Here goes, and though I know it is a topic that people may be reluctant to jump in on, but please do, I am all ears. Thanks.
The hardest period of my life I have ever had to go through was my freshman year of high school. When I was in eighth grade, I was tentatively excited about moving on to high school. I loved my small Montessori school, and sometimes I still wish that I could slip back into the small group of students and just start my old classes again. Still, I had gone from an average student to an A/B student in my last couple of years, and I was feeling good about a new challenge. I was cagily optimistic about the move away from my small school, which had become a kind of second home for me, to a totally foreign and much more demanding environment.
The first few days at my new school went fine, though I mostly felt like I was just holding it all together. Transitions have always been hard for me, but I was determined to do my absolute best to give the school an honest shot, and to keep my mind as open as possible. I did do my best, I don't know what else I could have done, but within a week, I was in a pit of despair. I had never experienced anything close to this feeling of hopelessness. I could hardly make it through the morning without breaking down in one of my classes. I dropped out of school for a few weeks and, with my parents' support, sought help. I became a "504" student on the circuit of figuring out why life was suddenly and unexpectedly so challenging for me. I was eventually able to return, and came back as a regular student in my second semester. This depression would come in waves for my whole freshman year, most of my sophomore year, and even the very start of my junior year.
For me, dealing with depression meant getting out of my school. In reality, it is a decent high school, but because of the difficulty of my initial transition, I always dreaded the place. I set a goal in my freshman year to do whatever I could to get into the Running Start program, and start a more independent course of study. Finally, the end of sophomore year came, and I signed up to attend North Seattle Community College the following fall. Even then I was uneasy; I thought that it might just be easier to tolerate two more years of my current school, rather than dive into another transition, but I knew that I had to try something different in order to feel something different.
North Seattle Community College was very different from any other experience I had ever had before. After the initial transition period had passed, I realized how much I liked what I was doing. I was now taking classes with people who actually had signed up to be there. The teachers did not have to spend any time getting people to quiet down or pay attention; the responsibility to pass the class was the student's. This current period has been one that is challenging, but also triumphant.
My depression has been the biggest challenge of my life. It was the hardest and, in some ways, the most humiliating period I ever had to get through. But I have been getting through it, and I am proud of the path I have chosen. My individual progression into a college environment has been, and is, an incredibly shaping and influencing event. It is much more academically and socially challenging, as well an independence-developing experience. As well as helping to lift me out the darkest period of my life, it has fostered my sense of independence, and developed me into a much more critical thinker.
The hardest period of my life I have ever had to go through was my freshman year of high school. When I was in eighth grade, I was tentatively excited about moving on to high school. I loved my small Montessori school, and sometimes I still wish that I could slip back into the small group of students and just start my old classes again. Still, I had gone from an average student to an A/B student in my last couple of years, and I was feeling good about a new challenge. I was cagily optimistic about the move away from my small school, which had become a kind of second home for me, to a totally foreign and much more demanding environment.
The first few days at my new school went fine, though I mostly felt like I was just holding it all together. Transitions have always been hard for me, but I was determined to do my absolute best to give the school an honest shot, and to keep my mind as open as possible. I did do my best, I don't know what else I could have done, but within a week, I was in a pit of despair. I had never experienced anything close to this feeling of hopelessness. I could hardly make it through the morning without breaking down in one of my classes. I dropped out of school for a few weeks and, with my parents' support, sought help. I became a "504" student on the circuit of figuring out why life was suddenly and unexpectedly so challenging for me. I was eventually able to return, and came back as a regular student in my second semester. This depression would come in waves for my whole freshman year, most of my sophomore year, and even the very start of my junior year.
For me, dealing with depression meant getting out of my school. In reality, it is a decent high school, but because of the difficulty of my initial transition, I always dreaded the place. I set a goal in my freshman year to do whatever I could to get into the Running Start program, and start a more independent course of study. Finally, the end of sophomore year came, and I signed up to attend North Seattle Community College the following fall. Even then I was uneasy; I thought that it might just be easier to tolerate two more years of my current school, rather than dive into another transition, but I knew that I had to try something different in order to feel something different.
North Seattle Community College was very different from any other experience I had ever had before. After the initial transition period had passed, I realized how much I liked what I was doing. I was now taking classes with people who actually had signed up to be there. The teachers did not have to spend any time getting people to quiet down or pay attention; the responsibility to pass the class was the student's. This current period has been one that is challenging, but also triumphant.
My depression has been the biggest challenge of my life. It was the hardest and, in some ways, the most humiliating period I ever had to get through. But I have been getting through it, and I am proud of the path I have chosen. My individual progression into a college environment has been, and is, an incredibly shaping and influencing event. It is much more academically and socially challenging, as well an independence-developing experience. As well as helping to lift me out the darkest period of my life, it has fostered my sense of independence, and developed me into a much more critical thinker.
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