Suburbanized
At age five, we moved from Los Angeles to the developing suburbia of Milpitas, California which was located on the border of electronics boom in Silicon Valley. With two kids, a domestic wife (resembling Sophia Loren at the time), my dad settled us into a new tract home. He had just finished his Air Force tour and landed a job at EAI. With my Mary Poppins umbrella, using the fireplace hearth as my stage and little brother my audience, I happily nested into this safe world until Kindergarten struck. I was told years later my teacher had classified me as, “shy” in the clinical sense, and recommended therapy. I do not recall happy memories in that classroom. In spite of my Kindergarten teacher, we bypassed therapy and I survived elementary school with good grades, multiple activities and a healthy amount of friends. Looking back, I have always felt the twinges of social anxiety.
Our 70’s Show
My father began to travel for work. After an active seven year career in PTA, Blue Birds, and Little League, my domestic mother found herself making her own money at Fairchild Semiconductors. My dad’s formal suit and tie evolved into flared cords and polyester shirts, while mom’s wardrobe went to hot pants and Go Go boots. It was the beginning of the end of their marriage. The stresses carried over into our childhood. With the sadness at home and the awkwardness of the pre-teens and teens, I was in a downward spiral with self-worth. Academics were not emphasized as we were each trying to survive a split home. I continued to build skills in art, music, creative writing and sports. Those may have been arenas and outlets allowing me to cope. One teacher stands out who earnestly praised and encouraged me. Other than my two closest frien...
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...age. Maybe that is an unusual thing to mention, but as a single parent raising a daughter, statistically, the odds have been against us. Their mutual faith is in their favor as they deliver their 3rd child within a month, but they still experience the challenges of marriage. I have landed here with them as they keep building the family while he finishes medical residency. In order to be here, I made a huge change. I’m choosing to reroute my original plan and pursue an education I’ve always longed for. I have specific ideas I’d like to accomplish with a BA in Communications; however, I have learned that we can make plans but must be open to the flexibility of change. The link to “Composing a Life Story”
(http://www.commondreams.org/cgi-bin/print.cgi?file=/views05/0329-21.htm ) in our text reading has helped confirm that for me. I will be re-reading that a few times.
She would mostly be alone and sit by herself being buried in books or watching cartoons. In high school she attended a program for troubled adolescents and from there she received a wide range of support from helping her get braces to helping her get information to attend community college. (59) Even with this she was already too emotionally unstable due to her family issues and felt like she couldn’t go through with her dreams to travel and even go into the art of culinary. She suffers from psychological problems such as depression and worries constantly about almost every aspect in her life from work to family to her boyfriend and just hopes that her life won’t go downhill. (60) Overall Kayla’s family structure shows how different is it now from it was in the 1950’s as divorce rates have risen and while before Kayla’s type of family structure was rare now it is becoming more common. This story helps illustrate the contributions of stress that children possess growing up in difficult homes in which they can’t put their own futures first they must, in some cases, take care of their guardian’s futures first or others around them. Again, this adds into the inequality that many face when it comes to being able to climb up the ladder and become successful regardless of where one
I have many things that I love in this life, one of those things is wrestling. I have been wrestling for seven years and I have developed quite the passion and love for it. Wrestling has always been an interesting sport for me. Growing up in Oregon I watched my uncles wrestle in high school. I watched both of them win their state tournament in their respective weight classes, this is one of my fondest memories of my childhood. One of them went on to wrestle division one, I thought this was the coolest thing in the world. I looked up to my uncles and wanted to be just like them. I did not always wrestle though. The process of pursing my dream as of becoming a wrestler started of with basketball, then went to a rocky start, then being on Worland High School wrestling team.
Halfway through my sophomore year, my mom ran into some financial troubles. We had no choice, but to move away from my high school, and move in with my grandparents. After we moved, she didn’t have a job for over a year. I really didn’t want to switch schools. I was comfortable at my school and with my friends. My mother was willing to let me continue going there, even after we moved. I drove 30 minutes, everyday so I could go to school. It wasn’t easy, but it’s been worth it. I had to get up even earlier, I
In the summer of 1998 my family fled the newly created independent country of Croatia (Former-Yugoslavia) to the United States. My parents came here in hopes of finding a better life as the economy was still recovering from Croatia’s war of independence. We first settled in Amarillo, Texas for a few months. We traveled around the states for a year or so looking for other refugees. After some searching my parents decided to move to Connecticut as it offered the best incentives for refugees. Listening to stories about this time of my life has given me a chance to appreciate the help we received from various government programs that settled us, clothed us, fed us, and helped us become independent American citizens. Now I want to give back and the best way I know to do this is by teaching the future generations of Americans.
