Misfit: My College Essay

The lessons we take from obstacles we encounter can be fundamental to later success. Recount a time when you faced a challenge, setback, or failure. How did it affect you, and what did you learn from the experience?

Monachopsis: the subtle but persistent feeling of being out of place. By the age of nine, I was familiar with my oddities; a secluded mind, choppy bangs and pronouns that didn’t match my supple face. I learned to let their shame swallow me whole and the vines of their neighboring loneliness wrap around me in a prickling comfort. When COVID-19 hit and sixth grade went online, nights under the covers—reading stories of great adventures and love—became my utopia. The line between fiction and nonfiction soon began to blur, and…was I even real? My most vivid memories of that time are set in the dark, where the only joy I found came from the words on pages. Percy Jackson, my brave older brother. Matilda, my favorite little sister. My annoying friend, Ramona Quimby, who lived up the street. They didn’t follow the rules of the world around them; they bent them to their will, and the world followed. I was just waiting my turn for the world to choose me, even though she felt amiss to answer to.

At the age of twelve, I was diagnosed with severe anxiety and depression. Naive questioning of these words were beyond me; I knew I was messed up. My aunt found the scars on my arm, and all I could do was nod as it was recommended that I become institutionalized. I was complaisant and numb when dropped off at Ridgeview Institute—my mother’s forced positivity static to me. After all, I knew it was for the best. What I didn’t know then was that my week institutionalized would become the clarity I’d been searching for. In the haze of self-hatred for my identity, the people around me scoffed at my ridiculousness and “What are your pronouns?” mattered just as much as, “What is your name?”. Fiction tales seemed to manifest in my life, as the characters I found so much comfort in jumped out from their pages. We traded our darkest secrets in casual conversation, as if our traumas were some comical narrative. Their indifference softened some of that self-hatred, sparking a realization that all people have shadows, even if some are darker than others. Ridgeview not only accepted every part of me—it showed me that I wasn’t alone. There, I found my first sense of belonging.

During my first year of high school, I found my second. In my journey to reclaim myself, music became an outlet and marching band was the plug. The thrill of field shows, the feeling of triumph when I perfected a scale, and the breathlessness of laughter with my section. A satisfying high school experience was on the brink of the rollercoaster’s first climax. But, the machine stuttered, and I began to fall backward. Lingering stares in the boys' bathroom, hesitance before calling me he, and the despised phrase “Sorry…what are you?”. I was free-falling now. That familiar feeling of alienation was starting to creep up and people began catching on to my secret, using my weakness at the expense of a cruel joke or a sassy remark. I was outnumbered, and high school wasn’t what I thought it was.

Eutopesis: the feeling that you are exactly where you belong. Leaving Westlake and having to rediscover myself has become an experience that has changed the way I will always see the world. Clinging to labels to define who I was never worked, and I’ve come to understand that feelings change, people change, life changes. The only label the world and I have ever agreed on is “misfit.” Not in a demigod or secret princess kind of way, but in my own eclectic way that helped me find home in myself. At seventeen, I'm kinder to myself. I explore my gender, develop my novel and expand my geeky knowledge of the world. To be a misfit is to belong, because individuality is the only thing we all share.