Life Will Not Give You Something You Cannot Handle, My journey in finding peace in this world. by Ben

Life Will Not Give You Something You Cannot Handle, My journey in finding peace in this world. by Ben - June 2024 Scholarship Essay

If you asked sophomore-year me where I’d be in two years, I probably would’ve said something like ‘dead in a ditch.’ To be honest, with the direction I was going, that was probably accurate. I wasn't on a good path. I'd like to use this small writing block of mine to tell you my experience in high school and to offer you the context behind my transcript. I want you to see what was really going on throughout the years.
Through my high school years, I struggled from a variety of factors. Name any year, I could write a novel on it. It's been an unpredictable rollercoaster, always something plummeting at me from left field it seemed. I didn't imagine high school would be all too bad. Though, I wouldn't say it was completely detrimental. I learned a lot of important lessons from those experiences. It hurt like hell, but I always came out a better person. When I talked to my mentee at school, they struggled to believe I used to be such a wreck.
I don’t think I started high school on a good note. During online school in 2020, I was pouring my dad’s tequila into my drip coffee every morning that I could. I couldn’t stand online school. I’d have my school Chromebook open with my Google Meet class, next to it, my personal laptop watching video essays on YouTube. Earbuds were plugged into my school Chromebook and my laptop, one of each in my ears. I was definitely no star student. The combination of autism, learning disabilities, and undiagnosed ADHD didn’t mix well with all this too.
School was back to full-time in-person when sophomore year started. I was going through a rebellious phase as all do, but it was one that spiraled quickly into severe addiction and run-ins with school disciplinary action. I started heavily drinking and smoking weed; it then led to me abusing pills. I did anything and everything I could get my hands on. I was thankfully one of the lucky ones that didn’t run into opioids. But it still didn’t stop me from ruining all the relationships around me. When I was using, I lost all morality. My loved ones had 911 on speed dial from how worried they were about my mental health and safety back then. I was sick, I spit back at them in their face for caring.
My first rock bottom had hit pretty fast. I was on MLK Way in the Othello neighborhood of Seattle outside a 7/11 around 10:30pm. It had been raining all day. I found myself laying in a deep puddle in the parking lot, staring off at the unfenced Light Rail tracks that go through the median, separating the two ways of traffic. I was completely plastered. It felt as if these tracks were trying to welcome me.
Over the summer before my junior year, I realized what I was doing to myself and to people around me. It horrified me. It scared me straight if you’d like to put it that way. That was something I used to hold on to as a reason to stay sober in my first year. I struggled to stay doing a 12-step program for the first year. I wanted what everyone in the rooms had, but I didn’t want to do the work.
It came to a breaking point; I had two options. Go back out to die a slow death, or transfer to Interagency Recovery Academy and start the path to a better life. Being how desperate I was, I chose the latter. It’s indescribable how grateful I am that I had made that decision. I now go through with every suggestion I’m given. The people around me have seen a noticeable, positive change. The recovery school is the best thing that could have ever happened to me, really. As someone who is autistic I have always struggled in a traditional school environment. I also had really bad social anxiety and even a school of 300 students was still too overwhelming. The recovery school has approximately almost 40 students, which has been a blessing. It created a much more comfortable environment for me to get sober in and at the time of writing this I have 14 months clean and sober in recovery. I’m forever grateful to be able to be here today, alive and breathing. I now know one important fact about this world: life will not give you something you cannot handle.