From an early age I struggled in school. That struggle continued and changed throughout my elementary, middle, high school and now college education. While I’ve made great progress, I still remember some of the things people said to me – that I would never succeed, I was too stupid and I had a long road ahead of me if I was going to succeed. This isn’t a pity-letter or a letter bashing the people who doubted me, but I hope it can be a reminder to anyone else having a hard time that you can succeed, and you will. You just have to want it.
I have a learning “disability” called ADD or Attention Deficit Disorder, which causes me to have a hard time with organizational skills among many other things. To this day, one of my worst nightmares is doing any kind of math. Many nights I would end up crying at the kitchen table as I struggled to simply comprehend what most would call simple mathematics. When I entered middle school, things got worse because I didn’t fit the “stereotype” expected of girls at my school. It actually got to the point that by the end of the year I came home crying most days. Thankfully, that all changed when I left my local public school system and began to attend Winston Preparatory School in Norwalk, Connecticut, where I stayed until the end of my freshman year. If I said I wasn’t scared to transfer back to public school, I would be lying to you.
For most of my sophomore year, I struggled until I became close to my best friend and partner in crime, Catie. Another big part of my support system throughout high school was cheerleading – more specifically, my teammates at Gold Coast.
When people at school continuously said that I wouldn’t succeed, the lessons I learned at Gold Coast helped me continue to push forward, determined more than ever to prove them wrong. One of my biggest victories was when I walked across the stage at high school graduation. As my housemaster gave me my diploma, the biggest sense of accomplishment came over me. “I did it!” I thought. I finally proved the doubters wrong. As someone who genuinely believed for longer than I would like to admit that I would never make it through high school and to my first-choice college, the elation I felt was incredible.
Overall, I guess the biggest thing I would like to say is thank you to my parents, teammates, coaches and friends because without your help, I would never have overcome the doubters that were standing in my way. I would also like to add, to anyone who is ever told that you won’t succeed, use it to push yourself as far as you can and move past what is standing in your way.