Ever since a young age, I was never normal. In preschool, they held me back. Who even gets held back in preschool? The preschool leader recommended it because I never talked and the words autistic was thrown around. I didn’t know what aspergers was at the time, I thought it was just a cheeseburger. It turned out that I was not autistic nor did I have “cheeseburger” syndrome. However, still it was recommended that I went to preschool for a second year to develop the social skills I was lacking.

In kindergarten the teacher would jokingly check on me to make sure I was still alive because of how quiet I was. It’s not that I didn’t want to talk or not that I didn’t know how, I was a fluent reader and great at writing. I was always just too afraid to speak out or talk to the people around me. There have been so many times where I have wanted to talk to someone or where I have wanted to contribute, but I just can’t. It’s as if someone has sewn my lips shut.

I became homeschooled in 5th grade because I felt so alone in school. I didn’t think of how it could be at worse at home. I almost failed 5th grade because it was so hard. I didn’t have a teacher to talk to or anyone to help motivate me. 6th grade I stayed home schooled and my grades got better. In 7th grade, my sister wanted to go back to public school because she missed her friends, so my parents encouraged me to go back as well. Two years after isolation and being thrown back into the mix wasn’t a good idea for me. I was worried about everything and everyone around me. I met one person though and things got so much better. I met her by accident in the lunch line. People kept telling me I looked like this girl Vanessa, but I had no idea who that was and then I met her and everyone started referring to us as ‘the twins’. Today, she is still one of my greatest friends. She encouraged me to speak out and she helped me make friends and to be who I wanted to be without worrying about other people. Things were great until they weren’t.

I became depressed that winter. Seasonal depression runs in my family, but I was too scared to say anything to anyone and it got worse and worse. I went back to being the ‘quiet’ girl. I started drifting away from everyone, even Vanessa. The summer after 7th grade was the best and worst summer and things were the worse it had ever been. It was so bad that I convinced my parents to let me be homeschooled again in 8th grade. They still didn’t know I was suffering inside. 8th grade year was confusing.

I did school through an online charter-school program. I had my ups and met my friend Noah. Through him, he helped me talk to other people who used the same program as well. But it wasn’t the same as talking in person. Online I could talk to anyone without worrying too much. Even on the phone was easy. For some reason though, I just couldn’t talk to anyone in person. I was afraid about others would think about me. I hated the sound of my voice. I might have been depressed and lonely being homeschooled, but at least I didn’t have anxiety from doing school from the comfort of my room. After 8th grade, my dad wanted to buy a house.

We looked at many houses and we liked many of them but the last house we saw was the house everyone agreed was “it”. The house was in a new school district and I got ahead of myself and thought, “maybe it won’t be like last time”. So I took my chances and decided to go to the new school thinking it would be different. I knew nobody at all here which was different from my transition in 7th grade where I knew almost everyone from elementary. Nobody knew me. The first week or two of school the only people I ever talked to were teachers. My anxiety was the worst it had ever been. I tried to come out of my comfort level and make friends, but that made it harder. It got so bad that I would pretend to be sick to get out of going to school.

One day in October, people were throwing pencils at me, telling me I looked like I was five years old. I’ve had attacks before where my palms get sweaty and my heart seems to jump out of my chest, but it was never this bad. I went to the office in tears and saying I was sick. My mom came and got me and took me to the doctor.

My mom just thought I was sick, but I told the doctor the truth. She had me take 3 tests. One for anxiety, one for ADHD/ADD, and another for depression. I scored very high for anxiety, in the middle for depression, and I showed signs of ADD, but it wasn’t high enough to be considered something that needs medication. The doctor prescribed me two bottles of pills. One for the anxiety and the other for the depression. My dad was furious at me and bombarded me with questions. Everyone in my house was convinced I was making it up for attention. If it was for attention, then why was I constantly waking up wishing I was dead? I was convinced not to take any pills being told by family members that it would make me a different person.

Despite this, going to the doctor still helped me find a medication for everything. It isn’t anything you take or anything in an orange bottle. After talking to the doctor about everything, I opened up to some of my close friends. I’m now able to talk to them freely about almost anything. Even if they don’t have anything to say, it helps a lot just to be able to let it all out after holding it in. I still struggle, but with people to talk to, it’s so much easier.