Ciera Walden

No Longer A Poster Girl

My name is Ciera, and I feel like a failure. There, I said it. I was once a poster girl for “what to do” and “how to do it”. I contributed to every charity event the small town high school of Marshville, North Carolina played a roll in. I excelled in every AP class you could imagine, particularly college English and history courses. I planned and presented an unimaginable number of speeches and presentations to school staff, student councils boards, national honors society boards, and many more. I played sports, I held positions, you get the picture. Overall, I soared tremendously and received extreme praise from family members, teachers, and advisors, which kept my self esteem afloat amidst the intense schedule these endeavors demanded. I had a beautiful plan for my life after high school. I would move to Stephenville, Texas and attend Tarleton State University, who I had received many scholarships from, where I would obtain a bachelors degree in pre clinical psychology from the Honors College and then go on to obtain a masters and hopefully get a job in the research side of psychology. My education and what I thought would one day be my career, meant the world to me and everyone who knew me had more faith in my plan, and my ability to carry it out, then I could probably imagine. Low and behold, they were wrong.