Why I could barely walk for months

Alexandra Bennett

“Never let the fear of striking out keep you from playing the game.”

Babe Ruth

There’s so many boundaries that hold the human race back. However, we can change that.

Stepping out your comfort zone and taking that one leap of faith will get you wherever you’re going. A story that always reminds me of a world without boundaries isn’t what you would expect.

I could tell the legendary stories of Stephen Hawking and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr, but I’m going to tell my own story instead.

Growing up, I’ve always had a great time. A great time with friends and family. I had a strong close relationship with my family particularly my mother. She was my best friend as I was hers.

One faithful day, however, I lost my best friend to a sudden heart attack.

For a long time, I shut down. I shut down emotionally and was struggling academically from eighth grade (the time of her death) to 10th grade. I never failed to procrastinate and not to attempt schoolwork until last minute, a practice I never learned until the year her death occurred.

Many of my teachers questioned what was wrong with me. –Why I took so long to complete worksheets. I took so long because I was simply grieving. I guess you could describe the feeling as numb but to this day I’m not one hundred percent sure.

A weird side effect to her death came into my life in middle school as well. Dizziness, I was dizzy so many times it felt like I had been knocked upside the head. The school nurses and professional doctors dismissed it as nothing. I would be ok, they said.

Then I got to high school.

My year wasn’t too bad, but I was still struggling with turning in assignments. That is, until the last week of school.

I felt a feeling I’ve never felt before. Dizziness to the point I couldn’t walk. The room spun and spun around like a roller coaster ride. I went to the emergency room during the first week of summer.

It was so bad I could hardly get out of bed. The emergency room doctors and nurses told me, they didn’t know what was wrong and it was probably dehydration. So, they pumped me full of liquids and sent me on my way.

Did the dizziness stop? No of course not.

That summer, I spent my time in bed, using a walker, and going to doctors’ appointments to see what the problem was.

After months and months of the doctors coming up with absolutely nothing and traveling a far distance from my home, they discovered the problem.

The problem wasn’t a health issue, but a mental way of grieving. A stress reaction to death was all I was experiencing and I would be ok.

I went on to be more than okay after missing half a year of school, I came back. I tried my hardest and completed all my assignments and I started to love life again.

I did things I never thought possible I tried out for cheer leading and I made the team. Which remains one of my greatest accomplishments.

It only happened because I believed in myself and imagined a world without boundaries holding me back like my stress reaction once held me back.

I finally got to where I was going in life a good high road and never looked back. Simply by believing in myself and taking that leap of faith.

I imagined a world without boundaries and finally succeeded after many hardships and I believe all of you can too.