What made simply "showing up" to school a challenge for me was the complications I had with my heart problem. I have Long QT Syndrome, a rare condition that causes an irregular heartbeat. Its symptoms include Fainting, Seizures, Cardiac Arrest, and Sudden Death. Before I was diagnosed with it, I had several fainting spells at school. For years, I was afraid to go to school because of people's instilled fear that one of these things would happen to me. The first time one of these episodes ever happened was when I was in second grade where I stood up, was dizzy, and then fainted, landing face-first onto the table in my classroom. I remember waking up confused and then panicked when I realized that I had chipped my front tooth. When I went to the doctors, they didn't think much of it and told me that it happened because I am tall, and thin for my age. They told me to drink a lot of water. I also thought nothing of it, I was just worried about the fact that I looked like a hillbilly until I got my front tooth filled in. After the first fainting spell, I went to third grade which was a pretty chill year. No fainting spells happened until fourth grade after I had finished State Testing, I grew light-headed, and I just passed out, this time I landed backward, my head bent over my chair. Of course, when I went to the pediatrician, they just said that I was dehydrated. Yet, it kept happening. I would pass out at school once every two weeks. It wasn't until the Friday of Memorial Day Weekend, 2017. When the whistle blew to conclude recess, I just went out. Boom, I fell from the bench I was sitting on, face first on the floor, with no time to process what was happening. I got a concussion, and I felt awful after. My mom was concerned, so she brought me to the hospital. When we got to the hospital the doctor who was there was immediately concerned and the next thing I knew, I was diagnosed with Long QT Syndrome. When I returned to school after that, this fear was instilled in everyone around me. When word got out about what had happened, not only were the teachers afraid, but students were scared as well. Since they were afraid, in fifth grade I had to carry around a walkie-talkie, I wasn't allowed to participate that much in gym class, and if I had to go somewhere that wasn't the bathroom, I had to have someone go there with me, and it went to the point that my school nurse tried to exclude me from the field trip. With everyone around me being afraid, that made me afraid as well. Even though nobody around me knew anything about my condition, or had seen my perfectly normal EKGs since I was put on my medication. Their belief that something bad would happen to me made me believe that something actually would. It took years of my mother's assurance, my cardiologist's assurance, and years of added-on dance classes for me to realize that it was true. I didn't need to be scared because nothing would happen, I could go to school like a normal person, go on field trips like a normal person, and do anything the other people could do. Now that I have adapted to my circumstances, nobody else believes that something bad will happen to me.

A few people in my family have served in the United States Coast Guard. I am close to all of them and have many stories about them. I want to focus on my grandfather. My grandfather served in the Coast Guard for decades, traveling to numerous states with his family and serving the country. When I was born, my grandpa had since retired from the military. My grandfather passed away when I was just ten years old, and his loss really shook me up, I remember sitting at his funeral, and I just broke down sobbing on the little bench at the funeral home. Such a short period and such fond, distant memories I had of him played in my head, and as I write this to you, they still do. My grandpa was a nice man, who loved his grandchildren, especially me. Some of the only memories I have of my grandpa after I lost him at such a young age were him constantly telling me that I was his favorite granddaughter. Every time I saw him I was reminded of how much he loved me already, and how proud of me he was even though I was super young and hadn't achieved much yet. My grandpa said this to me because even though I was little, my parents taught me to be respectful, and kind, and he knew that even though I was a bit silly, I was a good kid. He made sure to remind me of this, I don't remember what it was, but something about me really made him sit back and think, "That's my favorite granddaughter", and maybe he is watching over me right now saying that. I don't remember much of my grandfather, but I can remember the lessons he taught me about myself. He taught me that I am a kind and respectful person with the motivation to do good and be kind to others. He also taught me that I am capable of going after my dreams and making them a reality no matter how hard it might be, the worst that could happen is that I could fail, but I can get back up and try again. My grandpa helped me realize that there's nothing wrong with me and that even though he is said to be "Gone" he isn't. I think losing him is what made me stronger because now I don't necessarily have his reassurance that I am his favorite granddaughter, that means that I need to assure myself, and I need to seek my own approval which is something that I still work on to this day. Yet thanks to him, I get closer to it every single day.

