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This is really touching to me personally because I had a similar experience in high school which leads me to the answer for your question, Luz!
I was at a dark and low point in my life and I’m telling you it was the works; I was treating myself and everyone around me terribly. I was in and out of the hospital and drowning myself in alcohol to numb the pain and cancel out the fact I was letting everything fall apart.
All that said, I was called into the counselor’s office and told that because of my behavior and truancy I would be at risk to not graduate with my senior class. It was arranged, with the principal and with all my current teachers, to pull me from my current courses and put me into remedial courses. I was floored. I knew I was intelligent, I knew I didn’t belong in these rooms with people who snored and drooled all over their desks and didn’t give a lick about anything. But the more I looked around, the more I’d come to terms with the fact I’d fallen into that stereotype. I was one of them.
For the next month, maybe longer, I stayed that way and I continued to isolate, continued to get worse. Until finally one teacher approached me and offered sympathy. She offered to help me bring my grades up under the stipulation I do it on MY terms. I didn’t get it then, why she was helping me when I wrote my essays and when I did my extra homework for just that bit more credit to skirt by… But I GET IT NOW. She saw something in me that she didn’t take pity on, but she thought deserved that chance to continue forward. And unfortunately I only remember her voice and her words and little else. But I am grateful.
When finals came around I took them in her room, with no guidance, and passed them with flying colors, to the shock of everyone else. In the end, I walked with my classmates, I was congratulated by my friends who I wasn’t able to face after months of solitude. It was probably the most moving and also the most stressful time of my life. But I never stopped and I got through it, and I don’t remind myself of that willpower as often as I should!
All congratulations and graduations.
Thanks for sharing you story of triumph, Fallyn. I can definitely relate to your story, as I graduated from high school, but to this day I do not understand how I did it. I was in and out of inpatient hospitalizations, and each one I went to would send me homework through my guidance counselor and mom so that I did not fall behind. I would be admitted for months at a time, and in between restraints, seclusion and self-harm I would complete the work and send it back. At my last placement, a residential in Massachusetts, I learned that I had fulfilled the requirements and had all credits needed to graduate. While living in Mass, I took a 2ish hour trip to New Britain, CT, walked the stage with my gold cap and gown and classmates I hadn’t seen in years due to extended inpatient hospitalizations, and then took another 2ish hour drive back to my residential. I am truly eternally grateful.
Thanks for sharing that Luz and Fallyn. It means a lot to know that there are others like me, who stumbled through high school because of their mental health and fell behind despite being smart and capable. I spent 6 years in high school because of my mental health, hospitalizations, truancy, drug use, suicide attempts, and family issues. I changed schools like 12 times or something crazy like that. And some how, I made it through and am now flourishing in college!
We are incredible survivors, guys. We were given so many chances to give up, had so many reasons to stop trying… and yet, here we are, living our lives and killing it despite all the shit that kept us down for years.
YES!!! We definitely are all survivors and we are real life proof that no matter what, we can get better! Never would I have thought that I would have been in the place I am now and being able to help other young adults how I am now, but here we are killing it!