I have talked a lot about health and disability over the years. How greatly it has affected my life. One of the biggest things, I have always been embarassed by, is that I flunked out of my final semester of college. This crushed me. I watched my class walk the stage, not knowing if I ever would.
I had defined myself for so long as a hard worker. A good student. I had always worked and taken a full course load. I was hospitialized three times in between my third and fourth year but I thought surely I could do it. When in November of that year, I collapsed down the stairs at work I knew I needed to focus everything on graduating. But it was no use, I could barely move and though I aced my exams I had no stamina to complete my praticum or write my lengthy papers.
I spent the next years learning to reconfigure my life. I had been dealing with declining health for some time but I had never been told that young people got chronically ill. That it wasn't just something I could push through. Some doctors were cruel, one, though, was kind and explained that I would never recover, I'd live the rest of my life with debilitating fatigue and pain. It was in this period, I turned to poetry and wrote and processed the pain of grieving the life I imagined and accepting the life I had.
Years later, I wrote a letter to my college, explaining what I now knew about my health and asked for them to reconsider me as a student. I was three classes and 50 hours (of my praticum) short of my degree. With gracious support of my old professors and faculty, I was readmitted and took one class a semester until on May 4th, after nine years, I walked the stage and was hooded with a Bachelor in Counselling.
With my health, it is unlikely I will ever work in my field, nonetheless, training as a counsellor has profoundly shaped who I am, my values and my perspective of the world and on books. I know it is one of the greatest honours I will ever hold.
Thank you to so many of you who have been on this journey with me and have offered encouraging words along the way. I am so grateful for your support.
Kier The Scrivener
I have talked a lot about health and disability over the years. How greatly it has affected my life. One of the biggest things, I have always been embarassed by, is that I flunked out of my final semester of college. This crushed me. I watched my class walk the stage, not knowing if I ever would.
I had defined myself for so long as a hard worker. A good student. I had always worked and taken a full course load. I was hospitialized three times in between my third and fourth year but I thought surely I could do it. When in November of that year, I collapsed down the stairs at work I knew I needed to focus everything on graduating. But it was no use, I could barely move and though I aced my exams I had no stamina to complete my praticum or write my lengthy papers.
I spent the next years learning to reconfigure my life. I had been dealing with declining health for some time but I had never been told that young people got chronically ill. That it wasn't just something I could push through. Some doctors were cruel, one, though, was kind and explained that I would never recover, I'd live the rest of my life with debilitating fatigue and pain. It was in this period, I turned to poetry and wrote and processed the pain of grieving the life I imagined and accepting the life I had.
Years later, I wrote a letter to my college, explaining what I now knew about my health and asked for them to reconsider me as a student. I was three classes and 50 hours (of my praticum) short of my degree. With gracious support of my old professors and faculty, I was readmitted and took one class a semester until on May 4th, after nine years, I walked the stage and was hooded with a Bachelor in Counselling.
With my health, it is unlikely I will ever work in my field, nonetheless, training as a counsellor has profoundly shaped who I am, my values and my perspective of the world and on books. I know it is one of the greatest honours I will ever hold.
Thank you to so many of you who have been on this journey with me and have offered encouraging words along the way. I am so grateful for your support.
1 year ago (edited) | [YT] | 37