This is my first Linkedin publication. Thank you for taking the time out to read this:
I'm an aspiring return to college hopeful but I've had a rough life financially due to my big heart. It's gotten in the way. I've given up so much for friends and strangers that I've ruined my credit and live paycheck to paycheck. I've helped so many people in my short adult life that I'm scared to ask for help. I want to make a difference in this world and not become just a statistic.
My name is Joshua and I have bipolar 1, PTSD and severe anxiety. I was born with bipolar and it manifested at 19 years old while I was at UNCC as a freshman. I was adopted at 10 years old by an amazing family that has been very helpful. My mom was a director of a preschool in Upstate NY, called Little Lamb, inside of North Syracuse Baptist Church. She was an inspiration in my heart to love all children. My dad worked for the Banks as a systems mainframe data programmer, here in Charlotte before he retired to Tampa and did his best to help me when I didn't know what I even know where I was supposed to go in a career direction.
I have had little direction on my quest for higher knowledge, although I've spent what feels like most of my life in school. I currently have an associate's degree in Marketing Retail. I can't use it for a career and it's become self-evident that it's worthless to me. Before I got it, I decided hey, I like sports and I'm fit, I could be an athletic trainer, that didn't work out and I ended up with student debt and no degree from UNCC, my second time around there because of ending up with two pink eye episodes, mono, a sternoclavicular injury from kickboxing and the flu. Now I've decided to follow in my Mom's footsteps and where my heart was in high school and pursue teaching. I would like to go to UNCC for Special Education but I can't even afford my last two classes at CPCC the local community college because I've exhausted the grant that I used for the AAS Marketing Retail, I had earned. I have 5 credit hours left and I have a golden ticket into Junior year at UNCC or any state school in NC.
I've worked in retail with my AAS but I can't turn it into a career, I'm highly creative and intelligent. I've been stuck in the service industry working paycheck to paycheck now and I feel trapped. I've even tried to break into event coordinator marketing that the field is so saturated and sexist that I can't break-in. I've worked many jobs and just like other Americans two or three at one time to pay bills and still come out Monday with nothing after payday.
I'm the worst at asking for help but I need help. I have a skeleton of a charity organization that I started based on my love for special needs children and a matter of fact all children. It's a party with a purpose organization aimed to fund organizations that work with special needs and at-risk youth. So I know my heart is in the right place this time. I just want to make a difference.
Any advice, the direction would be greatly appreciated.