This book studies closely all factors of social phobia in youth. One of the earliest point is that introverts are much more likely to have SAD than extraverts. Very interesting observation is that every patient has something called behavioral inhibition. It's used to describe fear, avoidance, timidity when in contact with new things or people and way of acting towards them. Most “prevalent social fears included: speaking before others or taking tests, speaking in public, conversing with others, eating or drinking in public” (Kearney, 24) More girls than boys confessed to having these sorts of fears.
My mom always told me about the story of my birth. It was the cold, blizzardy night of January the 4th. She had been in labor for nearly 24 hours, and when I was finally born, she was happy to have a son. Up to this day, she jokes that I have been stubborn since before I was born. That was the first story of my life, and you can bet that there were many more to come.
I was ten years old when I was told I had some sort of social anxiety. I had no idea why I didn’t like to be in the public eye, I just didn’t. My parents were aware of this and they were told I should be introduced with other kids in a sporting activity or something of general interest. I had no idea what I was into really, TV and video games like any other kid, but obviously, they lacked social interaction. I just didn’t want to talk to anyone else; I just didn’t care for any attention. I was told to make my mind up and decide what kind of club I wanted to join. My parents suggested judo, a tough and disciplined sport that I always respected, I agreed but instantly regretted my decision…
I grew up as a Southern Baptist. My family has always belonged to the same church and to this day my parents and my brother’s family still attend First Baptist Church in Forest City, North Carolina. One of the reasons Baptists are given this name is because they are not baptized as infants, but when they are old enough to understand the full concept of Jesus and the sacrifice He made for us. I accepted the Lord as my personal savior when I was thirteen and made a public profession of my faith by walking to the front of the church one Sunday morning. Many factors in the past have influenced my relationship with God and continue to do so daily.
I grew up in the 80s (born in 1977) and while I am sure that era impacted me in more ways than I am even aware of, I think that it was my own personal home life that set me on my current path. My mother was much older (she was 40 when I was born) and only had a 6th grade education. My father was 19 when I was born and had his GED. They had a tumultuous relationship for obvious and private reasons. They divorced when I was seven years old and I remained with my mother. Both parents worked in manual labor type jobs—my mother cleaned houses and my father repaired mobile homes. Neither knew how to be parents. My mother was an alcoholic who, I now believe, was also bipolar, and my father was just
My education journey has been through some setbacks, but I have continued to push forward and conquered. I have felt that I have a fixed mind set and just am not capable of achieving some things. After learning the difference between growth and fixed mindset I have realized that everyone is capable of learning anything through hard work and dedication.
My parents sensed my troubles and we moved. Adjusting to a new high school took time. It was not easy making new friends and I continued to be lost. These incidents weighed heavily on my mind. My anguished heart refused to see beyond my own woes. A recent disturbing incident changed my purview of life.
At the young age of ten, I was faced with a situation that has had one of the largest influences in who I am today. My parents’ divorce has and still currently plays a role in my life that has affected my drive for motivation bringing diverse perspectives. At such a young age, I was filled with such remorse, discouragement, and fear. My educational abilities were collapsing, along with some of my common social activities. I was absent-minded due to my adolescent understanding and confusion of the situation. I became emotionally depleted coming eye to eye with what I was promised would never happen. My personal connections with my family gradually became diminished, from what I kept so valuable. I was placed in a situation that tore apart my contentment, arrogance, and self motivation. It wasn’t until years later, I took my position as a chance to transform my bleakness into a strong desire for greatness.
As a young child I was a non social person, and did not like to participate in anything. I liked to be an individual person, and do things on my own. I was shy and not outgoing like all my other friends were. When I enter a situation for the first time, I have a hard time speaking up until I feel comfortable. As being as shy as I was, my school work was affected a lot because I would not raise my hand to ask questions if I did not understand something, or go to the teacher for help. It was hard to transition from that stage to being more outgoing and talk more with my peers. It was difficult to communicate with others becuase of this as well, i was not able to be the perosn that i really am.
While in school, Mom didn’t have it to easy. Not only did she raise a daughter and take care of a husband, she had to deal with numerous setbacks. These included such things as my father suffering a heart attack and going on to have a triple by-pass, she herself went through an emergency surgery, which sat her a semester behind, and her father also suffered a heart attack. Mom not only dealt with these setbacks but she had the everyday task of things like cooking dinner, cleaning the house and raising a family. I don’t know how she managed it all, but somehow she did.
My aspiration toward a better education starts all the way back to when I started school in Russia. Out of the short educational experience that I had in Russia, I remember that almost everybody wanted to be the straight-A student (or straight-"5" by Russian grading). That, combined with the constant pressure from my family helped me get excited about school and made me want to learn. My education in Russia was cut short, however, when we moved to the United States.