I only know you from your blog, but I’m amazed at your courage and perseverance. Hear hear to all of the above. As your friends say, quit bellyaching and go celebrate! You obviously deserve it.

Hearing you worry about success is like talking to a couple of my female friends who have reached the top of their still overwhelmingly male-dominated profession (animation.) I’ve heard them react to their own achievements with disbelief. Or else they might confess to thinking they aren’t good mothers, wives, etc etc. Believe me this happens!

Enjoy the sense of well-earned success, Dr Charlton…

I understand about the phenomenon of working oneself up before a difficult event, trial or effort of some sort, sure that it will or could be a disaster, and then – after all – it is fine. I mean, maybe not quite on that level, but I know the base emotional cycle really really well (as my spouse will tell you, since he has to suffer through it with me and has learned the refrain “it will be fine it will be fine” (repeat 100 times).

One of my sons had several years of speech therapy in elementary and early middle school, mandated by the district in PA with an IEP (I think that’s the right acronym). Then we moved to HI, and had to have a meeting with the teachers and etc because the IEP transferred with him, of course, and when they met with us they kind of looked at each other, looked at him, looked at us, and without saying this exactly basically said, “we don’t understand why he needs this compared to the children who are really struggling” and we decided to let go of the IEP because we were kind of embarrassed, us being so middle class and well educated and knowing how many children in the schools here have such severe problems that there often isn’t enough $$ to deal with. It was fine for our son (he was happy to stop the therapy) and his speech is fine.

Ultimately, however, what truly defines us is what we *can* do, not what we can’t.

As for the possibility of abusing the system had you gotten the accommodations, puh-leez! How could you have known? Since you were in the second grade you’ve been told you needed accommodations until it was ingrained in you. How could you have known you could successfully test with them until you had to?

The prize here is not just your score, but the knowledge that the angst you went through preparing yourself for the test has revealed the preparations you needed to successfully pass the test.

Again, congratulations, now… go…..Celebrate!!!!

Congratulations, on several levels. Your world just got simpler. Breathe into a paper bag a few times to clear your head, and get on with it. It’s a good thing, and you deserve to enjoy it.

A final thought: if you are more keenly aware of your failings than anyone else, thank your lucky stars it isn’t the other way around.

I’m not sure about your logic here. Just because you did well without accommodations doesn’t mean that you don’t merit them. Who knows what your score would have been with accommodations — it could have been better, or it could have been worse. What if you’d had the accommodations but also a head cold? Or swine flu? Or gotten yourself in a funk before the exam over needing accommodations? I think there are many more variables here than your disability, which I know all too well and for which I will always, always vouch.