August 2023 was a month that changed my life forever. It was the month when, on impulse, I enrolled at OCCC. That impulse did not come randomly – It was the latest in a series of desperate and short-sighted decisions meant to impress someone with whom I was in a doomed relationship, which ended before classes even began.
Nonetheless, it was a decision that would put me on a path toward growth in ways that I would not have imagined, one that was facilitated in no small part by a program that I joined very early on.
To adequately express just how much of a difference my time at OCCC and this program has made, I need to talk about the kind of person that I was and the nearly 10 years of social isolation that had led me to that point.
I dropped out of high school at the end of the 10th grade, a decision prompted by the fact that I had been recently diagnosed with major depressive disorder. I was already struggling with classes, but the added turmoil of trying to find the right medication proved too much for me to handle, and I instead opted to take the GED test.
At that time, I feared falling behind in life compared to my peers back in school – a vacuous notion at best – and the irony is that I would spend the next 10 years largely in social isolation, deeming myself unworthy of anyone’s time or attention and acting accordingly.
The only development that the next eight years saw was the fact that I had two different jobs totaling less than a year of work, and even in those environments, I did not interact with anyone beyond a required capacity, largely because I had both forgotten how and had lost interest in trying to. I had fallen victim to the trap of believing that I did not need other people.
Then, in October 2020, my father was diagnosed with ALS (commonly known as Lou Gehrig’s disease) – a fatal neurodegenerative disease for which there is no cure. The next 15 months were brutal from a caregiver’s perspective, but nothing compared to what he endured.
By the time that ordeal was over, I was more jaded and isolated than ever, and my inner demons began to take control. From the time of my father’s diagnosis to my enrollment at OCCC, I had been in and out of a psychiatric hospital five different times.
Given my pattern of short-lived and unstable interpersonal relationships – along with a litany of mental health complications, lack of experience, the loss of a loved one and other compounded traumas – it would have been safe to bet on my failure. But Dr. Bryon Dickens, the founder and director of Students Connecting with Mentors for Success, did not. He saw potential in me where I only saw shortcomings.
From the very beginning, Dickens showed me the same courtesy and warm demeanor that he does to everyone else, and he made me feel welcome in an environment where I felt out of place.
Before I first stepped through the doors of OCCC, I knew that I was going to need all the help I could get if I was going to have even a remote chance to succeed. I spent a great deal of time looking at what resources were available on the website, and that’s when I came across the page for SCMS. Since then, SCMS has been the single greatest boon to not only my journey academically but my personal one as well.
There are a few things that I am expected to do as a member of the program, which have laid the foundation for my relationships with the program and the people who belong to it, staff members and peers alike.
Every other week, we are expected to send our grades to a coordinator of the program. What truly makes those grade checks so effective is the fact that all of the SCMS staff members truly care about their students, and I wanted to show them that I am just as interested in my own success as they are. The significance of their concern is not lost on me because there was once a time when anyone other than my immediate family caring about my long-term outlook seemed like a foreign concept to me.
Another expectation that helped me grow is to just be present. The SCMS staff wants us to stop by the office at least once a week if possible, and for a while, I stuck to the bare minimum. But as I became more familiar with the people there, and they in turn began to recognize me, I slowly started to come out of the shell that I had been building around myself for years.
I fondly remember joking with one of the students there about how neither of us could ever remember the other’s name, and I cherish that moment and others like it because it was one of the first times when I felt like I could be vulnerable – even over something seemingly mundane – without fear of being judged or somehow ostracized.
I am grateful for what SCMS has helped shape me into. The man who walked onto campus over two years ago, head hanging low and avoiding what I deemed to be unnecessary interactions, has become someone who – while still awkward and often unsure of what to do – values interaction with others and treats that interaction as valuable and not simply an obstacle to overcome.
Gratitude is another value that has been gently instilled in me, and it’s something that Dickens and his team do their best to foster. If we host a guest speaker for our Friday meetings, we sign collective thank you letters, help each other whenever possible and try to give back to the broader community through volunteer opportunities.
It is important to show gratitude not only with one’s words, but with one’s actions as well. I have cherished these opportunities, partially because they allow me to step outside of my own troubles and ask, “What can I do for others?”
It’s almost surreal to think that I can even ask such a thing at all, because it was simply not something that would cross my mind very often prior to coming to OCCC. If not selfish, I was at least self-centered.
Above all else, I attribute the sense of community that comes with being a member of SCMS to my personal growth. I have spent over two years at OCCC thus far, and throughout my time here, I have observed how community – or a lack thereof – can shape a person’s trajectory.
What SCMS has is special, and I would say that is primarily due to the people in it and the passion for lifting others up that is prevalent in every aspect of the program.
At the beginning of my journey through college, I did not expect that I would – or even could – come as far as I have. While I have certainly found community in other groups at OCCC, SCMS was the first to take me in and take a chance on me. It gave me the time, resources and encouragement necessary for me to start to make something of myself.
I have seen how isolation can shape a person. In my case, potential was like a seed – It just needed the proper tools to grow, and SCMS provided those tools.
