Kelly Stotts

Human Relations

EDU187-02

Word Count: 2730

Introduction

I am known as the person you can rely on to get you home safe, the person you go to

when you are down or need advice, I am known as the person that will make you a homemade

meal or desserts out of nowhere for the heck of it. The person I am today is a person who had

many examples of what not to be and few examples of what to be. Through the mixture of

examples of what to do or not do, I have built my values and personal identity into what it is

today. It wasn’t only myself who shaped who I am today however, many different experiences

and foundational moments in my childhood played a role in me becoming the person I am today.

Childhood

To preface I didn’t have the most nurturing childhood. I was often the child that was

looked over. I was one of the middle children but for the first four years of my life, it was just my

older sister and me. My older sister took sibling rivalry to the next level. She would always find

a way to get me in trouble or do something to myself such as shaving my eyebrows off at four

years old. Katie sure did keep me on my toes as a child and helped me learn to do things without

people noticing but when my younger sister came along everything changed. When my mom

became pregnant with my third sister, her and my father began fighting often. As a child I didn’t

understand what was happening, I knew I was getting another sibling but I didn’t actually know

what this meant. I now had the responsibility of being an older sister.

Usually becoming an older sibling isn’t too big of a deal, but for my older sister and I,

this meant we had to step up to the plate and help raise her. As I mentioned before my parents

began fighting often at this time. My mom would often leave the house after an argument with

my father but wouldn’t tell anyone where she was going. This often made my father angrier
leading to extra yelling and things being thrown. This time in my life filled me with anxiety and

was one of the hardest things I’ve been through without realizing it. I had to get used to the

absence of my mom and the actions of my father all while trying to make sure my siblings were

still getting homework done, eating, drinking water, and getting up for school. I took on a lot of

responsibility at a young age and only gained more responsibilities as I grew older.

My youngest sister had been born in early 2010 and had a rocky start. Cecelia was born

with a small hole in her heart and lungs that weren’t strong enough to support her for her first

few days of life. She was able to pull through and is currently in sixth grade, but this had

seriously affected her growth and development. As a child, my mom would often bring us to her

mother’s house when she was fighting with my father and it got worse. As a result, my sisters

and I spent a lot of time at our grandmother’s house. I was very close to my grandma and her

death had so many different impacts on me. On October 2nd, 2013 I celebrated my grandma

Pat’s birthday with her, my mom, and sisters one last time. Not too long after celebrating her

birthday, my grandma fell and broke her hip. Originally she was supposed to make a full

recovery as long as she did her physical therapy after surgery, however, complications kept

arising with her recovery. At first, she fell while in physical therapy, then she developed an

MRSA infection, and then developed a dry cough. It turns out the dry cough that had been

making her slightly uncomfortable was stage IV lung cancer. We were informed in late

November that my grandma was going to succumb to her illness, and on December 27th, 2013

she passed away.

Throughout the time my grandma was sick and in and out of the hospital my parents were

often not home. Between working extra hours to help pay medical bills and being at the hospital,

my parents were too busy to care for me and my sisters. I became responsible for making sure
my sisters ate dinner at night. Often I would get home from school, see a note on the counter

with what I could make for dinner from my parents, and would have nothing else to eat besides

what was for dinner. I taught myself how to cook, not out of interest or want to, but because I

had no choice. My older sister refused to cook and my younger siblings were too young to do it,

so I had to. Ever since then I have been cooking and baking when I am stressed. It has become a

means of stress relief when it had previously been a source of stress.

I had many sources of stress as a child. My parents always fought, often hearing and

seeing violent things, being bullied at school, having no sense of food security, and dealing with

the passing of my grandmother were just a handful of things I had to worry about as a kid.

Everything became more stressful in middle school.

Middle School

A lot happens to me during this time period and I often look back at this time to reflect on

how far I have come. I definitely fell in with the wrong group of people at this age. In sixth

grade, I realized that I was not straight and came out to my parents. I received full support from

my mom however my dad told me that I shouldn’t have told him and there are some things he

doesn’t need to know. This led to me becoming very self-destructive. I never really liked my

father, but knowing that he couldn’t view me the same as my sister because of who I love really

hurt me and continues to do so. This was the final nail in the coffin for the relationship that could

have been built between me and my father. I stopped talking to him and did my absolute best to

never be at the house at the same time as him to limit how long I had to see him. To avoid being

home so much I found friends that would always let me come to their houses. These “friends”
would offer me alcohol and drugs at the ripe age of twelve and started me down a long path of

substance use as a means of avoidance.

I began playing football at this age. I would play with the boys on a recreational team and

was known as the person that hits hard. I used football as a way to get anger and stress out in a

healthy way. I began showing up to practice hours early and staying super late in order to relieve

stress. Slowly I began to overwork myself and got a concussion in practice because I was trying

to hit hard. My first concussion was the worst of the ones I have had. The people I would

regularly be with to avoid being home would hit me in the head despite knowing I was

concussed and would often encourage me to drink and use drugs even though they knew it would

make my concussion worse. At this time I found out the slippery slope of addiction. I was

introduced to Xanax and began to use it often. I would sometimes show up to school still in a

trance because of the Xanax, but my parents and siblings never knew because I was rarely home

and teachers never questioned it because I would blame my trance like state and drowsiness on

my concussion and the medicine I was prescribed to help combat the concussion. I don’t

remember a lot from this time besides doing a lot of self-destructive things to myself such as

self-harming, doing drugs, drinking, and sleeping under bridges to avoid being home.

