A personal experience that I want all my classmates to know…hmm…let
me think about this so it doesn’t come back to bite me in the butt. Alright,
how much do you guys want to know about me? Well, sorry, but this story might
not interest you, but it was a very big turning point in my life.
High school, sophomore year; I was just getting in the swing
of things. I had made my core group of friends and was enjoying my classes for
the most part. But the part of my classes I wasn’t enjoying was the grades I was receiving. C’s, D’s and an occasional
F mocked my report card. Although that F was in French class which I already
didn’t understand, I obviously didn’t want to get an F in it for goodness
sakes! So I was starting to get worried, “my parents are going to be so pissed
off when they see my report card.” That is pretty much all I could think about.
I was dead. I studied so hard with my dad for all my tests, I did all my
homework (for the most part) and I even had a math tutor. What was going on?
Why did I suck at school so much?
So one day my geometry teacher came up to me and asked me if
I had been tested for ADD. I was dumbfounded that a teacher just came up to me
and asked me something so personal and heartbreaking. Was something really
wrong with my brain? Was this the reason that I was so prepared for a test and
then when I finally took the test, I didn’t know a dang thing that was on it?
So I went home and told my mom and dad what my nice teacher
had told me that day. They weren’t too surprised (ouch that hurt to write that)
because they had been noticing me not getting the grades
that they thought I should have been earning.
So we made an appointment with a specialist who could test
me for ADD.
I was one of those kids who kept a journal in school, make
fun of me all you want, but I love to remember things, and this was my way of
doing so. Here is an entry I put in after I took the test for ADD:
“Trying to raise the grades is something I have always tried to do, but
it never works. My parents decided to see if there is a reason to why my grades aren’t so good, and there may be a
possibility which is ADHD. I have a 52/100 which means that I have 52% ADD,
which could be the reason why it is hard for me to focus and not do random
things, and to be able to do better on tests. I don’t know what else to do
other than study and try to stay focused but it’s hard for me to even do those
two easy tasks.”
After taking the test consisting of sitting on a computer
and was told to click every time I saw a certain letter on the screen, my
results came back with the obvious; I not only had ADD, I had ADHD.
This was hard for me to grasp. I didn’t understand why I had
yet another health problem. The other ones I have are for another time…maybe.
But it just didn’t seem fair. Another pill to help me get through the day; just
another pill to rely on to seem normal, I couldn’t believe I was one of “those
kids” with a learning disorder.
So I started taking my medication for ADHD, and let me tell
you. The first day I took my medication, I was walking on air! I have never
been high before or under the influence of any drug, but I am guessing that is
what it feels like to be on them. I didn’t really know even more than before
what was going on around me. I wasn’t hungry anymore, and I just wanted to be
alone.
Gladly, that didn’t last long. In another journal entry of mine
I wrote:
“Speaking of school,
we are getting our grades soon & I am
quite nervous! I am going to make some guesses of what I have so far and when I
get my grade card we will see how close I was to being correct. I hope my ADHD
medication is working... =3.14 (highest GPA I would have ever gotten so far).”
A 3.14 as the highest
GPA I have ever received…now that’s sad to read. On my previous grade card, I
had a whopping 1.9 GPA. Yes, you read that right. And what did that 1.9 GPA get
me? It got my kicked off my high school golf team for a semester because I was on
academic probation. That didn’t make my dad or me too happy. That GPA kept me
from going to state that year. It was one of the most devastating things I had
ever had to go through.
Because of that 1.9 GPA and me feeling like my grades weren’t changing fast enough, I was worried
that one day no college would ever want me because I wasn’t smart enough, or that
I wouldn’t have the grades in general to
even attend school. In another journal entry, I wrote about my college dreams.
“My grades are starting to blemish in a way… I know
that I at least got an 80% on the Geometry test, but French and English are the
classes that I am very, very worried about. I know I need to do better to be
able to play golf in college, but honestly the sad thing about this, is that I
am trying. I really want to go to NC State, but we will have to see how this
summer goes & see if any colleges want to even consider having me play for
them.”
Here’s a side note. My dad is really into golf and all
during high school my dad didn’t think that any college would want me with the
scores I was shooting. This only pushed me harder to get a college golf scholarship.
So the day came where my grades
came out, and thankfully, my medication was working and I raised my grades, tremendously. I had also found out that my
school gave out help for finals for students with learning disabilities. All of
the students who had these disabilities got to take all their finals in a separate
room than everyone else where we got to take as long as we wanted on the final.
This was a blessing! Even though I usually finished in the regular allotted
time, it was so much less stressful and a huge relief.
By the end of high school, I had gone from a 1.9 GPA, to a
3.8 GPA. I ended up on the Dean’s Honor Roll and I had received a 24 on my ACT.
I had gone from nothing, to something. I also got to go to my junior and senior
golf state championships, where my team finished first and I finished in the
top 10 both years. With this, I got many
college golf scholarship offers and was happy to have proven my dad wrong.
I choose Ottawa University in a way because of my ADHD because
I sometimes still struggle, and with the small class sizes I felt like it would
be much easier for me to concentrate in class. This ended up being VERY TRUE! I
ended my freshman year of college with a cumulative GPA above a 3.5, broke a
school record with golf, and received my first 4.0 this last fall. Although
this isn’t a hard thing for many people, this is one of the biggest
accomplishments I have ever achieved.
Although many people don’t understand why people should get
special treatment because of a learning disability; they think that they are
getting special treatment by taking their tests in separate rooms with X amount
of time to take a test, they need to understand that if they were in the shoes
of someone with a learning disability they wouldn’t be whining about it so
much.
It is a very hard thing to live with and I am very grateful
that I have a family who actually cared enough to get me tested and to get me
the medications I needed to get better.
Now enough sappy stuff; yes this was a very “traumatic”
personal experience that I went through, but I got through it and it made me
who I am today.
So now that I finally got to blog about myself, you’re
probably bored. So I apologize, but I didn’t grow up with an easy life and I
like being able to relate with people who are afraid to tell their friends
about problems like this, so if anyone wants to talk to me, just hit me up!
Thanks for listening guys!
