Be proud of your disability

My names is Diedre and I am a 17-year-old high school student who’s in her junior year of high school. I was tested and put into LD class in second grade. I’ve been in LD ever since. There are times where I like it a lot and there are times where I just want to be by myself and say forget about it (wanting or needing the help).

When I do the forget about it, I later tell myself, “Why are you getting all upset about being in LD and getting the help that you need to get out of high school?” For everyone who’s wanting to get out of LD before their heads explode with anger, think about what’s going to happen when you don’t get your homework done or don’t understand it or fail tests. Being an LD student doesn’t at all mean that you’re stupid or brain dead, because you’re not. To me, being LD means you’re not able to learn or understand what you need to learn to be able to get through life.

Now that I’m in my second last year of high school, I’m very driven to be successful. I’m not going to hold myself back at any challenges in my education because I want to be able to be a very educated and driven person at getting through college and my career. There’s no way in this world that I’m going to hold myself, or let anyone else, hold me back from doing what I want to do in life or being what I want to be.

I hope that the people who are in LD and don’t like who they are or are embarrassed about it understand that they’re no different in any way from anyone else in this world. Yes, there will be times where you feel like you don’t belong and there will be times where you do feel like you belong. Here’s some advice that I hope whoever’s ever reading this will take, “Just be your normal self.” I always tell myself that. I also tell myself you’re better than the people who think that they know it all and think that they can pick on you because you have a disability. You of all people should be proud of it. I should know — I have two disabilities: one’s LD and the other is called a seizure disorder. I’m proud to have both of them because when you have a disability you learn more about yourself.

The End