May 22 2008
The beginning of high school.
My high school years were the worst for me. I was just beginning to understand that I was unique and different from others. This was further complicated by the fact that my peers singled me out and alienated me.
I was in my first semester of ninth grade about two weeks in when the torture started. It did not help that my older sister was a grade ahead of me and told of every intimate detail of my shortcomings. That combined with the fact that I was placed in a special math class compounded what was already a difficult transition for me.
I hated riding the bus. At the bus stop, the kids would ignore me. If I arrived early and took the favored spot, my sister forced me out or they would gather somewhere else and just ignore me.
The famed favorite seat at the back of the bus was reserved for the most popular, so I was exiled to the very front of the bus where even the less popular kids ignored me.
At school, I tried to follow my older sister around; but, inevitably she and her friends would chase me away before the bell and I would often be late to class because I never could remember exactly how to open my locker. Was it left right left or right left right and what was the combination? I once allowed a kid to help me open it and came back at the end of the day to find my locker empty and vandalized.
Children can be so cruel.
I remember in Jr. High when another student attacked my sister on the last day of school with some NAIR. She ran all the way home just to get it washed out before her hair fell out, leaving me behind.
Now that I was in High School, things were worse for me. A girl who was a Jr. and wanted to beat me up chased me one day. She was at least twice my size! Apparently, she did not like the way I looked at her. I ran for my life and scraped my arms and legs up jumping a wall. I never returned to school that day and began a long tradition of ditching.
You would think they would have missed me. Nope, of all the days I got off the bus and walked away I was only marked absent three times from my special math class and none others.
I once even received and RPC notice to take to the principles office for ditching outside of the PE class doors. Never heard a word about it after I trashed it and walked off campus.
Not only was I pushed out by my peers, it seemed not even the teachers cared enough to notice me.
Alas, I would receive some schooling while in treatment facilities. However, I would not get my diploma until I was almost 22.