The people I would hang around with often didn’t respect boundaries. I am not a really

touchy person and don’t like to touch others unless I am comfortable with them but these friends

forced me to engage in physical touch with them. At first, it made me very uncomfortable but I

got used to it over time. However, as we would get closer to each other they would get more

touchy and do things that were unwanted. I won’t go into much detail about this but it has had a

major impact on how I form friendships and relationships.

 In eighth grade, I lost a majority of the friends I knew. I had a falling out with them and at

the time seemed like the worst thing that could possibly happen, but as I look back I think about

how necessary it was. These “friends” were no good for me and often led me to make mistakes

and put myself at risk. My only childhood friends that I still talk to met me in middle school.

During possibly one of the worst times of my life, I met the two people that have stuck with me

through horrible times and amazing times and been present for me through the entire time.

Although I went through immense amounts of hurt during this time, I’m glad it happened in the

way it did to allow me to form the bonds I have with my best friends.

High School

High school was a lot like middle school but instead of drugs, I was overworking myself

to avoid my problems. I was determined to graduate high school in three years because my

parents didn’t believe that I could. I was involved in many clubs and sports and took on extra

courses than my acquaintances.

I got my first job at fifteen. I felt like I needed to get as much work experience as possible

before graduating so I got a workers permit from my school and began to work almost thirty

hours a week. On top of school, football, and the clubs I was involved in, I was being

overworked and underpaid at a family-owned business. I often had to face belittling comments

from the owners, coworkers, and customers all while being given the responsibilities of a

manager without the pay for doing all the work. I began to contemplate suicide at this time due

to a lot of different reasons. I had just been dumped, I was being overworked in school and work,

I felt alone, and everything felt like it weighed on my shoulders. The night I had planned to

commit suicide my older sister and coworker invited me on a night trip to downtown Chicago
and I agreed to go. Every day I wake up I am grateful I went out that night. For once I was able

to forget about all the things holding me back and I had an amazing time. I received some of the

best advice I had ever gotten during this time. That night we went out to dinner and I began

talking about my struggles with the waiter and he expressed that he had gone through some very

similar things. He told me he made it as far as he had because he faked it till he made it and

recommended that I did the same thing.

After a while of faking it, you don’t have to fake it anymore. One day instead of

pretending to be happy you wake up happy or can acknowledge when you feel happy throughout

the day. Using this advice is a double-edged sword. On one hand after a while of pretending you

don’t have to pretend any more but on the other hand you begin to lose your grip on reality and

your sense of self. At this time I had severely injured my knee. I had torn my meniscus in two

places and tore my ACL clean in half. I had to have surgery to fix my knee and needed to do

about nine months of physical therapy to recover from this injury. I was in a lot of constant pain

and began to become depressed because of the pain and lack of movement. I tried to avoid my

problems by not being present in my own life and overworking myself but in the end, it caught

up to me.

After an emotionally abusive relationship, I decided to begin to fake it till I made it. This

took a lot longer than it previously had and had many negative impacts on my life. I became a

ghost in my own life. I would float through the days as if I wasn’t real or there and often wasn’t

fully present in class. I was there but mentally I was somewhere else. When I had really started

to disconnect from myself Coronavirus started to spread and my school was put into quarantine

along with almost all other schools. I look back at the beginning of quarantine and laugh at how

foolish I was. I was upset that I couldn’t avoid being home, upset that I couldn’t hang out with
my friends, and upset that people I knew were getting sick. Prequarantine I was disconnected

from myself but once it was over I was disconnected from others. Due to the amount of time that

I was forced to spend alone with my thoughts, I began to do a lot of self-reflection and look at

my past. I had realized that a lot of the people that were my “friends” didn’t actually care about

me and high school was just another multiple-year period of weird times and growth in

unexpected ways.

I continued to push myself to graduate in three years despite the spread of covid-19. I was

under so much stress with my course load, the lack of connection with peers and teachers,

working two jobs, and having multiple injuries. I had retorn my meniscus and needed another

knee surgery, got into a sledding accident and messed up my neck and got a concussion, and I

got into a car accident. During this time it was truly one thing after another but I was focused on

graduating. I didn’t care if I got a graduation ceremony or not, I just wanted high school to be

over. I was done with the people of my hometown and the experiences I had while at that school.

My graduation day was one of the most freeing days of my life. From that moment on I knew it

was only up from there. Although I have had plenty of negative events happen since I graduated

high school, I have never felt as alone or outcasted as I did during the three years I was in high

school.

Present and Future Applications

My past may have shaped the person I am today but that does not mean it dictates where I

will go in life. Human Relations has taught me that no matter what you go through in your life

you will find a way through. People look to other people for guidance and help when they need it

and this class has really helped me realize that. Part of the reason why my childhood and teenage
years were so hard was because of my inability to ask for help. I felt like no one would want to

listen to me or try to help me when I needed it but after taking Human Relations it has become

clear that relationships are the strongest agent of change. One good friendship or one teacher

who shows they care is enough for a person to keep pushing every day. As a teacher, I will want

my students to know that I am there for them and willing to listen, give advice, or offer help

whenever they need it. Growing up I had a couple of teachers like this and they made all the

difference. I may have been a product of my circumstances but the care and love shown by

others helped me rise above the bad things that have happened to open up new opportunities for

myself.