Finding my Way by Charlie

Finding my Way by Charlie - November 2018 Scholarship Essay

My senior yearbook quote would be “When it is dark enough, you can see the stars,” which was said by author Ralph Waldo Emerson. Throughout my high school career, I have found myself in many dark places, a majority of which stemmed from multiple minor mental breakdowns, four major mental breakdowns, three mental disorders, two hospitalizations, and one attempt at my life. Despite all of these dark moments, I can finally see my north stars: graduation, college, and a career in music. As I follow those stars, I take a look back on the days when I couldn’t see them through the darkness.
I started suffering from low self-esteem when I enrolled into a new middle school in eighth grade. Although I made a lot of amazing friends at this new school, I found myself saying how I wasn’t as smart or as talented as them. This darkened view of myself clouded my mind, causing my transition into high school to become the perfect foundation for the mental and physical obstacles that were to come.
I have had a major breakdown for every year I have attended high school. I remember curling up in the bathroom stall as a freshman, lying on the floor with tears streaming down my cheeks. As a sophomore, I remember closing and locking a practice room door as I heard people laugh at my breakdown. During my junior year, I had an experience that was so traumatic that I was bedridden for a month; I continued to have flashbacks for the rest of the year, and I’m still in the process of forgiving the people who have wronged me. Finally, as a senior, I felt my depression relapse immensely as I suffered from hand injuries that prevented me from not only participating in school, but from participating in the orchestra program, which was always the one thing that would get me through the school year. Each breakdown drained my energy until I could feel my once bright future become dimmer and dimmer.
I was diagnosed major depression as a freshman. Depression would prevent me from participating in class; even though I was an honor student who could easily do the work I was requested to do, my depression would prevent me and tell me that my effort would all be useless in the end. My depression would soon be accompanied by generalized anxiety disorder and gender dysphoria, both of which affected my self-esteem greatly. Anxiety further incapacitated me from school work because I became easily overwhelmed with not only the workload, but from the chaos of my environment, to which I was becoming more sensitive. Finally, gender dysphoria ruined my self-esteem because even though I knew I was male, my body would remind me that I was not born with the typical male body. All of these mental disorders were like city lights that were so bright that they blocked the stars and made the brightest ones barely visible to the naked eye. These bright lights prevented from navigating by the stars, and I continued to get lost through these dark times.
Perhaps my darkest moments were when I was admitted to a mental hospital. I was admitted twice for very similar reasons; the first time was because of suicidal intent and the second time was because of a suicidal attempt. I did not enjoy the intense therapy I had to go through when I was first admitted, so I protested greatly when I was told I would be admitted a second. I remember that right before I was admitted a second time, I screamed at my mother and told her she betrayed me, because she knew that I didn’t want to go to the hospital again. My mother didn’t want me to go either, and we were only forced to go there because our doctors and therapists told us that it was for the best. To this day, I don’t think the hospital itself helped me a lot, as I was more focused on getting out than recovery; in the hospital, I was so desperate to find a way out of the darkness that I didn’t know which star to follow. All that said, I felt somewhat relieved that I was not the only person navigating in the darkness, and I will also admit that I have learned a couple of methods of how to navigate my own darkness. I learned a lot of valuable lessons in that dreaded hospital, and I hope those lessons will prevent me from being admitted ever again.
I will admit that my journey through all of this has been physically, emotionally, and mentally draining, but as I continue to trudge forward, I could see glimmers of hope in the form of friends, family, and dreams that I hope to attain someday. I have had a lot of people support me throughout my journey. They helped me find the light I thought I lost when I was a freshman. As I get closer to graduation, I can already see the relief and pure joy that I will have when I walk across that stage. I will do something that I thought I would never be able to do four years ago, and when that moment happens, I will remember to cherish it and look forward to the bright future that is to come.