Personal Narrative: My Accomplishments In High School

For some people life is like learning how to ride a bike. You get started, but lose your balance and end up on the ground with a scraped knee. Mom and Dad make you feel better until you get back up and fall again. Eventually, you learn to keep your balance, and you don’t need your parents anymore. My version of scraped knees was struggling with bullying and an anxiety disorder manifesting itself because of it.
I could write an essay talking about my high school achievements, whether it be my accomplishments in sports or in the classroom, but that wouldn’t show how I got to the point that I am at today. So, in a way, I suppose I should be saying thank you to the teenage “mean girls” who were involved in my troubled middle school experience. It’s depicted in movies and books, however, I surmised bullying did not happen in school because I never witnessed it first hand. This ideology quickly faded when I started the sixth grade.
The part I never understood was why.
Why was I chosen to be picked on? It was unnecessary to be teased because of my hair, my clothes or the fact that I was in Orion (a gifted program) and considered “nerdy”; yet there I was, getting my belongings snatched out of my gym locker and hearing mumbles about me from the girls sitting behind me. My parents eventually became involved, regardless of my belief that I could handle this on my own. I started to make excuses for not going to school, and my parents obliged. My feelings of angst and anxiety towards school developed because of my fear of being around these girls. This was part of my
downfall.
The unique element to my anxiety was that it presented itself in different forms over the years. When I was roughly 12 years old, it was the hair pulling. Scalp, eyebrows, everything. I vividly remember my mom noticing the bald patch on my head right before my winter concert. It was around Christmas time, so at night she would tell me “Gill, put on your Santa hat.” I’d wear the hat at night to stop me from “pulling”. Two years passed, and my eyebrows thankfully grew back. It wasn’t until eighth grade that what I dealt with in middle school transformed into actually feeling sick to the point where I would ask my mom to leave early or just go in late because school was important to me and I knew I was missing out on my education. This dependence on my parents that formed, led me to feel I had a sort of “safety blanket” to cover my problems. My realization that my parents could not be my form of this safety blanket came as my freshman year of high school arrived. I took it upon myself to start going to therapy and seeing the social worker at school. Eventually I was put on medication. It’s job was to do what my parents had once done for me. It helped me get back on track and continue to succeed in my academics.
All things considered, staying in my comfort zone and having my parents take care of everything wasn’t going to aid me in the long run. Throughout this whole process, there were plenty of times that I fell down. What’s most important is that I got back up on my “bike” and learned to balance on my own. Through my hardships I became more independent and learned to not rely on my parents to help me deal with what life throws at me. This learning experience has prepared me for the journey I am going to embark on while starting not only my career as a college student, but in the rest of my future as well.