Start Before You're Ready

CHAPTER 1Conquering challenges from an early age

I was born with significant short-sightedness. I couldn’t see anything for the first six months of my life, though it wasn’t until several instances of bumping into walls, corners and terracotta pots that my parents realised something was definitely not right. I was diagnosed with short-sighted eyesight at –17, two points away from being completely blind.

I needed coke-bottle-thick glasses, and to bullies at school I was an easy target. When I was in Grade 3 my family moved from the suburbs to the inner city of Canberra, which meant I had to change schools. I was short and fat as a kid, nervously pushing my thick glasses up to keep them on my nose. I quickly became ‘four eyes fatty’. I felt alone and scared, rejected by society and rejected by myself. I only had one friend, Tom, who knew me from my previous school. He was a cool kid and his acceptance of me helped. However, the kids in the years above still threw things at me as I walked home. And at lunchtime they always chose me to knock over on the oval; one would kneel down behind me and another would shove me so I would trip backwards and fall over his friend. I was the laughing-stock. I tried to act like it was funny and like it didn’t get to me.

From early on I realised that school wasn’t a place where I would succeed. My –17 eyesight meant I struggled to see the board, and I had problems concentrating and difficulty reading. Dyslexia and a big dose of ADHD provided a difficult ...