The following is an essay that I wrote as apart of my Flinn Scholarship Application. The prompt was to tell them my story.
I crumbled into the corner of the hallway and cried. The kind of cry that strips away your ability to breathe, the kind that fills your chest with pain, the kind that leaves you exhausted and beaten. My parents didn’t know what was happening to me as the pace of my breath quickened and my body fell into itself. I didn’t have the rational mind to explain that I had woken up five minutes late and wasn’t able to finish the last problem on my math homework. God, how would I even explain that to them, tell them that I was falling apart because I’d put my alarm on snooze for five minutes. Five minutes and my whole world crashed down on top of me. When I finally caught my breath and my tears began to dry I looked up and saw the aching confusion in my parents’ eyes. That was it, my turning point, the inciting incident in my plot line. Soon enough I started therapy. Walking into that office for the first time, I remember the feeling of hostility running through my veins. I didn’t want to talk about my problems because that would mean I actually had problems. My desire to resist melted away once I opened my mouth and a flood of endless agony spilled from my lips, pain I didn’t even know I had bottled up. That day as I sat in a small wooden chair opposite my therapist, I took control. I picked up the pen and assumed the role of writer and began to curate the story of me. The story that I will dedicate my life to telling in order to create a better world for those who struggle silently and fear weakness in asking for help.