My Life’s Biggest Influence So Far and How I Will Pass It On

I don’t remember much from my early days except a blue room, feeling scared, and being too young to tell anyone. My early childhood involved abuse, neglect, and malnutrition-- pretty big influences on a little person’s life! If things had continued this way, I would not have had much more than a hopeless cycle to pass on. But bigger, more important “influences” entered my life.

The biggest influence in my life was a collective group of advocates and mentors. My first advocate was a grandmother who had the sense to see that my life needed a positive change and called protective services. That was followed by a case worker and the court system to speak for me when I was unable to. I was put into foster care, and was later adopted. That is when the biggest advocate of all, came into my life: my mother!

The influences of my early life caused many challenges and obstacles: developmental delays, visual processing difficulties, emotional trauma, anxiety, and health issues. My mother constantly reassured me of her love. At two and a half years of age, I only said 3 words. To make up for this language delay, my mom read to me endlessly. Realizing I tried to imitate words from the songs I heard on the car radio, she constantly played music. She brought me to practically every free educational and community event she could find: festivals, concerts, story hours, frequent trips to the library, always returning home with arms full of books. If she thought it would help me catch up to others my age, we were there.

My parents continued to take in foster children. Most of these children did not exhibit good behaviors. Sometimes they stole from us and said inappropriate or mean things. My mom taught me lessons from those experiences too. I learned that there was always a reason for those behaviors. Maybe no one taught them right from wrong, maybe they were scared, or fearful. Perhaps they didn’t want to let anyone get too close because they didn’t want to get hurt again. Maybe they had anger inside that they didn’t know how to deal with. I was told that just because someone treats me badly, doesn’t mean I have to treat them the same. If I do, I am not acting any better than they are. I can only change myself or my reaction. I can’t change anyone else; all I can hope to do is influence them. That is why we shared our home with others.

My mother showed me how to apply these same lessons to my relationships at school. When I was teased for being in “special ed”, or when classmates found out I was adopted and made comments like: “You mean your mom actually picked someone like you?” she would tell me that people who did or said things like that often didn’t feel good about themselves and had to make others look dumb just to make themselves feel good. She told me they didn’t know what they were missing by not getting to know me better. We role played different possibilities of what I could say if “friends” at school said unkind things or if I needed help from teachers. This taught me to advocate for myself. She also made sure I was matched up with wonderful mentors at our church. My mentors really appreciated me and told me often what a great person I was. I learned to look at people differently and I began to react differently myself.

I was never a “straight A” student, nor will I ever be a member of the National Honor Society. I struggled in school. When it became obvious, that I was having learning difficulties, my mom made sure I was given the correct evaluations and that I received the supports and accommodations I needed to be successful. She made sure the school understood both my weaknesses AND my strengths. If I cried because I wasn’t good in math she would say: “Let’s try this together”, “I’m sure you can do this”, “don’t give up” or some other encouraging word. She didn’t expect A’s or B’s; I didn’t have to be perfect, but she wouldn’t let me quit either. “Just try your best” she would say, while at the same time telling me: “one person can’t be good at everything.” She then made sure I found activities I enjoyed and could succeed in, to build my self-confidence. I was enrolled in summer theatres and camps, children’s choir, and dance. I began to feel better about myself and was no longer afraid to try new things. When my mom realized how much I loved the water, she urged me to try the swim team. I was scared, at first, because I didn’t have many friends. I soon realized I loved being part of a team, cheering for my teammates, and congratulating them. My participation in sports allowed me to focus better in school and relieved the stress and anxiety caused by my academic struggles and the challenges I faced with ADHD and visual processing. That led to basketball and volleyball. Teachers and coaches began seeing that I really did have potential. Soon I had more advocates and mentors encouraging me and I realized something else: I had a real knack for promoting teamwork. As my mother and other mentors encouraged me, I encouraged others with positive comments. Girls began to tell me I was good at finding something positive in every situation and our team spirit grew. I was often asked to lead the team in pre-game prayers. That helped me discover my leadership abilities. Remember that swim team experience? It led to my position as varsity water polo goalie. Here, I took advantage of my bird’s eye view from the goalie box to shout words of encouragement and direct plays. At the beginning of last season, I took a new freshman goalie- who was planning to quit after the first few days of preseason conditioning-under my wing and convinced her to stay on the team.

How will I pass on these life lessons? As you can see, I’m doing that already. Mom said, “treat others as you want to be treated” and “find the good in everyone”. I went to camp and won the SPUR IT ON award “for encouraging the other girls, being positive and supportive”. At a second camp I went to, they asked me to return as a counselor because I could relate to the other campers so well. In school I became involved in P.O.P.S. (power of peer support) a student mentor program for special needs students. This time, I was the mentor, NOT the mentee!! I was successful in encouraging a student- who day in and day out sat at the computer alone - to try new activities involving a lot more social contact. I’ve befriended special needs children taking them to Chuckie Cheese’s and to the Coast Guard festival carnival for special friends day.

At my high school a student committed suicide. It was very upsetting, especially when and it was determined he had been bullied by others. Later, when another student told me he was being bullied, I gave him suggestions about what he could do. When a fellow student falsely spread rumors that I was bulimic after I lost 25 pounds, I became an advocate for myself. We sat down with the vice principal and worked it out. I later turned a bad situation into a positive situation by making a PSA (public service announcement) about anorexia for an assignment in my video production class.

Recently, my mom came home from parent-teacher conferences where my media production instructor mentioned there was a “spirit of co-operation” among the students in my class like nothing he’s seen in all his years of teaching. He credited it mostly to me. My mom came home saying my A’s were great news, but she was much more proud to hear about my positive influence on others. She now calls me a “catalyst of camaraderie”. I didn’t even know what a catalyst was. She explained it by telling me about a camp song we used to sing called: Pass It On. “It only takes a spark to get a fire going and soon all those around will warm up to it’s glowing.”

How my mom and my other mentors have influenced me, helped me grow into someone very different from that scared 2 year old in a room with blue walls-- a child who didn’t have a voice to cry out for help. I have learned to use “my voice”. It is my passion to pass it on, giving people confidence to advocate for themselves and others. I am confident that a career in video production will allow me to reach many people with the message I want to share.