I’d enter the wooden gates of my school with a slicked-back ponytail. At the beginning of the school day, my hair simply looked styled. By lunchtime, though, it would be flakey, hard, and dry. That’s when other kids started to ask questions.
“Is that dandruff?” 
I would respond, “Actually—it’s from neurofeedback.” 
Confused, they would continue to pry. I didn’t know how I was expected to respond. If I explained it would help me focus on reading and math, they would give me looks like I was stupid.  If I said it was for “brain mapping,” they would be even more confused. Even I did not fully comprehend what neurofeedback was at eight years of age. I knew that it had something to do with exercising my brain and improving connections. 
When I was eight years old I woke up every morning at 8:30 am and sat in a small, dimly-lit room. On my head was a cap, like a traditional baseball cap but with a ton of little holes connected to a bunch of wires. My doctor would come in and connect the wires to a rainbow plug and fill the holes in my cap with a syringe full of cold gel. I would sit in the room for a long time and try to focus on the screen, but I was supposed to try my best not to move or think about anything other than what was on the screen. We would also do activities like memory games. They also made me do things like quick math or reading. 
My doctor would constantly reassure me that I wasn’t doing the procedure because I was dumb or stupid or less than others he said that celebrities also had dyslexia and ADHD and got help in different ways but that didn’t make them stupid and they were also very successful. I looked up celebrities that have dyslexia and ADHD and some people immediately caught my eye. Daniel Radcliffe, also known as Harry Potter, had dyslexia and dyspraxia (a speech and reading disability). At the time I loved the series and he was someone I looked up to greatly. I learned all about his struggles with dyslexia and dyspraxia and how he had to overcome them and the leaps he took to overcome them.
This was an eye-opening experience for me because Radcliffe was one of my idols and this brought a new perspective of hope. I started to ask my doctor more questions about neurofeedback to understand what it was and to learn more about how it could help me. I finally understood that everyone could benefit from it not only people with dyslexia and ADHD and that it was meant to help my brain process quicker and help my reading. 
As I became more confident in myself, I started to see improvements in my reading and math. I started to accept my differences and comprehend how I needed more practice in the things that were hard for me, just as dancers and other athletes have to work hard and get help to improve. 
When I returned to school and kids asked again why I had flakes in my hair, I responded confidently, “It’s my gel drying from neurofeedback, which I do to help me practice my reading and math. It also just helps me focus more.” That day, I exited the wooden gates of my school with a dry, flakey ponytail, but with the greatest sense of self-acceptance, I had ever enjoyed.