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In my school harassment was always ruthless and sometimes violent. The teachers looked the other way as we learned "how to socialize in a real world environment". They looked the other way as we sorted out who got to enjoy "the best years of our lives".

It was in this environment that several sad years took their toll on me. I thought there was something wrong with me. I was escaping from a half-negative household into the arms of a half-negative school. Things weren't always bad, but the bad times were awful enough that the good ones didn't matter.

When I look back on high school I picture the days always heavy. I can still feel the dread of the bus pulling up and where I would sit. I can feel all the shyness and kindness and paranoia and stupidity welling up inside me like it always did.

I chose my friends badly I suppose. I went from being able to pass for a popular person's lackey to being a social outcast. I started to speak my mind and would stick up for anyone that was being physically harmed in my sight. I was sullen, and angry, and I didn't understand why it was okay for us to talk so hatefully to one another.

Most of all I was absorbing the hate directed at me as truth. I was poor. My clothes were shabby, my hair was home cut, my skin was pale, my eyes were ringed. I had allergies, I lived life from the neck up, I tried to forget I had a body at all. A typical high school geek for sure.

I felt then like it was more than that. I felt like I was hated for a reason. I couldn't figure out what made me a target. I was unable to absorb social order at that school. I was miserable and frantic and depressed mixed with a lot of anger.

The only things I learned in classes were what kind of underwear the girl in front of me was wearing (a bright pink thong sticking three inches above her waistband) or how to fill out worksheets (anything will do but for bonus points flip through a text book for half an hour).

I faked sick. I got sick. I faked sick some more. I developed a feeling of despair and even being home stopped cheering me up because I knew I had to go back the next day. Somehow I still maintained my nearly flawless GPA. Worksheets were way too easy.

I cried forever. If I wasn't crying I was sleeping. If I wasn't sleeping I sure wasn't eating. I stopped eating. I stopped writing. Two more years became my mantra. I became bitter and resentful, jittery and paranoid.

I was singled out at least three times a day. I was slammed into lockers. I was tricked by friendly faces. I was beaned with countless volleyballs, and shin struck with hocky sticks. I felt angry and I felt sorry for myself.

I dropped out two weeks into my Junior year. I was the first in my class but five more shortly followed. I walked away from my GPA. But I wasn't done learning.

Fortunately for me the local community college offered a GED through college credit. Because of my family's income and my four siblings, it cost only sixty dollars a semester. I attended Botany, Art History, Drawing and Writing. I excelled in my classes.

I absolutely thrived. No one pushed me. No one called me names. I was invisible for that first blissful semester and then I was (amazingly enough) accepted. I was in college.

Learn more about this author, E. Rae Fallesen.
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