In sixth grade I got diagnosed with ADHD, depression, and bipolar disorder. They put me on Zoloft, Depakote, and Ritalin.
I was still an angry kid. By twelve, thirteen years old, I was selling crack and drugs.
It wasn't a phase. It was my life. I got arrested again and again as a juvenile — a dozen times. I was violent. I hung out in the projects. I had no clear path, and I ran in the direction my environment pointed me.
I was selling drugs at twelve, thirteen. Arrested a dozen times as a juvenile. I was in the streets before I had any business being anywhere.
I'm not decorating any of this. No excuses attached to it either. I was a kid failing, and that's what it was.
I tell it because men come to Fathers That Execute thinking their past disqualifies them. My past is the first thing I show them.