Once upon a time, there was a girl named Katie. She had a life like no other, as her mom spoiled her and wanted nothing but the best for her. She wanted Katie to accomplish everything that she could dream of. As a result, Katie’s mom signed her up for everything possible in order to give her endless opportunities. Ever since she was little, she participated in volleyball, skating, basketball, and softball. Katie's mom pushed her so hard in her skating career, that she had the opportunity to become a professional skater and try out for the Olympics at the young age of 14.

She had extensive training with an Olympic coach and her mom bought her expensive outfits so she had everything needed to succeed. On top of this, her mom expected her to get A’s in all of her classes and would punish her extensively if she didn’t.

As Katie needed to live up to her mom’s expectations, she worked day and night on her homework. Her coach encouraged her to put more hours into skating each day in order to perfect her performance. In 6th grade, Katie went days without sleeping and eating because she had to maintain a specific weight in order to have the flexibility needed for skating. Her poor eating habits and lack of sleep continued as she grew up and started high school.

As Katie went from middle school to a freshman in high school, she started withdrawing from her friends and feeling isolated. As a result, her grades started dropping and she didn’t have the desire to tell her mom because she knew that the news would be disappointing to hear. She didn’t know who to turn to, so she worked harder and harder in school. She worked so much that she became isolated from having fun with her friends or even having time to relax.

In school, Katie started to realize that she was having a difficult time concentrating in class. At night, this led to her worrying about failing, and as a result, she was not able to sleep. Katie felt that sports helped to relieve her restlessness and anxiety to a certain point, so that's what she started to focus on.

As midterms were coming up, she knew that she needed to get her grades up so that her mom wouldn't know she was struggling so much. In order to achieve that, she stayed up for three days straight and when the test came, she thought she knew every answer. As she started getting ready for school on the test day, she was worried because she thought that she was going to be late, but instead ended up being there an hour early. As she sat by her desk that morning, she couldn't help but feel like she was dying. Her mind was spinning out of control and she felt like she was holding up a heavy weight on her shoulders. The only thing that she could think about was that at any minute her head would come crashing down on her desk from being exhausted from studying for hours on end in order to ace the test. Finally, the test was in front of her and she started answering each question with a confidence like no other.

The following day, Katie went to school and received the test results. She undoubtedly passed with flying colors. She earned an A- on the test, but still felt like a failure. She knew that her mom would not approve of it, even though she had an overall grade of 105% in the class. Then, she began to worry that her mom would yell at her and tell her that she needed to do better.

In class, Katie always did any of the extra credit offered in order to raise her grade. After she saw her results, she felt short of breath, sweaty, anxious, and like her world was falling apart. She did not know how to deal with what she was experiencing. Katie tried resolving the problem by talking with her Psychology teacher to see if she could get a better grade. Unfortunately, her teacher would not allow her to retake the test.

Her teacher tried to reassure her by telling her that she had the best grade in the class, but it still wasn’t good enough for Katie. She knew that she had to do better in order to keep up with the expectations of her mom.