My Story

Freshman year to Junior year

Freshman year was the year to finally start fresh and reinvent myself. or, at least that's what I thought would happen. that got messy all too quickly and the wound got deeper as the year went on. The first day of school, I'm at home, internally and not-so-quietly, freaking out, because, new school, new teachers, trying to figure out where all my classes were, because I didn't remember from "Meet the Teacher Night" and frankly, it was eating me alive, if not swallowing me whole. My siblings and I all pile into the car, dad was driving us to school that day. The whole way, i'm completely silent, trying to mentally reassure myself of the positive things and tell myself that, "hey, i'm just overthinking this, it won't be that bad, I can do this because i'm a tough girl." However, we pull up to the school, (it's litterally two blocks from my house, so it's within walking distance and takes at least ten minutes to get to school and back) and we get out of the car and say goodbye to our father, and he drives off. I kept telling myself that it's gonna be okay, but, before I even walk in the building, I'm already bursting into a literal waterfall of tears, a crying mess  on my knees on the cold, hard, ground, because i'm so overwhelemed, anxious, frustrated with myself for being weak, and no ammount of me trying to calm myself down or distract myself, did anything but make me even more overwhelmed. My brother, who is full of confidence, walks in the building no problem, my sister is nervous too, but not as much as I was, because she wasn't crying, or freaking out, unlike me. She's comforting me to the best of her ability but it wasn't working. Although I really did apprieciate her comforting words and gestures and I'd be lying if i said it didn't make me feel a tiny bit reassured. Together, the two of us walk in, and i'm clinging to my sister like a sloth to a tree branch. I held onto her hand tightly, too afraid to let go. Right away, our family friend who works there as aid for special education kids, like my brother and kids with Down Syndrome, autism, ADHD, ADD, writing difficulties, reading difficulties, and other things, was there, and right away, with her kind soul, she came over to my sister and I and she hugged me as I cried harder and my words were jumbled up and hard to understand, I was hiccuping trying to catch my breath, and luckily, my sister, who was next to me rubbing my back, didn't once leave my side. I love her for that. Then, our case manager, Mr.Jenna, came up to us, took over for our family friend and took me and my sister to the counseling office to get our schedules printed out, so we could also navigate the building, find our classes and our lockers. That helped a little for me at least. My siblings, it helped a lot and they were asking other students, which way their classes were, something I was NOT in no way possible, brave enough to do. As I walked to my first class, I was walking down the hallway with my hood up, face covered and I stared at the walls, almost as if I were expecting them to close in on me, which, at the time, felt like was happening. At least a FEW people saw me crying, which just made me feel worse because as if i weren't already anxious and overwhelmed. The teacher's comforting me made it worse and I just wanted to go home or at the very least, hide in the bathroom and dig my grave. So I finally stopped crying and got to my first class, which is ELA, or english, or reading, and we're all assigned to do this "Get To Know You" project on our chromebooks where we make a presentation about ourselves and I wanted NOTHING to do with it. I already knew how this was gonna play out, getting judged silently, being known as a weirdo, the one thing i've been working so friggin' hard to get away from and start fresh, like another do-over. But the kids in my grade already knew how much of a weirdo I am, and there's no escaping that. Things got worse throughout the whole year. My case manager, Mr. Jenna, turned out to be a jerk. In Human Geography, second trimester, we were doing presentations one day, and as everyone is presenting, their eyes fixated on the person presenting, or the presenter's eyes on the class, teacher, and presentation, I would be fidgeting in my seat, only because I can't sit still for more than ten minutes, because then, I fidget. So, I had my pink small squish ball with me, and as I was fidgeting with it, Mr. Jenna comes and just yanked it out of my hand, taking it from me. and I just shout, "What the heck, bro?!" Right in the middle of one of my classmate's that were presenting. Mr. Jenna said, "You're being too distracting to your peers, and drawing attention to yourself." And i'm just like, "But, my brother's making noise too!" Mr. Jenna said, "He's austistic and can't help it, you're being distracting and obnoxious." I said nothing after that. I Just stormed out and slammed the door. In my head, all I could think is, "I'm distracting for fidgeting, I'm obnoxious for squishing my squish ball and for trying to keep it quiet?" I actually was trying to be quiet with it, because I was trying to listen and NOT cause a distraction to myself, which I wasn't! After class, I went back in and apologized to Mr. Blandin, who was my Human Geography teacher. He forgave me, and then I asked him if during his class I was being distracting with my squish ball. He said that I wasn't! He said he knew I was listening, and even a few of my classmates agreed that I wasn't being distracting, and that they didn't mind me squishing my ball. I smiled at that, feeling relieved. This other time, I was in math with Mr. Jenna, who unfortunately, was my teacher, and we got into an argument, and he looked at me, and I looked at him. He says to me, "I wonder how your poor  parents must feel, having to put up with such a toxic brat like you." I just started crying, my brother slammed his chromebook shut, stopped working, and my sister was screaming at him. I screamed "Fuck you" and then ran out