The challenge to reach perfection

By: 17 Year old female from Queensland

I always wondered what the word "perfect" meant, I was always curious as to whether or not I could ever achieve perfection. As a child, I was quiet, withdrawn and didn't like to be with other people. My mother and brother were the only two people I enjoyed spending time with and I would cry whenever I was not with them. I had a severe speech problem, which meant that not most children and adults could understand what I was saying. My brother was one of the few people who could understand me and he was assigned as the person who would communicate what I was trying to say to everyone else. He also had a speech problem though so that sometimes posed quite a challenge, but I believe that's what made him understand me easier than other people.

I endured years and years of speech therapy. My parents were determined to fix this problem and I went to a tiny little school with only 80 people in 7 grades. I loved it there and I found my first real best friend. She saw past my speech problem and we just enjoyed playing with dolls, playing sport and playing "make believe", I was actually quite confident during my primary school life, though of course I was bullied and ridiculed because of my speech problem. Teachers were aware and tried to stop it from happening, but they were not really sure how to handle it either. They once asked my parents if they would consider sending me to a "school for children with special needs" but my speech therapist refused to allow me to go there. Surprisingly I had NO learning problems whatsoever; I was actually extremely bright for my age - which is really unusual for someone who had a severe speech problem like I did.

When I was 7, I was made to go to hospital for several tests because my teachers did not understand how I could be so smart yet have this speech problem. So I had a CT-scan, a test on the brain, a blood test and many other tests. For a seven year old this was rather frightening, especially because I had no idea why they were doing it. The results all came back 100% clear (as my speech therapist predicted). My speech therapist told me though that I had "low tone in the soft palet" - To date today, she's only seen one other case that had the same problem as me with no learning problems as well and she has seen thousands of children with all kind of learning and speech problems.

My speech teacher was an absolute angel, who never gave up on me. She knew that I was intelligent and even though I so often got annoyed with her trying to make me say the same words over and over again, she was always patient and tried to make speech therapy as fun as she could. She was also a massive support for my parents, they sometimes got so very frustrated with the fact that my speech was not getting any better and hated seeing me be bullied because of it, but she made it clear to them that I was a strong little girl and would get through this hurdle.

When I was 9, I changed schools because my parents decided that I needed to enter a larger school environment because high school was nearing. I decided then that I was not going to go to speech therapy anymore. My speech was about 80% right anyway, there were only 10 or so sounds that I was still struggling with. But I just wanted to be "normal" for once, I didn't want to have to practice my speech every single night, I wanted to play with my friends and feel as though I was one of them for once. My speech teacher was supportive, and told me that I could come back whenever I wanted to - that her door was always open to me. I took her up on that offer when I was in my final year of primary school.

I was being badly bullied in my final year of primary school, to the extent that I did not want to go to school anymore (which was unusual for a girl who wanted to go to school 7 days a week!) and I started to notice my speech problem more because my self-esteem was quite low, so I decided to go back to speech therapy.

The support that my speech teacher and my family gave me was what really helped me overcome the bullying that I was going through, I had little help from teachers at school so I relied heavily on my family, especially my mum and dad. Frequently we would also discuss the situation at speech therapy to gain a different insight into the bullying and how to make things better for me, which was what I needed.

When I went back to my speech teacher that time I perfected about 5 or 6 more sounds, and decided to quit again when I went to high school - Though the same thing was said as last time, that I was welcome anytime. Just being able to say those 5 or 6 extra sounds a bit more "normally" helped me to gain an enormous amount of confidence in myself and was another key thing that helped me overcome the bullying that I was enduring.

Today, I am 17 and I have not gone back to speech therapy. My speech is still not perfect, I still have problems with some sounds, but it's probably about 90% better than what it was when I started to speak. Many people actually don't think that I have a speech problem at all - they just think I have a lisp or a strong accent. Sometimes I am self-conscious of it, but most of the time it doesn't bother me, I even do public speaking, debating and am not nervous speaking in front of a crowd at all, in all honesty I am one of the best public speakers in my grade.

Even though dealing with a bad speech problem was a massive challenge and was very difficult, I am glad that I had this impediment. It's a part of who I am and it's definitely made me more accepting of others. I socialised with a lot of children who had severe learning problems, speech problems and other disabilities such as autism and down syndrome. Whenever I see someone with any learning problem, speech problem or a disability, I do not ridicule them like I know many others do - because I was them once. Instead I see past this little obstacle and treat them just as I would anyone else. Having a speech or learning problem or a disability does not make a person any "dumber" than anyone else, it doesn't make them "weird", it's just another challenge that they face in their life. It's just like having a birth mark - they were born with it!

I still see my speech therapist sometimes and she is always very curious to know how I am going with everything - She was a major part of my childhood and she's a very special person who I am glad I met. She's actually writing a book at the moment which I will be featured in!

If you have a speech problem, learning problem or a disability, it's not something to be ashamed of it is just a part of who you are and it helps define you. I think having a speech problem was a blessing because it has made me so much more accepting and has also helped me understand how determination can play such a huge part in overcoming things.

I have not reached perfection, but I don't want to anymore, after all "there is no such thing as perfect" and I don't want to be nothing.