I don’t know when I first realized I was broken. Maybe it was when I was five, sitting in a doctor’s office while someone told my parents that medication could "fix" me. Or maybe it was later when I started piecing together the labels people threw at me—sensitive, difficult, emotional—and believing every damn one of them. Either way, by the time I was a teenager, I’d been programmed to think something was wrong with me. Gods shaming eye was no help either.

And once that belief took root, it grew like a weed, choking out everything else.

They put me on Ritalin before I even learned how to tie my shoes. I don’t remember exactly how it felt, but I do remember the message it sent loud and clear: You are not okay as you are. That was my first label: broken. And it stuck. 

The thing about labels is they don’t just describe you—they can define you. And when you’re a kid, you don’t have the tools to fight back. You absorb that shit like a sponge. I didn’t just think I was broken—I knew it. And the more I tried to fight against it, the more it felt true.

The Program Begins

As humans, we come into this world mostly as blank slates. But the world doesn’t just give you love and wisdom—it hands you its fears, its insecurities, its expectations and shame. It doesn’t ask if you want them; it just starts writing your story for you.

For me, the programming came from everywhere. My parents did their best, but they were products of their own conditioning. My dad was a pharmacist. My mom worked in pharmaceutical sales. To them, the solution was simple: if something’s wrong, there’s a pill for that. So when I couldn’t sit still in school or got overwhelmed easily, they turned to what they knew.

And school? Forget it. The place where you’re supposed to grow and learn? For me, it was just another place to get labeled. Teachers didn’t see a passionate, emotional kid—they saw a problem. Nick can’t focus. Nick’s disruptive. Nick’s too sensitive. I internalized all of it. Every word became another brick in the wall I was building around myself.

By the time I hit middle school, the program was fully installed. I wasn’t just different—I was defective. And it didn’t matter that I was a star athlete or had friends. Inside, I was a freak. A failure. A lost cause.

The Pain of Labels

Here’s the brutal thing about labels: once you believe them, they start to control you. They shape how you see yourself, how you act, how you respond to the world. Someone calls you "stupid" enough times, and you don’t just think it—you live it.

That’s exactly what happened to me. I wasn’t Nick, the curious kid who felt everything deeply. I was Nick, the broken one who couldn’t get his shit together. And that identity followed me everywhere.

By high school, I was out of control. I had all this pain inside me, and no one taught me how to deal with it. So I did what a lot of kids do—I acted out. I threatened my babysitter with a knife when I was five, threw tantrums that scared the hell out of my parents, and later turned to drugs and alcohol to numb the chaos in my head. The programming had done its job: I didn’t trust myself, and I didn’t think I was worth saving.

Breaking Free

It took me years to realize the truth: I was never broken. I had just been programmed to believe I was. And that’s the most dangerous part of the program—it makes you think the problem is you, instead of the bullshit you’ve been fed.

But here’s the good news: any program can be rewritten.

It’s not easy. It’s messy, painful work. It means tearing down everything you’ve been taught about yourself and starting from scratch. But it’s worth it.

Because once you start to unravel the lies, you can finally see the truth: you were never broken. You’ve just been carrying a story that was never yours to begin with.

And if I can unlearn that, so can you. Let’s start rewriting the story together.