Determination and perseverance has been the story of my life. Growing up in a single parent household made me realize the importance of surmounting all obstacles. I came to this realization by watching my Mother support both my brother and I. She would put in extensive hours at her job in order to provide a better life for us. She would constantly tell us to always think positive and to let nothing take away from us achieving our goals. She instilled these morals in us so I wasn’t going to let anything prevent me from overcoming obstacles and obtaining success. I felt as though I owed it to her because of the amount of hard work she put in to raise my brother and me.
This mentality stuck with me even when I started feeling sick in the early fall when I was nine years old. I became tired easily and was experiencing this sluggish feeling that I’ve never felt before. My Mother was growing concerned so she decided to take me to a pediatrician to indentify the problem. Upon arriving to the office I figured that they would just give me a pill to take and I would revert back to normal. Unfortunately, I was mistaken, the news was undeniably depressing. I was informed that I had been diagnosed with juvenile diabetes. This was a shot too strong for me to withstand.
My entire life has been built upon not let anything deter me from achieving success, but now I was faced with an obstacle that I felt would be impossible to overcome. My mind was racing a million miles an hour. I had thoughts of losing my friends, becoming the source of all jokes, and even dying.
I couldn’t believe that this was happening to me, and soon my attitude began to portray it. I became less sociable, kept mostly to myself, and would often lie about the reason I went to the nurse office before lunch. My fear was if any of my classmates found out about my illness they would shun me completely, and I would spend the rest of my days lonely. This was an obstacle that was indeed proving to be more than I could handle.
This feeling remained with me up until my Mother talked about my situation with a classmate’s parents. The next day in class it was revealed that I was a diabetic. This occurrence humiliated me, and the negative thoughts arose in my mind. I believed that now that my secret was exposed I would spend the rest of my life in solitude.
To my surprise none of the things that I dreaded happened. Instead, my classmate where actually interested in finding out more about diabetes. The fact that I wasn’t being shunned made me feel as though this obstacle could be overcome. Knowing that my friends would support me was a positive outcome. I began to turn back to normal and abandoned the idea that diabetes would be an obstacle forever holding me down. I believe in overcoming obstacles because with the help of my friends I managed to overcome the biggest obstacle in my life.