Overcoming adversity by Benjamin

Overcoming adversity by Benjamin - May 2022 Scholarship Essay

Growing up, I’ve always felt like I was too shy and nervous to get to know different people. It was difficult for me to talk to them. I would often end up stuttering and freezing up, not knowing what to say. As a result of this, I started to have major anxiety, and meeting new people was one of my biggest fears. This was all leading up to my freshman year of highschool, where I would be in for an incredibly large change and an even larger challenge.
I attended a small private middle school and graduated 8th grade with less than 10 kids. Because of the size of this school, everyone knew one another. We were like a small family. It may not sound particularly dramatic to others but, for me, it was a huge step to then attend a public highschool with 1,200 kids and 300 kids in each grade. It seemed like most people knew each other and already had their established friend groups. I felt left out. I wanted to befriend more kids but felt awkward talking to them. While most of my peers were enjoying the weekend with their big group of friends, I was alone. I thought I had nobody. Loneliness and isolation led to extreme depression and I developed an anxiety complex during that freshman year.
After freshman year, I started to open up to my parents and my guidance counselor. I had had enough of the misery. I wanted to start feeling happier. Even with the help of a therapist and my parents, it still was hard to get into big friend groups. People at school thought I was weird and did not want to hang out with me. I still had low confidence in myself, but I was slowly building it up.
This led to my junior year of highschool where I finally felt like I burst out of my shell. Even though I still had social anxiety, I was actively working on not caring about what people thought of me. This helped me build confidence and pushed me to start acting like my genuine self in front of peers. People actually started to like me. I would socialize with tons of people and I felt like I now had a great group of friends. My junior year of highschool represented a huge turning point in my life because without it I would still be a nervous, anxious kid. Having self confidence helped me improve mentally. Self confidence even helped me get better grades because I finally believed in myself.
Overcoming my fear of talking to people and anxiety has really helped me become a more confident person. It has helped me meet amazing people over the years. Hopefully all of these connections will help me out in the future. But I am glad that I was able to get over this obstacle in my life.