Hey you! My name is Thomas “TomSka” Ridgewell and instead of doing a “draw my life”
video I thought it'd be more interesting to just... show you my life. I use this channel
to express myself and record my memories in excruciating levels of detail mostly for...
Myself. So, if this sounds like something you might enjoy then stick around and welcome to
Part One of the Complete History of Me!
My journey begins back in 1989 as a cluster of cells alongside my twin-sister to-be: Amelia.
My prospective parents are two 26 year old Jehovah's Witnesses living in Essex, England.
(Car Crash)
A wreckless driver forces my pregnant mother into a car accident. Unfortunately my sister doesn't make it.
For a few months even doctors don't believe i'm still alive, but when my mother finally proves it she has to spend most of her pregnancy laying down.
On the 27th of June on my mother's 27th birthday, I'm born! You'll never guess my lucky number.
At 2 days old I make my first media appearance in a news article about the Hospital I was born in.
After a few weeks of intensive care I'm off home – aww what a cute little baby
OH GOD!!
And so my life begins as a little Jehovah's Witness growing up in Essex.
We preach the good word, worship at the Kingdom Hall and avoid most major celebrations.
That's vewy nice!
It doesn't take long for me to start practicing comedy.
(Tom crashing into a tree for the camera)
Did you take a picture of that? Did you take a picture of that?
I also cry. A lot. At everything.
Hiya Tom! Look you're on camera! (Starts crying) Uh Oh! Stop the camera!
Being raised a Jehovah's Witness meant missing out on Christmas, birthdays and more but we
still had a yearly “present giving day.” Those were fun.
I still cried though. Maybe it was because of all the dick-balloons. Nice one, dad. Real nice.
We went on holiday a lot. Always to Fuerteventura.
At 4 years old we move from Essex to Cambridge to be closer to my mum's hairdressing salon...
But that was fine because living in Essex had given me a pretty... Interesting accent.
Let me see my pict-cha! DAAAD!
I was soon enrolled into my first school, Milton Road Primary!
Also Disney World!
See, what you don't know in this photo is that I'm actually crying. Because that's literally all I did.
Back in England I got some cats called Tiggy and Totty.
We celebrated more Present Giving Days!
And before long we had our first computer! Typing in rude words and adding .com at the
end got me in a lot of trouble. Just a lot.
Fantastic.
I start hanging out with our neighbour called Johnny. He introduces me to the Internet and
video games and... Photos of dead bodies and... Yeah, it's pretty obvious where this all came from.
But anyway look at me go!!
My favourite pastime was smashing toy cars with a shovel in the garden and recreating
four-car pile-up car-crashes in my mind. This should surprise no-one.
At one point I gracefully fall out of my Nanna's attic and break my wrist. Also the ladder
leading to the attic... with my face. Hence the scar on my forehead.
And don't even get me started on the time I shoved my heel into the rusty wheels of
my dad's moped and cut it straight off! Yummy!
Also, I have a lot of cousins. Also I'm very pretty.
We went to Disney again and I tried to write my first movie called “A Toy's Job”. It
was straight-up Toy Story meets A Bugs Life because I was a dirty little plagiarist of a seven year old.
Now here's where things start to go slightly to shit. When I was 9 I had a
teacher who'd notoriously single out one kid in her class every year and constantly humiliate
them to keep all the other kids in line.
And in 1999 I was that kid.
If I had a question she'd make the whole class chant the answer at me; if I put my hands
in my pockets she'd pin them closed in front of the whole school; if I spoke in class she'd
make me write an apology a hundred times then tear it up and make me do it again. She was super great.
To cope with the Miss Trunchbull levels of power abuse I developed an unhealthy relationship
with food. If I got sad, I'd eat until I wasn't sad anymore. This is a habit I would never grow out of.
That was all until one day after school my mum came to pick me up and I didn't leave the building.
Eventually she found me sitting on the floor in a hallway, rocking myself. I don't even remember it. But my mind must have just snapped. I don't know.
I was a weird kid after that. Angrier. Broken. And I genuinely think I suppressed most of my memories from that point, that weren't already documented.
I got sent to a few therapists who were quick to place me somewhere on the autistic spectrum. They were desperate they were to diagnose me with something.
I became terrified of sleeping alone wound up on the floor of my parent’s bedroom most nights.
Eventually I was sent for an IQ test to see just how broken I was and the results were... Unexpected.
Within a few weeks I was pulled out of my school and away from that teacher. My IQ got
me a membership to Mensa which was kinda cool and we started looking for new schools.
I also got glasses.
Oh and ten years later they demolished Milton Road Primary School. Just a... Real shame.
TomSka Out