When I was born in 2007, my parents always knew that I had ADHD. It runs in the family after all. My historical experience started when I was tiny. When I was younger I had issues coping with the sounds of people coughing or sneezing, I would get overwhelmed a lot and bite my mother, and I was deathly afraid of men to the point where I temporarily quit dance because one of my teachers was a man. Adjusting to my surroundings and coping was very hard for me, and I had to be enrolled in my districts special education program. I was certified, and in special needs for a few years before being de-certified in kindergarten. Nothing stand out-ish happened until second grade and my ADHD got in the way of my learning. Of course, I didn't notice anything, I didn't think anything was wrong with me. Nothing is wrong with me. When my teacher would tell me to focus and would tell my parents that something was up, I thought that I was a bad kid. I wasn't a bad kid, my teacher just knew something was up, and so did my parents. In March 2015, I was officially diagnosed with ADHD and I was put on medication to help. The medication did help for the time that I was able to take it. In 2017, when I got diagnosed with a heart problem I was put on medication to keep my heart healthy. Unfortunately, since this medication negatively interfered with my ADHD meds, I couldn't take them anymore. This was a challenge within itself because this meant that I did not have the help from the meds to focus, and self-regulate. I would have to do the work that my meds did when it came to regulating emotions, focus, executive functioning, and interpersonal relationships. That in itself is probably one of the hardest things I do every day. For years, I spent my time hating what was given to me, and I tried so hard to mask myself and to be like the other kids. That never worked, I never understood that there was nothing wrong with me because of how different I was from the other kids. I never understood that maybe because I'm so different from these other kids, I have an advantage. That advantage would be the story that I get to tell you today. If I didn't struggle in the past with this fun and daunting thing called ADHD, which I still do to this day struggle with, I wouldn't have the perspective that I have now, I wouldn't have the patience that I have now, I wouldn't have the creativity that I have now. In high school I changed my perspective completely, I'm open about my ADHD, and I'm open about my struggles. I talk to my family about what I went through and how certain things affect me now. The most interesting thing is how my ADHD changes through the years, and how much it influences things like my emotions, my creativity, and my passion for dance, screenwriting, and production design. I plan to work with my brain and use these things to my advantage. I know that my creativity and my vision come from this. It's why I always am so inspired artistically, it's why I always have an idea and a new world in my head. Whether I forget about these ideas and worlds or not, they come from me and my ADHD, and I plan to embrace who I am in the future.

What I love about writing is the ability to create my own worlds and my own stories that are separated from what is going on in my life. Although I can separate my life from my writing, I can also use my writing to cope with whatever problem I have going on. What I mean is that I can take something I don't like from my life and create a character or an entire story with it. Writing allows me to express my creativity, and get out all of the complicated, and sometimes crazy ideas that come up in my head. I would like to go to Fitchburg State University, and study Film and Video. I can continue writing in college by writing screenplays, and scripts for whatever projects, and short films me and my future classmates make in school with the recourses we have in class. I also plan on using my writing to help me pass time, or to help me deal with stress and or being overwhelmed. Sometimes the best way to deal with being overwhelmed is for me to disassociate from the world and my surroundings and retreat to my own world in my head. By writing, I am doing just that. I know that in college there will be many new ideas, some good, some that I will look back at and cringe at. Every year brings on a new phase of life for me and a new string of events, and with that comes new ideas, new characters, new plot lines, and new worlds that I can make come true with my writing since I am not a good drawer. I also know that when I'm in college, my writing will improve. Improvement happens every year, when I look at things I've written last year compared to this year there is always a difference, and when I read the things I've written a long time ago I either cringe and think "What the hell was I on?", or I laugh, and I ask myself, "What was I thinking?!". I have a lot of stories that I have written in my google drive, especially when I started taking the whole writing thing seriously. The stories I wrote when I was in 8th grade were terrible, but what is astonishing to me are the amount of storylines, settings, plots, and characters I have come up with in the past four years. Probably hundreds, it is always fun to look back and see all the ideas, and characters that I've created that I either still build upon, or I just completely forgot. That is why I love writing so much, it is like a time capsule, and a lot of the time what you write is a window to what is going on in your actual life. It is the ability that writing gave me to always have an idea in my head, and to be creative in ways that I never thought I could be. It is also the way to embrace the imagination that I was once ashamed of. There's no rules when it comes to writing, and that is why I will always turn to writing. I can't help it, and I'm glad I can't.