Annie Elise

He grew up in Middletown, Connecticut.

It's a city that was once known for being a very busy sailing port turned college town, and it's around 16 miles south of the more well-known city of Connecticut, Hartford.

Now, at an early age, Nathan began facing some pretty tricky life challenges.

When he was only five years old, he was diagnosed with Asperger's syndrome.

Now, of course, he was so young that he didn't really understand or comprehend what that really meant for his life.

He would only learn that later on through...

I have to be honest, very unfortunate bouts of bullying and teasing that he pretty much dealt with for his entire life.

And we all know kids are extremely cruel, even to kids where there's something going on that's out of their control.

And that unfortunately was the case for Nathan.

Now, his mom, Linda, wasn't a stranger to children who had developmental delays or medical issues or specifically children with autism.

She actually worked as a nanny for young kids who did have autism.

And from what I can tell, both Linda and her husband, Clark, really partnered together to make sure that Nathan never felt any different from any other kid.

They tried to get him involved in sports like basketball.

baseball and basketball.

Unfortunately, neither one of those never really stuck.

It just wasn't his thing.

Most of the time, he just preferred to do things in solitude on his own.

And this very quickly made him a target for other kids, who immediately labeled him as the weird kid or the loner.

Then, a few years later, when he was 10 years old, his parents divorced.

And even though divorce itself is a pretty common thing, it certainly doesn't diminish how challenging it can be for kids to go through, especially in those formative years.