of the room, slamming the door behind me without a second thought. Honestly, are teachers even allowed to talk to students that way? Anywho, I was escorted by my resource officer, officer. (I'm keeping his name private, just to respect his boundaries and him as the wonderful person he is, so i'm referring to him as Officer). I let him grab my hand, and he takes me to the guidance office. As we're walking, he's talking to me, wanting to know why i'm upset. I tell him, "It's Mr. Jenna! He's being a fucking jerk! He was pissing me off, all because he took away our breaks! He's being unfair!" Officer nodded and he patted my shoulder, he was trying to reassure me the best he could. I really like that. but, it wasn't enough to cheer me up, unfortunately. We get to the guidance office and the secretary, Ms.R, gave me a soft smile, welcoming the both of us in. I sobbed harder, burying my face into the leather soft chairs. I felt so embarrassed, I just couldn't bring myself to look at anybody. Everyone was looking at me. They were talking to me, but I didn't respond. My brain just kept yelling, "Say something! ANYTHING! Just give them a response already!" So I just sat there, a crying, slouching mess in the chair. A year later in sophomore year, I told myself I'd be better this year. Ha! I proved myself wrong! Cuz the school year had only just started, and I already got sent to a psychiatric hospital. for 9 days. I got there at night, probably around 8 pm. I cried every day there, and there was this one girl, Rae, who was nice, but also had this snippy sarcastic side to her, and I could never tell if she was joking or being dead serious. The most traumatizing thing is when I saw this boy patient named Zay, choked a girl named Vanessa, who was also a patient there. Both of them I think were 14. I saw this happen right in front of me and I was so shaken, I fell to my knees. It happened so fast. Eventually, days later, I get discharged and went home. Literally the next day I show up at school, these girls approached me. They were probably in maybe junior or maybe freshman year or something. Whatever. They look at me and say, "Hey aren't you the girl that went to the mental hospital?" then they just walk away. Only my family knew about that, and so my first thought was that maybe my sister told them. Surprisingly, she didn't. She told me she didn't tell anyone. At that moment, I was too shocked to reply, so I put on a fake smile, nodded, and walked away. The embarrassment on my face was more than I could take, and I felt as if I could cry at any moment. Which happened 5 seconds later. I looked down, avoiding the gazes of anybody who looked at me. I could feel my whole face heating up with frustration and pure anxiety. I just wanted to not go to my classes for the rest of the day, but that wasn't gonna happen with Mr. Jenna riding on my ass constantly. So, I sighed, went to class, sat down, and a few people were looking at me and whispering. I just ignored it though. I tried to focus my attention to the teacher, which has hard because I kept getting distracted by every single little thing that caught my eye. And then I zoned out afterwards, forgetting everything the teacher was saying. I felt like such an idiot. When the teacher called on me, I said, "sorry, I zoned out, my bad". The teacher wasn't even mad, actually. I was glad. All he said was, "Oh, that's okay. I'll catch you up when it's time for project work". I smiled, feeling a small sense of relief well up throughout my body, simply nodding as he went back to explaining the lesson. Soon enough, project work eventually came, and he caught me up, but I zoned out again, but he had a way of repeating things to me a few times, no irritation in his voice, just so I could understand what i'm doing. I appreciated that more than he ever knew. He truly understood my ADHD, and I'll always be so grateful for teachers like that. However, Evan as the year went on, my outbursts continued, and they got worse, too. One day, I had another outburst, and I stormed out of the school, earning myself a truency ticket. I ended up going to court, and getting it all sorted out. After, during my summer, I got very depressed and ran away to a hill near my school, and I stayed for a few hours, then came home, and talked things out with my parents. We got everything sorted out, but even after, I wasn't feeling any better. This was when I was going into my sophomore year. I managed to control myself for the time being, and then, the first day of school came. I was a nervous wreck, and I couldn't control myself. I had my outburst on the first damn day of school, of all days! I hated myself or it, and just when I thought things couldn't get any worse, they did. On the fifth day of school, everything went smooth for a while, but then these certain classmates of mine were pissing me off, and I threatened them. I ended up going back to the psychiatric hospital again for 3 nights, and every day that I was there, I cried. On the first day, it was almost 1 am when the process of me getting admitted was complete. I was cold, and shivering my nervous, anxious ass off. The second day, I was too nervous to speak to anybody, but I ended up making some friends anyhow. The third day was a mess. I got locked outside the courtyard, and had to wait for at least fifteen minutes for someone to actually fucking notice me. The last day I was there was hell. I saw a patient strangle another, and I saw this go down right in front of me, and I just broke down in tears, knowing this will scar me forever. And, I was correct. When I got back to school, nobody talked to me, and I didn't give two fucks. I got better at drawing though, so I was happy. However, the same thing happened again where two classmates pissed me off and I threatened them. I was shipped off to court again, and sentenced with community service for 18 hours. Then, the day came where my days of community service were done, and I was off probation. Since then, I haven't gotten myself in trouble since.