Daily writing prompt

What’s a moment that made you realize you were stronger than you thought?

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The decision to enlist in the United States Army in 2015 as a high school senior was a decision that wasn’t met with much hesitation. As we all know, your brain doesn’t fully develop until you’re 25, so you’d think this decision was made in haste, but it wasn’t. Let me tell you why. I grew up in a chaotic household full of some of the worst things a child could experience. My home town was a literal depressing place and like 60% of the population was on drugs and were alcoholics (dramatic, but kinda true). Additionally, because of what I was experiencing at home, I was starting to do bad in school and failing my classes my junior year. I spent my senior year making it all up, but needless to say, my junior year was the most depressed I’ve ever been (I didn’t know that’s what it was called until I started randomly crying in the middle of class and my teacher took me in the hallway a told me “you’re depressed”). My school counselor knew how chaotic my household was and was this close to calling CPS so this gives you a general idea of what I and my siblings were going through. She started to realize I wasn’t going to be accepted into college so when I told her I was thinking about enlisting, she was excited for me and relieved honestly. I always dreamt of escaping that place and never looking back which I ended up doing with the help of enlisting in the military. I initially joined to run away from my life at home, but I learned to love the structure- not so much the racism, body shaming, and sexism. Also, my grandfather and grandmother were U.S. Marine vets, my great uncle is a U.S. Army vet, and my mother is a U.S. Army Reserve veteran. I come from a military family but these are the only ones I can remember. The morning I left for Basic Combat Training with just me and the recruiter, realized there was no turning back and that the only way out was through. And in that moment, in the backseat of that van, I realized I was strong enough. The mental toll I endured from the household I grew up in unfortunately and fortunately prepared me for the mental, physical, and emotional toll the military puts you through. BCT wasn’t as hard because I wasn’t scared; I was ready. So I guess I have my chaotic childhood to thank for that.