A Search for A Self and Myself - About Me Essay, Essays (university) of Technical Writing

Download A Search for A Self and Myself - About Me Essay and more Essays (university) Technical Writing in PDF only on Docsity! Kelly Larsen A Search for A Self and Myself I entered third grade innocent, in one piece, unbroken. I left a shell of myself, afraid, and forever changed. Sure I had faced my stressors at school in the past, but I got through, I managed. But it was different then. The pressure of third grade was astronomical to me, long division, cursive, weekly poem recitations, long term projects; we had reached a whole new world here. It all started with the expectation that I would always be the first student in the class to perfectly recite the weekly poem from memory. After the first couple of weeks when I always volunteered to go first and did the recitation well, there was this unspoken assumption from my parents, my teacher, and me that I would recite the poem the day after it was given to us. This alone was innocent enough, but it escalated into my need to be the best at long division, writing, cursive, have the best projects and highest test scores. At first, not much was different because I was used to being the best in the class without really trying too much but it soon turned into obsession. I was plagued by the constant wonder of what would happen if I weren’t the smartest. I was sure my parents would be disappointed and even worse, something horrific would happen to me. What that “horrific” thing was I could not really tell you for sure, but I knew it would be crippling. I was convinced I was going to die. Or at least, if I didn’t die I would be doomed for all eternity, beginning with my ultimate failure in school. I was only nine and yet I knew these things to be true, certain. My one and only goal was to prevent my utter damnation, and each day was simply another day to try and prevent the inevitable. I was alive, but I wasn’t living. I had never questioned that this was, and would be my only reality. I was on a search for my own invincibility. I created my shell of safety giving me an escape from the reality of my life at the time. Deep down, as much as I knew it was impossible, I always wondered if it could happen, if I could with certainty, prevent the danger. There is a very specific moment from third grade that seemed to set off the worst of it. My mom was in the classroom that day helping out, I think she was a room parent, and we were supposed to be writing the third grade equivalent of an essay. We had just talked about introductory sentences and their importance in our writing. I sat at my desk, unsure where to begin. I figured I would write the body of my essay first, since that would be easier. I went back to the top of the page when I was done and tried to think of the perfect opening sentence. I was stuck and I panicked. I honestly felt my world come crashing down on me. I started crying and ran over to my mother yelling, “It needs to be perfect” over and over while she tried to get me to calm down and understand that it was just a sentence, it wasn’t the end of the world. She was wrong. It was the end, here it was and my horrible damnation was coming. I would be thrown out of school and then my family would disown me and I would die. I don’t remember how it ended, or if ultimately my introductory sentence was as perfect as I wanted, but that was the first of many times I felt my life fly completely out of my control. From then on every night was pure torture. I started getting really anxious before bed, feeling really sick and I would stand on the top of the stairs crying and pleading with my parents not to make me go to school the next day. When I finally got into bed I would ask my mom over and over “Do you promise?” to ensure that I would survive the next day. My mom got me a plain keychain a couple years later with the word promise engraved so that I could carry it around with me at all times, and I still keep my keys on that keychain. Tattooed on my foot is “I promise” in Elvish because to this day, such a simple phrase carries such strong meaning for me.