Introduction

I was once a girl with potential stacked upon my shoulders, as large as the world itself - or so my parents would say. And I'm sure, should you ask them now, they'd still maintain the belief that I could become something of great success, that I will most certainly prosper. 

What makes them so sure? I wonder, often reflecting upon myself and this entity I've become - a seemingly depressive, anxious and delusional therapy session to check off the to-do list. So different in so many ways from the girl I used to be, the girl who once was. 

She's the one who may have had potential, you see - the one who may have been capable - not this shell she left behind after the sickness took hold of my body and my mind. 

Doctors call the sickness anti-NMDA receptor with encephalitis and I was diagnosed at the age of 16. The summer before my junior year of high school was when my whole life was altered. I lost control of myself - cognitive and motor functions alike, I spent a month in the hospital with my parents by my bedside and had to spend months following learning how to eat, walk, talk and write again. 

I did not simply lose the ability to do the things we so often take for granted, I lost parts of myself. I lost friendships, I lost years of my life playing catch up.

In the later months of my recovery, it seemed I only had a few things left that kept me going - but they were ultimately my everything: my family, music and writing. 

My family is my rock. Music is my comfort. Writing has become my passion. 

All of which are my foundation. 

And though I may not be the same girl I was when I was 16 years old, perhaps it's time to accept the fact that I have fought for this change, I have kicked, clawed and crawled my way to be where I am and who I am today. Perhaps that in itself says a lot about the potential of my still developing character.