To be "normal" was everything.

I attended Faribault High School, in Faribault Minnesota from 2005 until 2009. in 2006, my sophomore year, I was an active participant in Theater, Choir, Swimming, and Cross Country. In the fall and all of winter of my sophomore year, my body would not stop having multiple seizures a day.

I grew up in a family from Iowa; dad works for Land O' Lakes, mom worked at a Bus Company downtown Faribault, both my older brother and older sister were star athletes. My family practiced Christianity with the Evangelical Lutheran Church. We went to football games, hockey games, fast-pitch tournaments, and wrestling matches. We could never be seen out in public wearing something that would draw any type of public attention. Our hair always had to be neat, our socks always matched, our lives were irrevocably clean. In my family, the most important thing that we collectively needed to believe was that we were normal.

As a young and free-spirited, wild theatre kid, the idea of normalcy haunted me. I was the one kid in the family getting in trouble for not showering or having messy hair. My socks only matched because of the fuss that would be ignited every time I left the house looking as though I didn't care. My parents pushed, and pushed, and pushed me to believe in a universal normalcy. I became a faithful son of the family who had to be normal.

Living in Faribault Minnesota meant, for my family, that certain things could not even be discussed at a dinner table in fear of leaking private matters to neighbors. This stopped me from talking. I held in every ounce of feeling that I could bare to keep on my shoulders. I was medicated not to feel emotions as strongly as I did.

Sophomore year, I was diagnosed with General Anxiety Disorder (GAD), as well as Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD). My constant drive for normalcy slowly became a hidden need for perfection. On a Fall afternoon, I was running for Cross Country practice. I was taken to the hospital after my run because I had a seizure for the first time. After countless hospital stays, doctor visits, therapy sessions, and more "Non-Epileptic Events", we found out my body was dealing with it's anxiety in the only way it knew how.

I always felt weird (and still do) about being the kid at school that gets taken away by ambulance, not because I had broken my leg or had been stabbed, but because being perfect and normal were the most important things to me. I didn't see money. Class was not an issue I thought about. But I was trained to look, and want to look, like everyone else. I was trained how loudly to speak. I was trained what types of things are meant to be said or kept secret. I was trained to identify what would make me 'stick out'.

Now, I am always driving for "perfection," and I hope I always am; however, I now critique and analyze everything I am told. My past gives evidence to why I should think critically about everything. I have literally experienced my bodies control completely out of my hands, and now claim all rights to deciding what and why I train myself to do anything.