My daughter, my beautiful failure

By all the standard markers, by all the accepted rules and regulations and assessments of secondary school, my daughter left school a failure.

Over the two years of her higher school certificate, she has truanted frequently, she has failed to hand in assignments, she has failed to turn up on time, she has failed to meet uniform requirements, she has failed to attend some of her HSC trial exams, she has exhausted the patience of teachers and pushed to the outer limits the structural sympathies of the public school system.

Innumerable official letters outlining her many misdemeanors have kept postmen busy beating a path to our house – we stopped opening them about a year ago. There have been programs of improvement, second chances, third chances, and more. Expulsion has been just around the corner for six months.

It has been difficult for her teachers; it has been difficult for her parents.

It has been difficult for no-one more than her.

Every day of my daughter’s high school life has been a struggle. She wakes up in the morning and the thought of going to school – sometimes even the thought of going outside – is like an enormous mountain to climb. Very often she hasn’t been able to scale it.

There have been times when she just hasn’t made it all the way to school: she sits in a park on her own, wondering why she finds it all so hard while her friends trundle on ahead in their “normality”; she has been doubled up in a laneway near the school crying, riveted by her anxiety.

When she has made it there, sitting in class for the duration of a lesson is the next mountain in the range. Anxious thoughts crowd out her bandwidth, blocking the admission of any useful information the teacher might be trying to impart. She told me once in a moment of rare vulnerability that she felt so distressed about being so behind in her classwork that she spent the whole period fighting the urge to flee and throw herself onto the train tracks.

She has fled class many many times; mercifully never to throw herself off anything, anywhere.

“Nothing will ever be as easy as your school years,” well-meaning adults have told her, but I know for my daughter, and for many others who have struggled as square pegs trying to make themselves round, this is dead wrong.

What has been her saving grace? Her school community, her friends, her understanding teachers (certainly not the English teacher who was informed of her mental health issues and continued picking on her and humiliating her anyway, ultimately banishing her from class).

While she has missed just about every mark on the schoolwork journey, she is highly functioning in her social life. Many parents would look at this fact with a wry sideways glance and an eyebrow raised, but I have held onto it for dear life. What could be more important than succeeding at your personal relationships? Don’t we say that at the end?

But the lottery of life has blessed this girl with a personality that rejects ranking or assessment of any kind. She can’t even watch the Olympics – actually has to leave the room – because she can’t stand the thought that someone has to come first, second, third, and that someone has to come last.

In an education system that long ago became a race – yes, a bloody race – my girl opted out of the competition early. Consequently now she is one of the ones coming last by a mile, hobbled by an unseen, misunderstood disability and yet still so determined to cross the line. The stadium has not been cheering.

But for the compassion, patience, and implicit understanding of one magnificent teacher, and a clutch of friends coaching from the sideline, she might not have made it.

She might not have walked, beautiful big smile on her face, with her cohort into the school hall on the last day of school. She might not have made in onto the stage to collect the precious piece of paper that says “Graduation Certificate”, hugging that teacher on the way.

Like so many kids of her age, she is tremulous in the face of the great unknown. What will I be? Who will I be? What will I do? Everyone is demanding an answer of these poor buggers right now, in this 17 year-old moment. The pressure is terrible, and the final stretch in the race to the finish is particularly arduous.

But the finish line is here – we are at the end of the HSC, and I don’t care how she went, I don’t care about her results.

She has picked herself up after so many “failures”, one after the other after the other. She has filed these “failures”, stored every mistake, and kept on going, even while extreme anxiety still has her in its grip. If that’s not resilience, if that’s not bravery, if that’s not triumph, I don’t know what is.

Today she sent me a text after her final exam. “Just finished!!!!”. I know the sheer relief she feels – it is molecular – but I have to say no, you’re wrong, darling girl, it is only just beginning for you. Freedom is here, and I know you will be okay.

My daughter, the failure, has taught me how to rethink the meaning of success, and I could not be more proud.

This story has been published with the support of the author’s daughter. If it brings up any issues for you, please call Lifeline on 13 11 14

This piece was originally published in The Hoopla, part of the Guardian comment network