One of the most defining characteristics of my life thus far has been my dyslexia.

Dyslexia is something I’ve had to consistently work to overcome my entire life, yes my entire life. It makes simple tasks much more difficult, especially during childhood, and people hardly ever understand what it means or how big of an impact it can have on someone’s life.

I hated school as a kid, and I mean HATED. Some years were better than others, and some years I spent many mornings crying on the way to school begging my mother to turn the car around. God, I feel bad for her looking back on those mornings. I also seriously commend her and my father for getting me through those years.

Dyslexia is hard to understand for anyone but especially for a kid. As a little kid, all I understood was that I had to try 5x harder than everyone else in school. I didn’t get to play sports because I had to spend all of my time in after-school tutoring to merely keep up. I studied for days, yet the kid next to me who studied for an hour did better. It was infuriating, to say the least.

It was incredibly difficult to build any morsel of self-confidence when I was made to believe that something was wrong with me time and time again. I felt stupid because of my dyslexia because I was different and didn’t fit the mold teachers were used to dealing with.

Year after year I persevered, with an extremely supportive and loving family as my support system, for which I would never have been able to do so without. I also have two amazing teachers to thank for my success, shoutout Lisa and Varun, who never let me accept less than my best.

When I was a kid, I never expected to be able to go to college. I didn’t think I was smart enough to make it there. I’ve always been smart, I just don’t learn the same way as most people, and for a long time I based my self-worth off of the grades I got instead of for myself as a whole.

Here I am, a senior at the college of my dreams, six weeks away from graduation. I had to adapt to my learning style and learn how to teach myself in many cases. I have always had to work incredibly hard when it comes to school, but here I am, so close to the finish line I can taste it.

If you had told me ten years ago that I was going to graduate from College of Charleston, let alone on time, with a strong GPA, I would have never believed you. But here I am, looking to start a career in writing no less.

When I was a kid, all I thought dyslexia would do was make my life worse. As a 22-year-old soon to be college graduate, I now see what my dyslexia gave me. I have an incredible work ethic, ability to persevere, and self-confidence that was built on the back of hard work. If I weren’t dyslexic, and I hadn’t gone through everything I did, who knows who I would be today. Dyslexia made me who I am and I am proud of it.