Personal Narrative: Conflict Essay Example

The tale I’m about to tell you is a conflict that has affected me all my life. You may be thinking “Maddy, you were just shy, you didn’t have anxiety.” But I don’t think most people understand how hard on you it really is. Now, I’m not trying to be overdramatic or anything like that, this is just how my has played out these past ten or so years. Anxiety is one of the worst things someone can endure. Mentally, anyway. It took me from preschool until 8th grade to come around to even talk in class, even around my closest friends. I didn’t have a lot of those, maybe one or two, unlike now where I have many. Sometimes medication and therapy don’t work for some people and they just gotta stick it out until the anxiety goes away on its own. I was on and off medication and therapy for years and just when I thought I felt good enough to come off it, I ended up back at square one again. Lucky for me, I grew out of my anxiety when I entered the eighth grade and started talking to different people. It took people a while to get used to me talking so much considering the fact that most of my classmates had probably never heard me speak before. It was a huge change for me, too, but I’m very happy with the outcome. Parts of my social anxiety still remain, like my inability to trust people with my secrets, but I’ve overcome the major issue for the most part.

When I was little I had frequent mental breakdowns and plenty of panic attacks. I understand that that type of behavior is common in preschoolers and other young children, but mine lasted until 7th grade, at the very least. My breakdowns didn’t happen as frequently as I got older, but they still resurfaced every once in awhile. From first until sixth grade I would often have to leave the classroom because I would either get too frustrated with my work, someone was picking on me, or I was too shy and nervous to read out loud to the class and would get sent to the office for that reason. I would literally cry about every little thing that didn’t go my way and was way too sensitive and whiny. In third grade and around that time in elementary school, I would have meltdowns over homework for some reason, even though I knew it was easy work. I was just way too dependant on my teachers and parents to do it by myself, even though I knew the material most of the time. Problems like this now arise only when I’m in a bad situation, whether it be drama, stress, or home issues, or if I’m already on edge for whatever reason. My family and doctors think part of the problem was a maturity issue, but this is no longer the case.

I was bullied on-and-off until seventh grade. I guess I was just an easy target, even I admit that. I didn’t have many friends until eighth grade when I came out of my shell and started talking to people. Some of that aloofness and insecurity still remains, but it rarely shows itself or influences my words, actions, or decisions. I had no friends until first grade, mostly because the “popular kids” didn’t like me and talked about me behind my back. It was a bit of a Mean Girls situation, but eventually I stopped caring. Lots of popular people still don’t like me to this day and I don’t like them either, not gonna lie about that. Lots of people were really, almost too, nice to my face and then they would go talk about me behind my back, or I would go to school the next day only to find they had turned on me. Almost everyone I knew was extremely two-faced and couldn’t seem to decide if they liked me or not. Even today I have trouble trusting people because my past experience tells me that a friend today can be an enemy tomorrow. I try not to think like this, but sometimes I can’t help it. I feel like the loud, annoying, and most-of-the-time obnoxious person I am now is better than the quiet and aloof one I was.

As you may have already guessed, I’ve had more than my fair share of fake friends. I’ve also come across some problematic teachers, which definitely made matters worse rather than help them. Some of the people that gave me trouble in the past have moved away, others I don’t talk to anymore, and others I’ve made amends with and now get along with. For the sake of the people I still go to school with I did not use any of their names in this story. If someone tried any of this hocus-pocus on me today, I would most likely call them out on it, then leave. I no longer care what people think of me and enjoy that outlook on life.

Due to the fact that I was always anxious and insecure, I didn’t speak much in school and was overly sensitive about almost everything. I had absolutely no friends until I met my still to this day best friend, Alex. We met during the first week of first grade and instantly became friends. Both of us were really shy and quiet, and we were both different from everyone else. Our first conversation went a little something like this.

“Hi, I’m Alex! What’s your name?” I replied with “I’m Maddy, nice to meet you!”

She then asked me if we could be friends and I said yes. She was one of my only friends until fifth grade, with the exception of a few other people that still mean a lot to me. She kept me company when I was lonely and we helped each other through a lot. Even though we fought a lot and had an on-and-off friendship, we remain friends to this day, despite our petty fights and disagreements. We did occupational therapy (OT) together a few times a week until third or fourth grade because we both had IEP’s and needed help learning. Even with Alex being my only friend, we usually only saw each other during lunch and recess, due to the fact that she had separate classes to attend. I wouldn’t be the person I am today without her and I think the same applies to her as well. We’ve been friends for nine years and still going strong!

Eventually, my parents became concerned with the way I had been acting and signed me up for therapy, where I was later diagnosed with anxiety. I recently found out through some documents I found that my family has a history of depression and hyperactivity disorder, but I doubt I had it, or ever will have something like that. My doctor prescribed a medication to control my anxiety, which helped for a short amount of time until we had to up the dosage. This happened several times until we took me off of medication around the time I entered sixth grade, and decided just to stick with therapy. The therapy flopped and I was so uncooperative and withdrawn that we soon quit that too, as it clearly was not helping. In eighth grade my anxiety and shyness just seemed to disappear on it’s own in the span of a few months. I stopped dressing like Jojo Siwa and more my age, and now I’m excessively loud and obnoxious. And I like it that way.

It has taken me years to find something I love to do that I’m also good at, or my niche, as they call it. I’ve tried many things such as piano, gymnastics, band, etc. But I’ve never been very good at them or fit in with the others that were actually talented at those things. Never once have I lasted more than a couple of months doing an activity once I realized I was getting nowhere talent-wise.

In eighth grade I joined cross-country and the FMS drama club. I wasn’t particularly good at running or physical activity of any kind and didn’t really enjoy it either. It also interfered with the drama schedule, which was the thing I really wanted to do, because my coach made me go to cross country four days a week and drama one day a week, which is two days a week. During the last two weeks of cross country, I stopped listening to my coach and went to drama twice a week despite her attempts to control my schedule. It was little late to do something about it, but better late than never. The only reason I didn’t quit cross country before the season ended was because my parents were paying me to stop complaining and finish the season like I had planned. But the one day a week I was allowed to go to drama was the highlight of my week, and it quickly became my passion.

I joined the tech crew for drama club during the beginning of eighth grade and it quickly became my favorite thing about school. I seemed to know exactly what to do and where to move set pieces and props, but my drama teacher put some people who didn’t know what they were doing in charge and we quickly fell behind schedule. We had so much to do during the few days before our play and only a few of us were doing work because everyone else was being obnoxious. The two students who were in charge of the tech crew were a little bit rude about most things and were extremely bossy, hence the fact that they wouldn’t listen to my suggestions and then things went wrong. I didn’t let that stop me from having fun and making friends in drama, and this year I’m not associated with them. I’ve made many friends in drama and we still keep in touch through Snapchat, because a lot of them are still in middle school. I even did the summer program, where we made a musical about ancient civilizations. Long story short, we were so hyper that the camera guy that came in to film our movie looked like he wanted to die by the end of each session.

Sometimes I’m still judged based on how I acted in the past, but those people don’t know the true me. I used to care a lot about what other people think, and now I don’t care at all and encourage others to do the same. Even if I’m not super good at something, if I truly love it I’ll keep doing it. I’m continuing to do the things I love such as chorus and drama, without giving a second thought about what others may think. I’ve changed into this complete weirdo, not gonna lie, but who’s not at this point. I used to cry when someone didn’t like me, now I’ll laugh. In my opinion, the correct mindset to have is that nothing’s cheesy or awkward if you don’t care. I adopted that mindset in eighth grade and life went from bad to awesome really quickly.