Hope and Courage

Hi, my name is Cassidy and I've struggled with depression, anxiety, self harm, and pretty much every social situation in the the book! Yes, I just wrote that. Why you ask? Because honesty is the best policy, that's why. Have you figured out what my blog is gonna be about yet? Of course you have! you read the title like any normal person would. If you didn’t then here is a recap: hope and courage! I know, fantastic title right guys?

Anyway with that mess out of the way here is the real intro. Have you ever felt like you let yourself down in life? Like you have never truly reached your potential even though you tried your hardest? Like society is the bane of your existence even though you know it has truly no grasp on you? Well I have, every day since the age of 13. It all started when I was enrolled in a summer program.

It was a normal Saturday, mom got a new job and I was in my room messing around on my old flip phone to try and get the stupid thing to work. I heard her calling me from the kitchen, so I walked over to see what she was going on about this time. She explained that her new job provides this summer program for children with disabilities and she signed me up for it. I thought that she was signing me up to be a volunteer at that place. Turns out I was wrong and I was one of the clients instead.

Now here's the thing, at that time all I really had was ADHD and it didn’t bother me because I was taking pills for it. I thought that was normal, ya know. It didn't occur to me that ADHD was an actual disability, and that alone was enough to qualify for the summer program. This place provided support to adolescents (those aged 6-17) with a variety of   mental illnesses. (I can’t remember all of them because there are too many to name) I spent the first half of the summer thinking “yo, what the hell am I doing here? I don’t belong in this place!” and pretty much blind to the fact that there were people just like me here. News flash, you don’t necessarily need to look or act like you are on the autistic spectrum to be on it. Lets just say I found out the hard way. Aka straight up being diagnosed and going through an identity crisis that involved reevaluating the way I thought, acted, and going through all of the things I mentioned in the first sentence of this blog.

Now usually when a teacher tells you to write about a time when you have showed hope and courage in your life, people write something along the lines of “When I was a certain age ____ happened and it made me feel_____ but I _____ed and it gave me courage and hope to ____ that ____ in the _____! Now I am ____ and everything is _____ !!! YAY!!!” or the opposite of that.  I went with neither of those options. Why? Because the courage aspect of this assignment is in writing this damn thing! It takes courage to put something like this out there, especially someone like me. I am actually a very closed off person.   

-By Cassidy Takeyasu