Concentration

For some, it is easy to focus on tasks, reading, or schoolwork, while for others it can be more challenging. I am blessed that I like challenges. I find the work to read or write simple papers for my undergraduate and high school years, or to write cover letter applications, a worthwhile challenge, even though I know that, for me, it’s two times the effort that it takes others.

For most of my life, I have been ‘behind’ in school, in ‘special’ education, taking medicine, and working hard on tasks that can be simple for others, either in life goals or in educational opportunities. Unseen challenges, whether it’s Traumatic Brian Injustices (TBI), learning disabilities, dyslexia, or other unseen struggles, are all valid and real. They are invisible weights carried by so many that no one is a witness to unless they have support groups. Even in these, people can only understand the weight through their own lenses of experience; it’s truly only understood between that person and God.

The isolation is real. The inferiority one can struggle with, the misunderstanding, the setbacks, the lack of resources or support, and the limitations that have to be beaten time after time are all real. I know and care that I had a bad episode with my medication, almost flunking out of college. It is incredibly difficult for others to understand the full depth of the struggles or the feeling of success that those academic results bring. 

The unsung hero of my life is that I am too stubborn to give up. I just keep going, step-by-step, and I concentrate on my goal one step at a time. Now, an important focus that I have is further education. Onwards to another university.