[Aramail]

pokergrader, thanks a lot. I finalized that one, i'll post if you're curious

last essay, first draft:

Tell us about a personal quality, talent, accomplishment, contribution or experience that is important to you. What about this quality or accomplishment makes you proud and how does it relate to the person you are?

When it comes to a matter of importance, nothing can be more important than yourself. Nothing is more significant to me than my ability to overcome the challenges presented to me, especially those inherent in myself. Living with, facing, and overcoming my learning disability was a hard-fought battle, but victory was thrice as rewarding.
I excelled through the beginning of my education, up until middle school. I began to struggle in certain areas, and classmates started to catch up to my level. I wasn’t necessarily bad in those areas, yet comparatively, I was much worse. I still mastered verbal tasks with ease, but was average at nonverbal processing and visual motor coordination. I couldn’t comprehend why I was amazing at some things and average at others. Frustration set in, I lost motivation, stopped trying, and my grades suffered. I managed to get by, but was doing the bare minimum. This continued into my first two years of high school. My mom had been hearing more and more about ADHD, and the next summer scheduled testing for me.
To be tested for ADHD I participated in a psychodiagnostic evaluation, conducted by Amy Ellis (Psy.D.) and Christina Zampitella, (Psy.D.). The results were unexpected, but are logical in retrospect. On the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale I scored a verbal IQ of 150, greater than the 99.9th percentile, however, I scored a performance IQ of 110, the 75th percentile. Similarly, my verbal comprehension and working memory were both greater than 99.7 percent, while my perceptual organization and processing speed were in the 68th and 82nd percentile. To quote the summary of the report, “Cognitively, his (Mr. Gorham) overall level of functioning is in the Very Superior range. However, there were significant discrepancies within his abilities which indicate a non-verbal learning disability and ADHD.”
I began to understand the cause of my educational struggle. With a verbal IQ well into genius and a performance IQ just above average, I was embarrassed to put in effort and only be average. I felt like I should be better than I was, so I rationalized not trying. “I could do it if I wanted to.” I would tell myself, but always avoided doing it. The test raised my confidence in my strong areas, and illuminated the areas I need to focus on. It was the first time I admitted to myself the fact that I’m simply worse at some things, and the first time I began to do sometime about it.
I went into school the next year extremely optimistic. I developed a system of note taking to help my perceptual organization. I understood my weaknesses and stayed vigilant; the frustration I had always experienced started to disappear. Most importantly, I changed the way I think, not valuing the result, but the effort. It was hard at first, the subconscious self restraints I had built were reluctant to come down, but there was only improvement ahead. As I started to see improvement I gained confidence, and worked better because of it. I overcame it almost completely, and even have begun to embrace it.
Overcoming my learning disability allowed me to achieve the potential I had subconsciously been restraining for years. I changed my outlook on life, focused on improving my weaknesses, and kept trying. It changed the person I am today, opened doors, and gave me insight into myself unique from anything else.