The Firehouse Effect Analysis

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Early in life I dealt with both my mother and father taking turns going in and out of jail due to their heavy drinking, Eventually my mother left for good eight years after I was born. Leaving me with my father dealing with his habit, but also realizing he had to raise three boys by himself. Through his method of parenting, work hours, and his drinking he didn't have much time to help direct me down a good path. So I never really had any motivation to do much in school, and also was terrified to try. Just to find out that I wasn't smart, or that I just couldn't do it. So now I am overcoming that fear and solidifying my volition to do well in school.

One of the first things I remember are the blue and red flashing

lights behind us in the van. I must have been four or five years old at the time. I had no idea why this man was taking my dad away or why my mom was crying. Later I find out that they took him away because it was his 2nd D.W.I.. For the next few years my mother and father both had a few run ins with the cops. If it wasn't a D.W.I. it was a probation violation. Some times they were only in jail for a week, sometimes they were in jail for eight months or so. When my dad woke my brothers and me up in our shared bedroom one morning in 1994. He told us that Mom was gone, I thought she was on one of her "trips". Dad informed us that they were getting a divorce and that we could take the day off of school.

After my mother left us my father was a little more careful with his drinking, making sure to let a friend drive, not being obviously intoxicated in public, and so on. He was worried about losing us to child protection. I was always terrified when one of my parents went away, the first time they went to jail was the worst. Then it almost seemed normal because I knew they would come back. When my mother never returned this last time, I panicked.

As I grew up school was never anything more to me then a long boring social outing. Eventually my father took me out of high school for failing all my classes and being truant. It wasn't till I hit rock bottom that I decided to turn it around. I was working at the famous Sexworld which was fun at first because it fit my lifestyle years ago. After years of working there the pay never changed and the atmosphere was no longer to my liking. My girlfriend of four years left me because I just gave up on anything that would be considered good. I only would have the company of people I made friends with in this sex drugs and rock and roll setting. Because my long term friends were mia due to the hours I would hold. So my drinking had gotten out of control almost every day sometimes I would even drink at work. Depression was something I dealing with on a massive scale. So the only answers I could think of was to either swallow a bullet or I needed to change everything and better myself for me. I decide not to do the former because I still believed in myself instead I quit my job, and went to the Minneapolis Adult Education Center and got my G.E.D.. Now I am on the next step of my plan college.

The biggest thing I need to do in order to be successful in college is to overcome my fears fear of failure but also fear of judgment.

That's why I have to rebuild myself. Paul Tough, the author of How Children Succeed, talks about the firehouse effect. The firehouse effect is how stress and anxiety effect the brain. Tough explains the effect: "The firehouse effect metaphor might help us understand what was happening with Monisha Sullivan. When she was a child, her fire alarm went off constantly, at top volume. Every time the alarm went off, her stress-response system sent out all the trucks, sirens blaring. The firefighters smashed in some windows and soaked the carpets, and by the time Monisha turned eighteen, her biggest problem wasn't the threats that she faced from the world around her. It was the damage the firefighters had done"(15). Tough is saying that the more stress and hardships you have to endure when you're younger, the harder it is to concentrate on what's important. I feel I have had my fair share of stress while growing up. Every time a quiz came up or homework was due it seemed impossible to stay concentrated, when I didn't know what I was going to come home too. When the stress didn't stop I tried to self medicate which did nothing for my grades. Now i understand that I cant let stress get in the way of my education. So to do this I am fixing the carpets and replacing the windows and getting fire insurance. Ive been tackling my fears and learned that I just need to keep knocking them down so i can succeed in

college.

To help me to keep powering through my fears and continue to succeed I need to have volition. Paul Tough talks about a method mental contrasting " It combines elements of the other two methods(optimism and pessimism). It means concentrating on a positive outcome and simultaneously concentrating on the obstacles in the way"(93). This is saying that there is always going to be tough times but you need to remember that your going down this path for a reason. When I decided to try and get higher education I was terrified to go take my G.E.D. test. However I knew that if I wanted to feel better about myself and go to college this was just one of my obstacles in my way. I know there is going to be plenty more tough times in my future life never stops just cause I'm in school. I just have to remind myself that I'm doing this to feel good and get my B.A. to start a career. My volition will come from remembering where I was and never wanting to go back there.

I'm very glad to have read this book because it has hit so many points that I have had to deal with in life. I hope that if anyone else reads this that has ever been depressed like I have been that everyone can succeed in life. Its never going to be easy but you need to hang in there. Even though I didn't have a lot going for me when I was younger like having a solid mentor or an easy childhood I know I can succeed.

Work Cited

Tough, Paul. How Children Succeed: Grit, Curiosity, and the Hidden Power of Character. Boston and New York Books, 2012.