Overcoming Teenage Adversity by Alana

Overcoming Teenage Adversity by Alana - January 2026 Scholarship Essay

Teenage years are often filled with challenges, but it's how we face those struggles that shape who we become. People do not often recognize what teenagers may go through, whether it be mental health, family issues, bullying, peer pressure, identity issues and so much more. Adversity helps develop your character, not define who you truly are; and teenagers fail to realize that. Being scared to constantly not be this perfect person that everyone just forces on to you is really stressful ;it's draining and it takes all of life out of you. Can we just stop for one second to acknowledge how teenagers truly feel?
Walking into panther creek high school my first year of high school. I was so excited everything was just going great , I met some friends and established relationships with people I wouldn't think I could intertwine with. But as I got farther into the year I felt this weird feeling and it was really weird. I was unsure of what it was but I just felt like I had to do everything everyone else was doing to be considered “ popular”. It was this girl at school and she was super pretty and she had everything from shoes to designer bags, a nice car , and everyone just loved her. All eyes were on her. She was named the “prettiest girl in school” , and it made me feel some type of way it made me shut down because I questioned myself “ why am i not as pretty” or maybe “why dont i get attention” . So , I thought that being her friend would make me considered “ pretty” , but boy was I wrong . It was like I was losing myself and I just constantly kept comparing and feeling like something was wrong with me because i wasnt getting accepted how she was getting accepted. That feeling didn't go away no matter how hard I tried to turn away from it , it always lingered and I hated it because my mind was playing with me and making me think something of myself that I knew truly wasn't true. It affected my conscientiousness and I just couldn't remember who I was anymore because I was too busy trying to be someone else. This caused me to be an attention seeker , to buy things that I didn't really want but I just wanted to look cool; I wanted to be relevant; the talk of the school like she was . Was Alana good enough? I felt like a loser like I was always second and it was like I was in a competition but I wasn't competing with another person I was competing with myself. I didn't come to realize it until at the end of my Junior year 2024. I had an awakening and it's when I started going to church more because I wanted a better relationship with God and wanted to be saved because I was drowning to the point it felt like I couldn't breathe. I heard something in church one day that stuck with me and it really made me open my eyes ,”See yourself as you really are” . The preacher preached this and it made me focus really on finding who I was. I always thought I knew but I looked into it some more and I didn't know because I was too focused on trying to be someone else and not being Alana . In the end, teenage adversity isn’t just about surviving tough moments, it's about discovering who you truly are through them. For a long time, I lost myself trying to become someone I was never meant to be, all for the sake of being accepted. But through that struggle, I learned one of the most important lessons of my life: you don’t need to become someone else to be valued. The version of me that God created Alana is already enough. Overcoming adversity doesn’t mean you always feel strong; it means you keep showing up, learning, and growing even when it’s hard. I no longer compete with others or chase validation. I walk for my own purpose now. And if there’s one thing I want others to take from my story, it’s that your worth isn’t determined by how the world sees you, but by how you choose to see yourself.