Dead And Gone

It was her first day of high school.
She was nervous and afraid.
Not only if she had missed her bus, but whether she could escape IT. IT was her secret, the key to her pain. She wished to forget about IT, and for all to do the same. But, after she realized who exactly was on her bus, and who else was in this very special school, she realized she could not escape the many things that had killed her; that had made her go to counseling so many times...the thought of suicide.

Her pain came from cliques.
Her pain came from judgement and prejudice. She thought on how stupid and dumb she was to believe that she could escape. IT was everywhere. IT could not just disappear. IT had made her anorexic for only a little bit, and IT was why she came home everyday wanting to die. But that wasn't the bad part. Oh no, the bad part was that she had people that cared for her. She loved these people, with all of her heart; don't get me wrong. But her pain was antagonizing, she didn't want to go back to the pain and torture, but because of the people she loved, she went back.

She couldn't find an escape, no matter how hard she tried. She tried shortcuts like cutting, anorexia, burning...but she either tried it and it failed, or she she just couldn't do it. She couldn't stick to it. She could take the physical pain, no problem. The mental and inner pain, she could not bear though.

She couldn't just leave the ones she loved so dearly behind, could she? No, she couldn't. She had to fight, for her friends. She had to stay strong, for her family. She didn't know what to do. She wanted to stay, but at the same time, she wanted to leave.

She wanted to stay because of the curriculum, but more importantly, the teachers and her friends. But, she wanted to leave because of how she got ridiculed, teased, and judged. They cancelled eachother out. She got into her work more, and eating less and less. She would only eat one meal a day...tops. She knew it wasn't healthy, but she also knew it was better than being anorexic.

She strived, craved, for success. She had to be perfect. She had to do more than what she could handle. And it wasn't good for her. This confused her, and made her have mixed feelings. Creating a blockade of emotions in her mind. Like police blocking off a major, major highway. Sometime, these emotions, these cars, would have to get through..somehow. Soon enough, she had had enough.

Enough of the ridicule, enough of the pain, enough of this nonsence. She couldn't take it anymore. If she was being teased some way or another...and the teacher wasn't around, she would explode. She would yell and shout and cuss them out. She didn't care what the surrounding people thought of her anymore. She had had enough all together. The only thing that she would watch out for during her "episodes", were teachers and adults she knew well and respected. She told herself that she was not going to give respect anymore to people who kept on treating them like crap. She tried it, and it didn't work. The results were so bad, worse then then the precious years she had been tormented in.

She did not want to attend this school anymore. She wanted to go to a different school. A school she did not have to worry about her social life in, a place she did not have to worry about cliques. Homeschool. It was the perfect solution, but did she really want to give her dreams up? Give her friends up? Of course not, but homeschooling offered so much more for her. More challenging academics in the subjects she was good at, like math, and easier academics in the things that she was not good in, like science. She could get the personal help she neded, and she wouldn't have to worry about impressing anybody with her clothes, so she had nothing to worry about. There were more reasons to leave the school then to stay. But her heart held her back, like a person trying to run up the escalators that were going down. She was running, reaching to get out of that school, but something, her heart, was holding her back. The person wanting to go up the stairs, but gravity holding them back.

She was depressed, and alone. Nobody could help her, but herself. Every person she talked to could give advice, but nobody could make up her mind for her. And that's what killed her. Like before, the earth could spin either way, and she was the hand to spin it. Not only her future, but other future's would depend on her decision. She had gotten her dream, and everything had gone her way, so should she spin it left...or right? Why did this have to be such a confusing decision? She had made decisions bigger than this in her lifetime, so why was she struggling with this issue? She couldn't figure it out. Then, after a week and a half of struggles, it dawned upon her...

She was going to stay. She figured if she could go torwards her goal, she might as well try. If the ridiculing just got worse, she made her mother promise her that she could be taken out of school to be homeschooled. She was happy. The world had been lifted off of her shoulder, painful rocks torn away from her heart.

But after a little bit, she started getting depressed again. And, like most times, she didn't know why. She didn't want to be happy, but she didn't want everybody to be so concerned either. She just wanted to be left alone. To swim, and to think, in her own self-pity. She knew that nobody could help her, so why get them confused when they ask what's wrong?

Nothing. Always nothing. If the students were going to tease her, they didn't get to know what was wrong. As for the teacher, she would explain, but she couldn't. It was difficult even for her to figure out what she was feeling.

Depression, anxiety, fear, excitement, happiness. They were all combined in a colossal tangle of emotions. Could somebody be depressed for absolutly nothing? No, there had to be a reason. But what? Could it be all of the judgement, teasing, and prejudice from the past and the present? The stress? The responsibilities? If not, then what? It made no sense. At all. She didn't know what to do. She talked to her mother, her teachers, her friends, and her counselor. Everything they said to her made sense, but could all of their different words all be right? It could be. It also could not be.

She listens when she is talked to and she follows her heart. She listened to what everybody had to say. And, in a way, it all fit together. But, again, was all this pain-taking now, worth having a good future? Absolutly not.

Then, one day, she was racing to lunch with one of her friends, when other people, judgemental people who had judged her before, decided to "see" something that they really didn't. Those people told their friends, who told their friends, and soon 1/4 of the school knew something that wasn't true. Another lie, another rumor. When she got back to class, she broke down. She started crying, trying not to be noticed. It didn't work. Everybody noticed, and she couldn't stop. 20 minutes past, and she was still at it. Four teachers had seen her crying, and one of them had called one of the councelors up. He took her down, and one of her classmates started to say she was in trouble. Still crying, she stood up, gave him an evil look, and clenched her fist and was about to go after him, when the councelor called her over. She was so close. She wanted so badly to knock him out.

The rest of that week, the tension between her and the rest of the school just got worse. She couldn't make eye contact with them, none the less talk to them. She secluded herself and dressed ugly to protect herself. She was never going to dress up for that school ever again. Dressing up was part of the teasing, part of the ridiculing. She dressed up so that it would stop, and instead it got worse. She was never going to say something again to anybody in that school unless she had been spoken to. She was not going to say or do anything that could give these people something to say about her. She could not handle it.

Now she continued to reconsider whether she should actually attend this school that had literally torn her body to pieces and ripped her heart out and left her lying in the middle of no where to die. Why should she go back to this place, just to be restored and killed again. It wasn't worth it. And she couldn't take it. She even emailed a radio show to ask for advice. To get an opinion from somebody who didn't personally know her. So that they didn't know what would benefit her the most. So that she could know which would be safest for her and possibly for other people. But, she beared it. Her saying started to be, "Fake it 'till you make it." And it worked. She faked being happy for a week and by the end of the week, she wasn't faking it anymore. It was true happiness. She was happy. Sure, she still heard rumors about herself, but she just shrugged it of. And they stopped. She actually became friends with those who teased her. She was definately staying at this school, nothing was holding her back anymore. She was sure. This is where her dream was, where her "family" was. She loved it there, and people loved her for her, she didn't have to be anybody else. She learned many things over that year, and left the school with more self-confidence than she could have ever known she had. That school had given her this, and she thanks every single one of those people.

This is my story. My life. That person was and is me. This was my freshman year in high school. This story proves a lot of things. Stuff like people and things aren't as bad as they seem, and a lot of tension you may have is just you...and to just be yourself, and not anybody else. This wasn't exactly a happy ending, but it was pretty damn close. Now, not all stories have a happy ending, but this shows that not all stories have shitty endings either.