an outsider to it at the time, but they dropped the whole deal. Then that became a company to where two of my uncles were to do some stuff with like hotels or whatever, I'm talking generally, because I know nothing about what they were doing and nor do I generally care. I have the sketches of what I was going to design the company under, but I'm not going to post them here, because I have them in my closet somewhere, and I'm not about to go into my totes to find them.

My family has bounced from like, Buffalo, New York, Dallas, Georgia, Newark, New Jersey, Nutley, Belleville, Orlando, Florida, Winter Park, and since 2020, we've been living near Daytona since. Now we're in the verge of having to grab everything, and potentially, move near Las Vegas, Nevada, but I'm not going to keep my hopes up at this point. I've lived and moved pretty much all over most the 13 colonies, from as high as Connecticut, to as low as Florida, to where I reside.

Like the last place I was in, I want to generally join forums like this to kind of bee around people, be in groups, and all that to where people 'get me' as they say, and maybe even help me out with some things here and there, or gain some general advice on what to do in the meantime, some of what I studied years ago. To explain that last part:

I had gone to Independence University straight after high school in 2018, after I turned 18. By 2021, of which you can look into, it had shut down, due to some inner dealings that I didn't know was happening at the time. Later on, I ended up giving to grab my transcripts, which I didn't have initially, and I had to move to another college. I was in talks with my dad like years before it has happened, where people were suggesting I take up Full Sail, and I never did, because I didn't hear many good things about Full Sail. I think in one of my emails, I did try to apply for FSU, but they outright rejected me because I was too young, and in high school, and they never followed back after the fact, which... good, I don't hear anything good coming from FSU now in days, especially when I remember that FSU designers at the time lazily designed The Taken King's enemies all the way back in Destiny 1; I remember looking at that when I was a kid, playing it in high school thinking "Man... they really did not think of anything about the design or nothing, they just added in monochromatic cosmic skins onto the rehash skins of the original enemies, with some cool animations here and there, and called it a day", and now Destiny 2 I hear is shutting down. When IU shut down, I scrambled to see what colleges and universities to transfer too.

I attempted Liberty University, they told me I could do an assignment, which I did, and it didn't have a clear goal, and because I had failed the assignment, I had to pay money for what was essentially something that was "my fault in doing", and when I asked about enrollment, they legit put a paywall against me enrolling, and after that, I just, never contacted them back because, that genuinely should not be an option if that's one of the outcomes. I then tried Academy of Art University... Don't go for AoAU, every single time I've called AoAU, I was met with some person that was so rude, I had the original blog that I used to post onto neocities in writing somewhere, to where when I vented about it, I was so upset about the person themselves, as I was interested in joining, they didn't want to transfer credits, the person behind the call was abhorrently rude, he cursed at me, yelled at me, I tried getting his name, he threw epithets at me, calling me a bunch of names, and I never transferred to AoAU; I did edit the blog, but the website I had on Neocities is completely shut down, you wont see it anywhere. I did try Southern New Hampshire University, but what happened was that they had an automated system for calls upon enrollment, and the people on the line were rude, nowhere near as rude as AoAU, but in the end of the day, I didn't go for them. Now originally, when I was getting transferred out of IU, I was told to go to Miami International University of Art and Design, to which I passed off on first, because the people on admission were rude last I recollect, but when Liberty Paywalled me, I went to MIU. Got my degree in Graphic Design in 2022, and since then, have not been able to find any sort of work since, but I have updated myself on the goings with the graphic design world, like how I vehemently do not like Adobe, and how I've tried to essentially replace the Adobe Suite.

Since Graduation however, I did notice that I was in the position of not being able to pay off my loans, ending up in perpetual default, with no consistent income, and because of this, I applied for Borrower's Defense for Repayment, knowing I was eligible for it, signed the papers, not expecting much. January of this year rolls around, all of my debt is expunged, as they're trying to deal with the last loan of debt as we speak, so by the time I turn 26 coming this July, I will be essentially debt free, with a degree, and transcripts to back it up from both Independence and Miami International, because MIU shut down the year after I graduated, and so I wont have to pay nothing.

Do not ask me what percentile I'm in, genuinely wouldn't know. Didn't look up a guide on how to sign that paper, I did so out of whim, there were no videos that I can recall on YouTube on how to sign the paper properly.

