Perseverance Through Familial Dysfunction: A Personal Journey

Other people see my family as broken and dysfunctional; and for years, so did I. In elementary school my family was close. As time progressed, my father grew apart from us, causing a scene on his way out of our lives. My mother, sister, and I were forced to be by ourselves since I was in the third grade. I never understood the effect that this had on me until recently. My mom tended to get mad at life and take it out on my little sister and me by beating us. From third to ninth grade I lived an awkward life. I grew apart from my mother and sister; I hardly talked to anyone for that matter. One thing I was close with was my grades, I knew that education was the one thing no one would be able to take away from me. I always saw my mom struggle with money and I

I would never want to attend due to the fact that some people in my middle school went as well, most of them made fun of me and it just got to a point where I was not very comfortable with life. Because my mom was religious, she decided not to remarry, although everyone told her to remarry and find someone that can help pay for bills and spoil her, but she never budged. I highly admire her for that. In high school, my life changed drastically once again. I was introduced to kids from more schools, new clubs and organizations, and more school subjects. For the first time in awhile, I felt that I had seen a side to life I had never seen before. I wanted to get involved with the organizations at my school but school was far away from my house and it required me to stay longer hours, and my mom to drive me everywhere I needed to go, so she highly discouraged me from joining any clubs in my school. At church it was time for me to do my confirmation, I started attending church regularly and talked to all those bullies in middle school, who are now my friends. My sophomore year we changed buildings, to a building with less traffic and closer to my