Lauren
Bio
Aspiring writer.
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Stories (5)
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ADHD & DADDY ISSUES
Growing up with ADHD for me meant that I always had trouble focusing on even the simplest of tasks. For that reason I was pretty heavily medicated as soon as possible, which is a big part of why it took me a week to type this essay out. The other reasons would be that I am currently working full-time and that I couldn’t decide whether to write about my indescribably dysfunctional relationship with my father or the ADHD that was crippling up until a couple years ago. (So I finally decided to give both a shot.) Growing up with ADHD while I watched my completely “normal” sisters go about their daily lives was awful, especially when my father was constantly comparing me to either one. If I couldn’t spell a word correctly, he put me in the corner to guess until I got it right. When I got honors or was one of six to receive the spelling award, I had done something else wrong that overshadowed my accomplishments. We checked my grades daily and if there was anything missing there was hell to pay. Even when he was in prison, he still managed to breathe down my neck and control my every move, not taking into consideration how his incarceration had affected me, forcing me to grow up much faster than mere 13 years should have required. While my friends hung out every weekend I was forced to drive 3 hours to visit a man whom I firmly resented at that point in my life. And while I should have been at home working on schoolwork, my sisters and stepmother and I were being evicted in front of the entire neighborhood, forced to move into my mothers’ small apartment only to move from there to what was basically equivalent to a rundown shack and to be yet again be evicted by our misogynistic…jerk of a landlord and move back in with my mother. So while I struggled to stay afloat, my already very limited friend group was dwindling because I was unavailable and secretive out of embarrassment and my grades thus dropped drastically. I had left the honor roll behind and took up a secret form of rebellion instead. Then there was high school. I made it through the first few months in a kind of stereotypical bliss of naïveté and “love”. Until rumors about my father started again and my boyfriend told people a cruel rumor about me. I spiraled again and my grades suffered more than ever and throughout the next few years I continued to lose friends. There was a sort-of brief period of time in which my father kicked me out and I lived with my mother. (Our relationship honestly never recovered and, if anything, has become even more tense and hostile with recent developments and betrayals.) On the other hand, my grades went up semi-steadily and I was just shy of making the honor roll my senior year and received my first A grade since 7th grade which was a massive accomplishment for me. The bottom line of this whole story is that I’ve overcome so much and worked so hard to make it to where I am today that it would crush me if my education were to be halted or were to cease altogether. I deserve a shot despite being what you might see on paper as a bad student who you’re worried might fail. But I promise you that if you give me this chance to prove myself I will joyously and gratefully take it and cherish that opportunity.
By Lauren4 years ago in Confessions
COLLEGE
Hello, nice to “meet” you, I’m sydney—like the opera house or Australia—lower-case “s” intentional. My life’s been chaotic (not in a good way). My parents aren’t together—haven’t been as long as I can remember. I have a step-mother—not evil—and two half-sisters—not wicked—Hannah and Emily.
By Lauren4 years ago in Confessions
