Born a Fighter: The Highs and Lows of Becoming a Man

By Ryan Smith

Ryan Smiths soul-touching memoir chronicles the highlights and low lights of the renowned authors life, including the devastating loss of his unborn child that nearly destroyed him and his fierce road to publishing his first two booksa fascinating never-before-told-in-full story of personal struggles and success in life by the man himself.
Before releasing two books Poeticman and Motives and Thoughts of a battered soul, things were different for Ryan Smith. But the dark side of his early childhood/school years took its toll: his battle with depression, ADHD almost drove him to suicide. Constant battle with low self-esteem and confidence. A reckoning did not truly come until he was forced to face mortality.
In this brave, driving memoir, Smith ruminates on tough circumstances, childhood, death, loss, and redemption, sharing his life story of 26 years worth of hard-earned insights. His pulsating memoir is as raw as his acclaimed writing style. It brings to a close the first chapters of a well-earned life, inspiring friends and others to follow the rhythms of their own hearts and find happiness in their lives.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Sep 26, 2015
• ISBN: 9781514408636

Ryan Smith

Ryan Smith has been a practicing Pagan since his teens with over fifteen years of experience in inclusive and anti-racist Heathen spirituality. He is the author of The Way of Fire and Ice and Spinning Wyrd. In addition to contributing to the anthologies Bringing Race to the Table and ¡No Pasarán!:Antifascist Dispatches from a World in Crisis, Ryan has been published at Huginn's Heathen Hof, Patheos Pagan, and Truthout. He has presented talks and rituals at Pantheacon, the Gathering Paths presented by Between the Veils, Hexenfest, and Many Gods West. He regularly writes at onblackwings.com and produces a Heathen podcast, The Wayward Wanderer. He also has a PhD in modern economic and social history and can be found online at Facebook, Mastodon, and Instagram.

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Copyright © 2015 by Ryan Smith.

ISBN:      Softcover      978-1-5144-0862-9

                    eBook          978-1-5144-0863-6

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Rev. date: 11/10/2015

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Contents

Chapter 1 Early Beginnings/ School Life

Chapter 2 Feeling Lost

Chapter 3 One Day at a Time

Chapter 4 What’s Next?

Chapter 5 Living with ADHD

Chapter 6 First Dream A Reality

Chapter 7 Hungry For More

Chapter 8 Second Chance

Chapter 9 Wounded Soul

Chapter 10 Only The Strong Survive

POETRY OF A FIGHTER

Life is one big road with lots of signs. So when you riding

through the ruts, don’t complicate your mind. Flee from hate, mischief

and jealousy. Don’t bury your thoughts, put your vision to reality. Wake Up and Live!— Bob Marley

FOREWORD

by Ryan Smith

Looking back on this journey this process wasn’t an easy one. Actually I was very skeptical of sharing my life experiences to the world. Truth is everyone has demons and for me it was demons and past struggles who made me the man I am today. By any means, me sharing my life story isn’t disrespecting anyone who will be included in this book. This is my life, my words and what I had to experience growing up and had the actions of others affected me personally. I am deeply grateful to my mother, grandmother, sister and father for making me who I am. In choosing life, I realized that my dreams of being a writer wouldn’t just come true I had to do the work. As I wrote about my life I relived it and whatever I didn’t like I accepted. I made a commitment to finish my story, even if I had to spend many hours up through the day and night writing. The more I wrote the more I understood myself and why I had made the choices I made and that was the real testament . I learned that dreams don’t work without action. I learned that nobody could stop me but me. I learned that love is stronger than hate. Most important, I learned that God does exist in this life he and or she is right inside you. Underneath the pain, the sorrow, and the shame, I think I’ll be a lot better now that this book is done.

CHAPTER 1

Early Beginnings/ School Life

I was born on December 2nd, 1988 in Farmville, Virginia to the parents of Debbie Smith and Lester Mahan. I was raised in Meherrin, Virginia with my older sister Courtney. At the time my grandmother, Gertrude helped my mother raised myself and my sister. At the time my father wasn’t around as much as I wanted or needed him to be. Most of the time it didn’t even seem like he was missing, large part due to my grandmother stepping in and filling in most of the void that was missing from my little heart at the time. Sometimes, I asked myself Do I have a father and if so where is he? those were some of the questions I had in my mind and desperately wanted to answer. Growing up, I was described as a kid who always was so hyper never knew how to sit still. Always finding something to get into or in trouble for that matter, at times my mother used to let me run outside until I basically ran myself to pure exhaustion. During those times and moments I never notice anything strange at all, I thought I was just a plain old kid filled with lots of energy. As time progress my hyperactivity increased as I started rocking back and forth on couches, a habit which I still can find myself weirdly doing from time to time as well as talking fast when I spoke, causing me to develop a speech impediment. For me, I started to feel somewhat weird and out of order with the rest of the things going on in the world. Despite my mixed feelings and emotions, I started having a close great relationship with my sister Courtney. We were like peanut butter and jelly, the perfect combination always having each others back at all times. Course sometimes we had our fights from us fighting over our fake rendition Michael Jackson Billie Jean hat to who was going to get the best kind of candy just small things that kids at this age would fight over. Being she was my older sister, she started school two years before I did and I knew it was just a matter of time before I was going to see another part of the world.

Around the time I reached age five, I first started Kindergarten at Prince Edward County Elementary School. My teacher was Mrs. Williams; she was a very nice teacher always respectful and always wanted to make the day fun. Personally, my favorite things were from snack time, recess, or lunch to me those things were the main three that really kept me paying attention. Some reason, I never really liked paying attention to a lot of things when I started school. A lot of things didn’t keep me interested, didn’t know why it was just how my brain and memory function works. The following year was first grade, my teacher Mrs. Henderson was also a very good teacher to have as well. Full of joy, but also didn’t play any games with students getting out of line. For the most part, I made sure I stayed on her good side because seeing her bad side was not a pretty thing to see that’s for sure.

As I moved on from second to third grade with great teachers as well from Ms. Brooks to Mrs. Ring, things were on the upside of going great until one day a visit changed everything. I was seven years old when I recall my mother calling me and my sister into the living room one day after school and there was a man sitting on the sofa. I didn’t even know or even met this person before, so I was curious to find out why my mom called us in there as well as why was this man doing here in our home. My mom said Courtney and Ryan I would like for to meet your Daddy my reaction was very confused and shocked at first. I still remember those words my sister uttered out of her mouth This isn’t my Daddy, I don’t have a Dad. I could understand why she would say that, because up until that point he wasn’t around and for us it made us feel that we never had a father in our lives. My mom and grandmother never really mention my Dad while growing up, which made it so shocking when I first met him. As time passed on, my relationship with my Dad seemed to be on the upside, of course it took time to adjust at first but eventually it got better. For the first time in my life, things felt complete he was around more often as well as spending lots of time with myself and Courtney which was what we needed. It felt just right having a male figure in my life for once; we took great trips from going to Kings Dominion for the very first time to seeing a pretty cool mine adventure. We were having fun and everything was coming together. I couldn’t have been happier at the time, but little did I know what the future was going to have in store for me moving forward.

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If I had to describe Ryan I would have to say he is the truest definition of a man and gentleman. Ryan is a man who always puts his friends and family first in any situation. From always checking up on his friends and giving great words of encouragement during tough times and to giving one hundred percent effort in all his work, Ryan is a great friend to me and all of his friends and I’m extremely