Let me tell you a little story about me…
You may be looking at my website and credentials and think “Wow, she must really have her stuff together-almost a PhD, Master’s degree…” Let me tell you something…that has not always been the case.
When I decided to start my journey to become a therapist, my GPA was a 2.6. That’s right, a 2.6. This number defined me, or so I thought. To give you a little history, most schools won’t even look at an application without at least a 3.0, and even then, that is a low GPA. I had always been a straight A student, always top of my class, so what happened you ask?
Depression happened.
Yep. That’s right. I was in college in my Bachelor’s program in Psychology and got diagnosed with mononucleosis after several months of battling intense illness, body pain, and a feeling of never being able to get enough sleep. This was also in 2001, in fact I was sitting in the doctor’s office and got diagnosed with mononucleosis the morning of 9/11. I remember crying in the waiting room watching the horrors of that day unfold. That is another story for another day.
So what happened? How did I become this completely different person that I didn’t even recognize? The answer is I have no idea. I started to miss classes, I started not turning in papers, and for the first time in my life I just didn’t care, at all, about anything. I started to distance myself from my close friends. I finally realized there was something severely wrong when I couldn’t even climb one flight of stairs without being incredibly out of breath (and of course I lived on the 3rd floor of an apartment at that time with a young rambunctious Husky dog). There was a certain day that I can remember so vividly, even now, where I looked around my apartment and didn’t recognize it. How did it get so messy? How was I living in the space I was in? It was a severe, painful wake-up call that I needed some help, desperately.
I took myself to the school counselor who was able to make me feel a huge sense of relief. I had never struggled with severe depression before, and I felt guilty and frustrated with myself for not being able to “just get through it” as I had done so many times before. I mean, I had a pretty great life. Loving parents, great friends, I was at a school I enjoyed, so what was going wrong? Why wasn’t that enough to make me happy? It was my first time seeing a therapist, and even though I didn’t agree with everything she said, she helped me to see that I was not alone and that there was help.
By this point, I had failed several classes and she was able to help me get some of those F’s changed to W’s (withdrawn status) because I had battled with my health for such a long time and had the documentation to back it up.
So why am I telling you this story?
I want you to know that there are people out there who do actually care, and who do actually want to help you. I know that may sound ridiculous, but it is true. I also want you to know that my GPA that was below the standard for graduate school, in fact, didn’t matter as much as I thought it would. We have the choice to let things define us, become who we are, instead of just a passing moment of who we are. When I had that low GPA, I could have told myself at that moment there was no way a graduate school would ever accept me…I mean why would they when they have other candidates who have 3.5 and above GPAs. I had to do some serious work with myself to convince myself I deserved to be in graduate school. I knew I had to be a therapist. I just knew it.
So how did I get in? Let me tell you…it was painful. It took 3 tries to get into the graduate school I knew I had to attend. Every time I had an interview, I had to answer the painful questions about my low GPA, what happened, how did I plan to succeed at graduate school. I learned something of extreme importance…no one was silently judging me for my GPA. They remarked about my essay, my writing, my sense of humor, my positive attitude. This is what they wanted in a candidate…not a 2.6 or even a 3.5 GPA. Your GPA is only a small component of what you have to offer. Let yourself shine and be who you truly are and those admissions officers have no choice but to accept you.
And here I am today. I graduated with a 3.6 GPA from a difficult, rigorous master’s program that I loved. I am now writing a dissertation for my PhD…yep…a PhD program even accepted me with a low GPA for my Bachelor’s, and do you know why? I didn’t let myself be “2.6 GPA”. I let myself be funny, smart, accepting, courageous, a good writer, a curious writer, and believe it or not…human! I told the PhD admissions committee my story again, how I got the 2.6, but do you know what they wanted to hear? They wanted to hear how I turned my life around, how resilience played a huge part in my own recovery, and how did I plan to utilize my PhD. They weren’t judging me at all. If I let myself be “the girl who had a 2.6 GPA who didn’t have a high enough GPA to do anything” I would never have applied for a master’s program let alone a PhD program.
So when you feel embarrassed, when you beat yourself up for mistakes you made, when you judge yourself more harshly than anyone else ever could…what if you tried to do the opposite.
What if you decided to pursue that master’s program? What if you did something you never thought possible? What is the harm in trying? If I was able to get through 2 heartbreaking no’s from my graduate program and still rise to try a third time only to get in, what do you have to lose?
If you feel so inclined, please comment and let me know what you thought of this story.
