Outsider

Educated

Yeah it could've ended so much worse. Unfortunately there are those among us who can't mentally deal with any of it. And after a while they choose to take their own life. But not me. I've been brought up with the saying that I should always focus on the positive. So I have been doing since as long as I can remember. Sometimes I get asked why and how. My answer is always simple; because I want to. Well, sometimes with a few more words and less subjective. It doesn't take away the fact that I have a choice. At all times I do have a choice wether I go for it or not. I do have a choice wether I wake up in the morning, or not. It is possible that I've been, in my opinion, well educated by my parent(s). There's always downsides to life, wether we want them or not. And that's where our choices come into play. We can choose to focus on the negative instead of the positive, or vise versa.

I think this is the right moment to jump back into reality, into the story I'm telling you. Because I've mentioned that I've been bullied, been let down, been locked out, etc. I've never talked to anyone about it, it's all in my past without anyone knowing it. And that makes me wonder.., how am I still here? How do I manage to convince myself to get up and just keep going.
And even back in those days as a little kid. Standing there in the corner of the principle's office.

Now, eventually I transferred to another school. A school where I could be more of myself. But after 6 years of being pushed into a corner, I was broken. I needed to be put back together if you will. I wasn't the same, I wasn't myself. And quite honestly, being high sensitive didn't go so well with this 'new' me. I got into trouble a lot and wasn't behaving at all. Always looking for ways to disturb the peace. While it took some time, eventually I received the proper care. Someone to talk to. I wasn't myself yet but we were getting there.

As I'm writing this I realized that I've never truly thanked all the people that helped me throughout the years. One of them even passed away without me knowing in the beginning. Shows how ungrateful I used to be. No, I take that back. I wasn't ungrateful, I just didn't know what to be grateful for. Fortunately I do now. Can we call that progress?

Moving on to to high school.., well it just went downhill once more. To this day I'm still not sure if they truly wanted me gone or if I really was the person they made me out to be. It took them only 4 days. Imagine that, a 13 yr old kid, finally moving on to high school, being outcasted by those who should help you with preparing for when the true adult life starts. Some would say it's because of my ethnicity, some would say it's because of my stupidity. Whatever their reason was, it's a fact that it was wrong. Eventually framing me for something I did not do. Yes, a school framed me. I know much worse things happen at some schools but to me this, it made such a huge negative impression on me.

After a while, going through a lot of little schools where basically the trouble kids were at, it was time to choose for something more democratic. Where you listen, and listen to. Asking why was no longer a negative thing. It was alright to ask questions. To wonder, to philosophize. And as the name states, democratic education, you were able to do and create anything. With the right arguments of course. Yes, democratic education thought me well. Thought me to speak up, thought me to socialize, thought me to be stronger with words. I finally found pieces of myself there. Building myself back up again. I remained on this beautiful concept, because it still was a concept back in those days, for more than 3 years. I saw people come and go. I made friends, I made even better friends. Saw people graduate, saw people pursue their dreams. And I was there, without a clue what to do with my life.
Quite honestly, in 2021 I still have zero idea about what I truly want.

I seem to notice that I wasn't the only one. There are so many people wondering what to do. Stuck in an endless loop of going through what our socialization tells them to do. And I wasn't really scared of going through the same, more concerned that I would. In that basic, go to school - graduate - work - start a family - the inevitable.. death, loop. Soon before my time ended there, that was the only thing I could think about. I wasn't really focused on the democratic concept anymore, I was focused on my future. I knew the end was coming and realized that staying there was not the best option for me. Yeah you can say that I'm educated. Or at least, enough to get me through life where I'm at right now.