So I wrote an essay about stuttering for a scholarship application

So I wrote an essay about stuttering for a scholarship application For a college scholarship application, I had to write an essay about overcoming an adversity in my life and I knew the biggest adversity in my life. Stuttering. I wrote the essay on that, and in it I wrote down every single feeling about stuttering I had ever had and I would like to share it with you. I may have outgrown it at this point, but this recalls how I let it control me for so long. Please remember the target audience while reading this and provide som constructive criticism if need be. Here it is. Over the course of my life, I have always been inspired by the secret strength of that has been hidden in the hearts of children. From Anne Frank conserving her sense of optimism and idealism in a period of time when such atrocities were being committed to Ryan White who proudly educated the nation about AIDS despite being only a child. Children can make all the difference and the power that their souls hold can overcome any adversities that may come their ways. I will tell you another story of a young child overcoming adversities, a very personal one. This is my story of standing up in the face of adversity and becoming a better person because of it. Even from the age of being able to speak, you could always tell I was different. All I had to do was say one word and it was readily apparent. I could not speak, at least not in any fluent manner. This stutter, once the bane of my existence, I would soon come to know as possibly the greatest things to ever happen to me. The anxiety and anguish that goes along with having a stutter is not one that should be ignored. It is terribly debilitating in the worst possible way. Imagine a man who would follow you everywhere and interrupt you every time you spoke. No matter how loudly you spoke, he would always speak louder. Nobody else can see this man because he isn’t visible. So the ridicule of never being able to finish your sentences causes you shame and embarrassment, but no matter how much you yell at the man and how many sleepless nights you may encounter due to the fear of speaking, he remains and perseveres. A stutter is knowing exactly what you want to say, but being blocked and censored by yourself. It is shame wrapped in misery that you are forced to think about every second of every day. It is having a panic attack every time the teacher tells you to speak in front of the class. It felt like nobody understood. I was inherently different and undeserving of speech in comparison to my peers. I was kept quiet, not by choice, but by fear of ridicule. All to common I heard “talk slower” or “did you forget your name?” in response to me attempting to introduce myself. In order to reduce confusion, my stutter had been occurring for my entire life, and was not caused by anxiety. The anxiety stemmed from the stutter. It reduced me to be purposefully mute, despite my abilities to make noises. Nobody could explain the pure excitement that grew out of saying one short sentence without a block. I was losing out on credit for many school assignments that required group work and chances for social activities because of my shame. For many years, I felt inadequate and less of a human being. Discontent grew inside my gut and flared in my heart. I have a life to live and if this disfluency wanted to make me lose out on it, I would give the hardest run it ever had. At the end of seventh grade, I changed. Everybody has the right to say what’s on their mind, including myself. I made a plan to either reduce my disfluency or confidently live in spite of it. Step one was to seek speech therapy. I talked to my parents (very slowly and carefully) and they got the help that I needed and that helped tremendously and I can’t thank them enough for their continued support even to this day. Step two was to take a public speaking class. I took that class despite the fear it gave me and I passed that class working through my disfluency. Step three was to introduce myself to anyone and everyone and build my self esteem again. More and more steps and my stutter hadn’t grown any quieter. It was still obvious even to a total stranger whom I’d only kept a short conversation with. My stutter was still apparent even in my sophomore year of high school. Many more therapies and confidence exercises despite my anxieties later, and by the end of my junior year, I can say confidently and loudly that my stutter is nearly gone. It was a hard, bumpy road filled with fear, ridicule, and shame, but I was still able to be a strong person. I believe that I would not be as strong a person if I had not developed this stutter. It taught me to deal with and be confident with any insecurities that I have. It taught me to be empathetic with those who are having a rough time with experiences in their lives and to never hurt people with my new found power of speech. Mine may have been more obvious to the naked ear, but please be patient with those suffering with their own personal adversities. You never know what they’re going through.