Since then, I still genuinely want to do what I studied, and still want to find a job in the area, problem is that, again, I either have to wait for people to start hiring again, get into retail, or find some other way to make ends meet. Which is why I'm here essentially.

There are some things that I've realized this morning when waking up that, makes me think I should wait out on Las Vegas personally speaking. No ones hiring at the moment that I can think of, I still have to wait on some calls by this coming week that I have to make, no ones legitimately hiring, and I'm waiting on some personal family matters to eventually pop up to have happen, do not ask me on what those are, but it really just seems like waiting is the best bet, and getting to Vegas seems better off, but call me wrong for it, I just do not think I want to stay in Florida any longer than I should have to.

I don't know what else to add, so I'll just add in a list:

Was diagnosed with Asperger's as an infant, that's unargumentative. ADHD, I'd argue I don't have, I have been told I have the signs. I argue it because my mom growing up would coax me to go anywhere as long as there was candy, or the guise that there might be candy, which then build up to me having distain for candy. Once she coaxed me with it, and then what ended up happening was, we sought a specialist, and they said I have Asperger's, and "A type of ADHD", but I genuinely believe it's because I'd been coaxed and got excited as a kid with the prospect of candy.

Currently, I'm 25, turning 26 in the summer.

I'm Hispanic/Latino, 'Canela' skinned, Puerto Rican/Dominican. I have been to both islands in the Caribbean.

I'm from Buffalo, never grew up in Buffalo.

Moralistically, I'm just trying to find community, and other like minded people. 'love' is not on my priority list, I'm aware that comes with time, and on the internet, you never know whose behind the screen.

I have friends that... understand me, but don't get me because none of them are on the spectrum like me, so finding others who are similar, or kind of get me, helps me immensely.

I have tried in the past to contact people in regards to finding a job in Vegas on reddit, but in the times that it had happened, I was mixed with either nice people, absolutely rude people, and the rude ones just rubbed me off the wrong way.

Anything discussed previously, especially in regards to the bosses, I do not expect sympathy from others, it's just stories I don't mind sharing with others. A lot of the stuff I could've done, I'm aware could've gotten me in trouble, which case the best I can do is move out with my family. Even with people snuffing me out in the end, I'm more grown and fully aware that I can either make their life harder by grabbing my stuff and going, or just reporting them and suing them for discrimination regardless of who they are, especially if they're on the spectrum. It's wrong for anyone, an employer especially, to do discriminate against someone, and calling them names behind their backs, specifically in terms of their disability especially is wrong. Even if you apologize several times in the past, to which I do not care if it was that you were being "Honest and real", that's like running over someone else's foot 7 times; the first time you did it, I could see it being an accident... second time you did it, okay that's whatever, it was an accident... after the third time, dude, what the f**k, I don't want an apology, you can go eat s**t, the rest is just intentional at that point. Genuinely nobody, and I mean nobody, should have to go what I went through.

There's not much I can do about it now, gonna go on ahead with the discussion thread. The original post had urls attached to the universities I went to years ago, but I had gotten a notice saying that new accounts can't post anything in posts with urls if they're new, which, I have no issue with, I can remove the urls. If you want to look up the places I've gone, or that I've attempted to go onto before, you're free to do so, under your own discretion, I cannot promise that going out of your way to contact a college that's outside of the realms of admitting yourself to it would be anywhere near a good idea, I would even argue the aspect of contacting a college in any way is a terrible idea, going to one in my opinion is even worse, as with the state of how things are, going to one is something I wouldn't recommend to anyone, unless you were in either my position or in my fathers position.

Welcome to WP! I hope it works out for you.

Though, I suggest smaller posts. From what I read I think you belong here...but there was more than I can handle with a quick response.

Oh s**t, I'm sorry!

I kept trying to come back on here, and I was getting an Error 1016, and I thought for a second I had gotten banned or something, until I looked more into it.

I'll see if I can make the post smaller, usually I just make big introduction posts that try to run a sort of gist of me, or something I'm interested in, but if I can make them into smaller paragraphs and post them 1-by-1 to make it easier on the backend for you guys, I'll do that going forward. I'll make sure to leave a note on my KeePassXC on that in the near future so I don't forget.