Youthful Blossom

CHAPTER 1: The Lowest

Elementary school was a traumatic experience in my lifetime. The amount of bullying I experienced as a child was unbearable. From being told deleterious words to being physically attacked by classmates. I was strong enough to withhold all of the pain I was put through until the 7th grade, after I had lost a best friend, whom I valued. I never knew exactly why he stopped being my friend as he displayed apathetic behavior. One time in one of our classes, the Social Studies teacher, Ms. Mitchell, assigned everyone with partners for a group project for the class and the friend, who I had lost, was assigned to be in my group project. Seeing him at the same table, that was actually a set of desks put together, made me feel sad throughout the class period. After we were dismissed from class, Ms. Mitchell noticed that I was sad and asked if I was okay. I ignored her and quickly walked out of the classroom. The class I had next was right next to my Social Studies classroom, so the teacher followed me to the door of my next class, which was Science, and asked if everything was okay. I lied with a "No." Then, she told me that if I needed anything, I could come speak to her whenever I needed to. After our talk, she left. I was in front of the short line of students that had my Science class next, and a girl behind me, who I had class with in fifth grade, asked me a few questions. I can't recall all of the questions that she had asked me but I remember one of the questions being something like "Is it because of him?" I lied in my response to her with "No." Then, everyone entered the classroom as the science teacher let us in. I was sad throughout the whole class period and left school with a dejected look. A few weeks later, I had become more quiet and shy. I barely talked to anyone as my anxiety around people grew. As weeks passed by, I became even more socially anxious and later, remained very quiet and isolated, especially at school.
In Spring 2015, I had to play a character on stage for my Drama class with a group of my classmates for a grade. The day I had to go on stage was a very hard day for me because of the amount of unbearable anxiety. There were so many students sitting in front of the stage, watching each group perform their plays. When it was time for my group to perform on stage, we went on stage, and as the other classmates started playing out their roles, I was trying my best to avoid making direct eye contact with the audience, as it made me uncomfortable. I did not want to look directly at them, but I was not allowed to have the audience face my back, otherwise, it would affect my grade as the teacher said, so instead, I was looking at the classmates from my group on stage. Putting my attention on them didn't take my anxiety away, but it was easier for me to do than facing a big audience, who were looking at me and the others, on stage. I wasn't facing them directly, but they could still see the right side of my face, which made me very uncomfortable as people seeing my face triggered my social anxiety. I didn't know anything about mental illness nor mental health, in general, at the time. I only believed that I was very shy and quiet, which made the entire situation worse.
When it was my turn to do my part in my group's play, I was not good at showing emotion, which is what the teacher would have loved to see in my role-play. I was nervously reading my lines from a piece of paper while anxiously shaking. I was trying my best not to show the audience my anxiety because then, they would know that I was nervous doing the play, and think that I was stupid, which they probably wouldn't have thought anyway, but, that's what anxiety does to a person. After the play, the audience were dismissed since the class period was over, and as I left the stage, one of my legs suddenly became numb. I had to leave the stage with a leg that I couldn't feel, which made me think "What if I fall down and get laughed at?" The thought sparked so much anxiety, but thankfully, my leg was going back to normal. "Finally," I said. The numb leg had added more pain than I could have already endured that day. But, I was strong enough to get through it. Little did I know what was coming next in the upcoming few years.
After Drama class, I was in my homeroom classroom, and a boy talked to me about my performance on stage. I don't remember his exact words, but they were positive. He let me know that I did seem nervous, but that I did good on stage, so it was nothing to worry about. He told me his kind words while we were in line, ready to leave school, as it was the end of the school day. After the first round of busses were called, school was over, and everyone went to their buses to go home.