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Natalia Small

Professor K. Smith

ENG 101

April 12, 2019

Lost but Found

The quote by George Eliot,” It is never too late to be what you might have been” reflects

with the person I used to be when I were in elementary school and middle school. When I were

in elementary school I was different from the other kids because I acted out when I didn’t

understand the work. My elementary school tried to help me learn that what I were doing was

wrong by not letting me play with the other kids during recess. Instead, the situation got worse

because I were more frustrated by being excluded from having fun. When the work got harder

for me I got recommended to stay after school for tutoring and they would work one-on-one with

me and it actually worked because my teachers were focusing on just me only instead of

speaking out into a sea of kids.

After a few weeks, I saw slight improvement in my work, this was due to me being

interested in the topic being presented to me. When the topics started to change frequently I

couldn’t keep up and I started spiralling again. The situation got worse for me but, what didn’t

help was the constant comments that were made by my classmates to demine me and make me

feel like I wasn’t smart and eventually I started to believe them. When work were given I refused

to even try because I was afraid to fail. My mom was scheduled for countless meetings with my

teachers because I was just giving up and not trying when just a few weeks earlier I was a

completely different kid. I eventually told my teachers that I preferred to choose the topics that I
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would have to write about in order for me to actually put my interest into the work I was giving

to them.

Fast forwarding to the beginning of middle school, I didn’t know what to do in a new

environment where the work was more complex than elementary school in the way that there

was now common core. I was struggling so much that nothing could help me and I was spending

almost every week in suspension because of me acting out so much just for someone to pay

attention to me. I was sent to counseling as a response to this and it was the first time I’ve ever

talked about my feelings to anyone. I would say the same things over and over again which was

that I can’t comprehend what my teachers were trying to teach me. After a while of the same

things being said my therapist made me take a psychological exam to find out if this was a

mental disorder and it was.

In 2012, I found out that I had a Learning Disability, my learning disability was ADHD

which is an Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder that stopped me from paying attention and

easily distraction from what was going on in my classroom. Ever since I found out about this

I’ve been trying to pay attention just so I didn’t let my disability define me or label me as

someone who needs help with everything. By my senior year of high school I barely need the

extra time that was given to me just incase I needed it because I started to manage my time and

pay more to the assignments when they were given. I eventually graduated high school and

which I honestly never thought I would do before I decided to take control of my disability and

stop letting it control me.

Works Cited

Eliot, George, Quote, “ It is never too late to be what you might have been”