Personal Narrative: Ectodermal Dysplasia

My mom told me that my extroversion became apparent in one specific situation. My family and I were at the beach for our annual beach trip and I was making sandcastles. There was another little girl near us who was also playing in the sand. My mom told me that I walked over to the little girl and just sat down and started playing with her, at one point she asked, “can we be friends?” my response was, “I thought we were already friends.”

When I came home and told my mom about my conversation, she was ecstatic. “Are you kidding me, that’s huge!” she exclaimed. She knows me better than anyone else, and she also knows that being an only child put me at a disadvantage socially. I was a shy child; I never spoke up or volunteered my opinions in fear of embarrassment. But that day in the daycare, I led the group activity: Follow the

“You have to leave the city of your comfort and go into the wilderness of your intuition. What you'll discover will be wonderful. What you'll discover is yourself.” These words that Alan Alda once said have a great connection to my own life. During the summer of 2016 I left the city of my comfort and found my new self in the wilderness of Steamboat Springs, Colorado. What I discovered was wonderful, because now I have gained confidence in myself, that I did not have before. In one week I met people who I will be friends with for a lifetime, did a lot of new things, and believed in myself like I had never done before.

I rarely spoke in middle school. Nothing overly traumatic happened to me or anything, I was just terrible at making conversation, so I avoided it. In a normal conversation with me, right after hello’s and standard pleasantries were exchanged my mind would go crazy trying to think of something to say back. I didn’t want what I’d say to make me seem lower in the person’s eyes, so every single possible response was excessively mulled over in my head, and I’d usually end up flustered. It was exhausting. If the person tried to continue the conversation, I’d usually give a standard response like “Oh that’s cool” or a head nod/shake because I couldn’t think of anything else. I wasn’t trying to appear rude, that was far from my intention, it was just that I was a mess when it came to socializing. I was aware of how bad I was, but did I take the responsible route and work toward eloquence? Nope. Instead, I tried to avoid talking altogether. I’d keep my head down to avoid eye contact and keep a book on me so that I’d always have something to do. I pretty much ensured

Some might ask how is ectordermal dysplasias is caused. Ectodermal Dysplasias is usually caused from altered genes. The genes themselves may be inherited or regular genes become defective at the time of conception. This is known as mutation. The probability for children to be depends on the parent's type of ED that exists in the family.A person cannot modify or choose the genes that they are given, and events that happen during pregnancy do not change or affect the genes in any way. A parent who has a child with ED shouldn't think that they did anything to cause or affect the defective gene and shouldn’t blame themselves for it occurring in there child. One commonly occurring type of

But as I got older and began understanding myself more, I began to question such criticisms and exclamations. I knew I was social; I was able to talk to people, mingle with people I haven’t met, and approach people if I needed their help. But the moment I decided to be alone for a while, people began to see me as unsocial. Did people expect me to constantly be talking to people? How could I possibly do that if I get exhausted from interacting with others, or if I’m just not in the mood to talk? I knew I was introverted, but to me it seemed impossible for anyone, even if they are extroverted, to

When I began kindergarten, being incapable to communicate induced the ridicule from the other children that I would face for years. In elementary school it got worse, the children would blatantly refuse to play or talk to me and referred to me as horrible names. In fifth grade, I ended my speech therapy, and at this time I could communicate as any other kid with a fairly unrecognizable speech impediment. Though, this did not repair anyone’s opinion on me. People still refused to talk to me and reserved their views on me. I perceived middle school as a time to reinvent myself as a normal kid, I made my first few friends in these years; some girls who had gone to a different elementary school. I still never spoke of my speech impediment or any of my experiences with my friends for the fear that they too would judge me when they found

Most parents are happy to deliver a healthy baby without any health complications, so to hear that your child was born with a congenital disease has to be hard to handle. In many cases, a child can live an enjoyable life with a congenital disease, such as dwarfism. There are many types of dwarfism beginning with the most common types to the rarest with Achondroplasia, Spondyloepiphyseal Dysplasia, and Diastrophic Dysplasia.

I have always been considered a shy person going through my life. I seemed to always have a problem with communicating my feelings and ideas in a vocal manner. This obstacle in school has always held me back, especially in middle school when a presentation was due. So naturally, when I was accepted to attend the Surry Early College program, I was very nervous as a result of leaving my friends that I had made during my time in traditional schooling. I never knew this decision would have the constructive effect once I set afoot at the campus of the Early College

It all started at the beginning of fourth grade, when everyone moved to a new classroom, a new teacher, and, the most pivotal point, a new class of students. I, introverted and shy as I was, had to break boundaries and find different people to spend time with. My

Ectodermal dysplasia syndrome (EDS) is a large, heterogeneous group of inherited disorders in which two or more ectodermally derived anatomic structures fail to develop. Hypoplasia or aplasia of ectodermal appendages occurs, which includes skin, hair, nails, eccrine glands, and teeth. There are more than 200 types of ED with widely different phenotypes; the most common form of ED syndromes being X-linked hypohidrotic ectodermal dysplasia or HED(also referred to as Christ-Siemens- Touraine syndrome). Mutation in X-linked hypohidrotic ED has been mapped in the proximal area of the long arm of band Xq-12-q13.1.

Before reaching the 11th grade, I was painfully shy. How shy was I? Well, I would avoid asking questions even though I didn’t fully understand the material. I would stutter in my replies. I would feel myself shaking every time I had to speak in front of the class. I would cower away from people, from anyone who I wasn’t close to, as they talked to me.

I was still shy and remained quiet when I knew the answers to the teacher’s questions. After many frustrations, I had had enough. I started joining clubs and took discussion-heavy

I was born an introvert and remember being this way at a young age. I remember choosing to seclude myself in a room, engulfed in a world of video games and television alone, over the companionship of my fellow youth. I constantly found myself or my parents making excuses for the way that I was, such as, “He is just shy”, or many of the other clichés that go along with introversion. That couldn’t be further from the truth. I instead would find myself examining the situation and gauging it before I spoke or didn’t speak. I was a person of few words and even fewer friends, but the ones I did have were the ones I could call on at any given time. As I grew older, I started to notice this more and more as trends in my life developed. Every time that I would start a new class or a new school, I would start the semester off in the back corner of the class so I wouldn’t be surrounded with people. It never occurred to me that the other introverts had the same idea so I found myself surrounded with people. As the semesters progressed on, I found

Every since I was younger, I was never the person to go around and talk about myself, even though I was quite an outgoing child. Now, years later, after maturity- and a freshman English class- I am doing just that. When I was eleven years old, I moved in with my grandparents, I am quite a competitive person, and I aspire to become an Abnormal Child