Passing Grade

It is the second term of my junior year, and my homeroom teacher is passing out report cards. As she calls my name and hands me the bright pink sheet of paper, I almost instinctively grab it from her and stuff it into my backpack without so much as a peek. I did not need to look; I knew where my grades stood, and they were abominable at best. Most frightening, however, were not the grades themselves, but the fact that I had so trivial an emotional response. By this point in my high school career I had seemingly given up on myself entirely. I remember a passing grade being something worth celebration, and a failure being merely one added to an already long list. No matter how conscious I was of the effect that this academic decadence would eventually have on my future, nothing could reignite my burnt-out motivation; I was essentially apathetic to my own collapse. …show more content…
Shortly before starting high school, I was diagnosed with clinical depression. The symptoms of this condition did not manifest until midway through my sophomore year, when my grades really began to plummet. With little regard to the preexisting diagnosis, my parents - as well as other adult mentors - attributed this decline to cliché teen angst and laziness. It was obvious, from their perspective, that I had no handicap; What does one make of a student who achieves consistently high marks on exams, yet receives zero after zero for homework assignments that, albeit simple in nature, were never even attempted? To anyone but myself, the situation was bizarre, inexplicable and, frankly, inexcusable. Humiliation and discomfiture forbade me from confiding in any friends about my crisis- they still knew me as the girl from junior high who cried when she got a B- and I soon found myself lost in the pensive depths of my own