High school was terrible (and how I dealt with it)

When you start high school, and whilst there, you are constantly told by teachers and parents that it's "the best time of your life". In all reality, most people go to college (which is better than high school) or end up in a job they love (much better than high school), and even if they don't, being in primary school or nursery would've been a much better time in their life. It's ironic, they basically tell teenagers things aren't going to get better in our lives, yet expect them to always be happy and positive.

High school was terrible for me. I had big wonky teeth (before braces, now I just have big teeth!), glasses, and big teeth (after braces). I am also feminine and came out pretty early in high school. Each year, however, got that small amount better. The last year , I still hated it, but I pretty much laughed in it's face.



The first year, I was bullied for being ugly (I had just started puberty and looked so gross). I actually managed to maintain friendships with guys, so I wasn't target of any homophobic bullying, and I didn't have a lack of friends, I just got bullied by the "cool" kids for my looks. I was once asked "have you ever thought of getting braces?"—like, bxtch, what do you think?!

In the second year, I came out. I was only 12, so obviously this was extremely hard. I didn't come out by choice, somebody outted me, somebody I thought was a friend. That was one of the worst weeks of high school for sure. Anyway, around this time, I started using the internet to socialise. I think I had just started using Tumblr and only had about 10,000 followers. This helped me deal with the situation as it distracted me from the real world, and showed me that outside of high school people were actually nice (this was when Tumblr was in its "dont hate, love everybody, everyone is equal" stage).

In my third year, things really improved. I realised that in the year before, I actually liked being sad, and didn't really want to be happy. I find that wanting to be happy does actually help you in being happy! I also got my braces off, and my teeth were straight, so nobody could say anything about them...well I guess they could be like "your teeth are big!" but that would be a really lame insult! This was my first exam year, so I was more focused on exams than bullies (although not really focused on any).

As I started my fourth year, I had the fact that I start my last year in 1 year to look forward to. I found that having something to look forward to in the long term helped keep my mind on track. I still got the occasionally mean comment thrown at me, but stopped paying attention altogether. I also had over 50,000 Tumblr followers at this point, so my ego was growing and I begun to think "who cares if they don't like me, at least they're paying attention to me". I also think short term goals are important, mine would just be to get to Friday!

In my fifth year I discovered, for lack of better word, "trolling" and lying. I would make things up, and say things, just to annoy people. I decided that people were going to dislike me and be mean to be whatever I did, so I may as well make them believe I'm doing things worth talking about? You can be whoever you want to be when you lie. It's also fun. Just don't lie to those you love.

I didn't try hard in school, deterred by Tumblr, bullies and my own motivation, but I still managed to get the grades I needed to get into college! High school was easy work wise and hard socially. College is the other way around. If you're still in school, you have that to look forward to. If there's anything I can help with, just leave a comment before!