“Loser, you’re a loser,” my classmates taunt, pointing at my cleft lip while I shrink into hopeless oblivion

My stutter didn’t just turn up one day, like it does for some people after a traumatic event — it’s been with me for as long as I can remember

I tried to keep doing, but my grades were slipping, and deep inside me, I knew I was beginning to snap

An estimated 1.1 million of Americans are classified as legally blind, so my life is hardly unique

I wish I was like Mirelle, I told Hashem, that night. Why am I me and not her? But it was unrealistic, I knew. I’d never be like you

I was leaving all my friends behind. Except Eliana. And yet high school, it seemed, had no room for her

“Am I not good enough anymore? Do you need me AND Perry to be with you all the time?”

Everyone else has pairs and pairs of fashionable shoes. Why am I always different?

Sometimes, it just feels like I live with a monster. A monster called perfectionism