This post has not been vetted or endorsed by BuzzFeed's editorial staff. BuzzFeed Community is a place where anyone can create a post or quiz. Try making your own!
I'd just like to take a fraction of your day, if you don't mind dear reader. I think it's important to remind yourself in the wake or ongoing duration of the Higher School Certificate to remember your roots to which you grew from into who you are. I wanted to give a speech at year 12 graduations. I wasn't selected or even asked. That's quite ok. I'm not bitter and I forgot my medication that day and ended up sobbing so profusely I was physically convulsing on my seat, the poor girl sat compulsorily next to me was alarmed. My inner crazy was dripping from my eyes and my throat was raw. So in hindsight, which I was taught, is 'always 20/20' by a very special history extension teacher who knows who she is. I suppose it was for the best. I'm writing this to anyone embarking or living with someone doing the HSC. I want you to know something. YOU can make it through the other end. I was hospitalised mid way through the second semester of year twelve for three weeks; I left school in year ten briefly to become a beauty therapist, I returned and I changed schools. Before hand, I was problematic. I didn't listen, I cried daily and I skipped mathematics like it was my personal occupation.I played hooky to walk around the streets with my array of well meaning yet problematic boyfriends and I regularly purposely ripped up examinations and I was often the microcosm of high school burn out. I came back though. I moved schools to Kellyville High. It quite possibly and literally saved my life. Dragged kicking and screaming, by my mother who is a terrifically strong and brash Scottish social worker and who doesn't know the definition of 'giving up' placed me, much to my own dismay at Kellyville. I have a very mild from of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, generalised anxiety and medicated depression. I was never in the top three for any of my courses or in state sporting teams or even despite my background in the performing arts as my last high school (which was a performing arts high school) particularly involved in anything special or wonderful within the school grounds. I was however in pieces, given my life back. I was given a voice and opportunity. I wasn't treated well because I was achieving anything I was treated well in spite of it. I was treated how students need to be treated and deserve to be seen. I was treated as potential. I was treated as someone who can actually be taught. I want to tell you. YOU CAN ACTUALLY BE TAUGHT. I was welcomed in open arms. By friends, who wanted to show the new girl around and by teachers who asked me 'why?'"Why do you act up?"For the first in my life I was actually asked why instead of abandoned. The answer was endless and relentless but can basically be summed up in the statement "Because I don't think I'm capable, and if I am I don't think I deserve to do well."I was told- "Sophie, you have just as much a right to be here and succeed as everyone else." If you've ever experienced depression you'll know the weight of these words. They're heavy but I whole-heartedly believed them and I still do. I believed the teacher who said them meant them. I was given love when the chip on my shoulder was jagged and abrasive, I was given love when I tried to self-sabotage,I became someone who my parents always knew existed. Someone who has the capacity to finish assignments and grace grades upwards of seventy and the occasional ninety. I became someone who writes poetry instead of breaking things to release emotion. I became the blonde smiling girl sitting at the IEF- Disability units table at my year twelve formal. I became someone who shows compassion and tries to understand before judgement. I became a four time published blog writer (My one and only personal claim to fame) however most importantly I became someone I actually like. I like that girl. I like that person. I like that she volunteers to help teach kids how to read and to go on camps with foster children. I like that person who feels electric when she writes. I was always her, however Kellyville did bring the best out of me, and so did the students, teachers and families their.So dear reader, please know we are all capable don't abandon who you are. You will make out alive I promise.
Share This Article
