My battle to be normal again. by Andrew

My battle to be normal again. by Andrew - December 2016 Scholarship Essay

A huge difference that lies between me and many other of your applicants is that I have such a passion and fire in my stomach to succeed and overcome any obstacle that stands in my way and the fire that I have is almost inextinguishable. I knew this fire existed once I was diagnosed with ADHD and to be honest when those words rolled off my doctor’s lips I felt like everything in that exact moment had changed and that I immediately became such an outsider like there’s something wrong with me and everyone stared at me because of it. For the first 3 to 4 months I was embarrassed and insecure and I will truly never forget this day my science teacher was out and we had a substitute teacher and part of having ADHD is being very jittery and being distracted by the littlest things and I couldn’t help but tap my fingers and tap my foot and the substitute said “what’s wrong with you kid can’t you sit still?”. Now of course I was ridiculously embarrassed and annoyed and I was tired of feeling different.
As soon as I got home from school I went to my parents and told them I want to begin taking medicine to help me deal with this. At first they were reluctant to just feed me a pill to get over this problem they thought with time it would go away but I needed results quicker and I knew it. They gave in and brought me to a specialist who would meet with me every two weeks and prescribe me the pill and at first I didn’t feel any difference I was still becoming distracted and still jittery and it made me furious it made me feel so worthless and stupid that I couldn’t keep my hands still it made me want to lash out in anger but my parents were right by my side to keep me calm and in control. I began to resist every temptation I felt I would hold my fingers down and put one foot on top of the other and it worked but only when I was thinking about it only when I was aware I was doing it which was rarely.

I then began to think what if I never change what if I’m like this forever in a professional atmosphere during an interview or talking to a professor or in a meeting wouldn’t my bosses become annoyed with me and look at me like I’m some type of special person and need special things. That is the last thing I wanted but then that drive kicked in and I began to work harder I went to counseling and tried different things and kept taking the medication and then I began to feel differences with myself I finally began to start to realize every time I was moving my hand or foot. One thing I hated was the academic outcome because I tried hard to get good grades and I could only pull out a 75-78 at best and that was because I would always get distracted during lessons and extra helps and I could never sit down long enough to study. But I started to see small improvements in my grades as well and now to be fair to any other person they aren’t as psyched as I am when I get a 85 or 90 and that’s only because it’s easy for them when for me an 80 or 85 is me working hard to focus on the lesson at hand do homework and force myself to sit down and study. Like I said before this is the difference between me and almost all of your applicants for this scholarship I refuse to give up and I will continue to fight this battle even though I’ve improved to the point where I don’t need the medication anymore it still has its moments where I feel it but I refuse to fall back into my old patterns and fight the urges and now I can sit still and not be looked at differently and although sitting down is just one small accomplishment this was within a 4 year span imagine the things I could do in 10 years with the education I am striving for I believe that I could achieve great things in my life.