  Freshman year of high school (9th grade)
High school was a bit confusing because I had never had a locker before and we rarely switched classes in grade school, and we never had a bell before. But I got used to it pretty quickly. I had no friends again, but I didn't mind. I was quite happy on my own. I was a little worried the summer before, the typical worries I guess. Not as much as I probably should have been, considering I didn't talk. But like I mentioned before, I was so convinced I was going to talk in HS that I wasn't worrying about not talking. I don't know if it's better to tell the kids that there will be someone in the class who doesn't talk, or to let them find out on their own. None of my classmates, apparently, were ever told. The typical way for them to find out was to ask me something, wait for a response, and finally have a classmate from grade school tell them I didn't talk. This produced funny looks, as though they had just found out I had the plague or something. A perfect example happened in my health class. This is where I got to meet "Shania". She asked me something, and a helpful classmate said, "She doesn't talk." He was trying to be nice, but Shania could not believe that I didn't talk even though I could. She kept asking him and me, "So she can talk? Why don't you talk?" He got a little embarrassed, and told her to just forget it, something she wouldn't do for the next 4 years. It was in this class one day that we had to count the number of times that our partner blinked in a minute. Naturally, Shania was my partner. Imagine, being SM, and having someone stare at you for a minute straight, barely blinking, not smiling, just looking like they can't believe you would dare to look at them. My blink-count was about 3 times everyone else's, besides the fact that I could only maintain eye contact with her at all for seconds at a time. I have always hated being stared at, if someone looks at me for longer than a few seconds I get nervous. I try to hide behind things, or if it's one of those blank stares where the person is zoned out on something, I try to move around to snap them out of it. It was funny how the staring thing started out my high school years. It was like foreshadowing the rest of high school. In one class, I sat completely on the opposite side of the room from her, in the front row. Sometimes I would glance over at her, and she would be staring at me. She would see me look at her, and she would give me a weird face like I had just done something disgusting. When we happened to be closer to each other, like only a seat or 2 away from each other, she would do this but when she saw me glance at her she would say, "Don't look at me!" or "What are you looking at?" or "Stop staring at me!" I thought it was absurd, because I would look at her for a half-second and she would say this. If I happened to look at her by accident, I would usually smile and try to be nice, but she always gave me a funny look or said something stupid. High school was much farther away than grade school, so I had to ride the bus instead of my mom picking me up. For some reason, we got the smallest bus you could possibly have. My mom said they probably couldn't get a bigger bus because there would be too many extra seats, but considering that it wasn't unusual for someone to be standing I think we could have gotten a bigger bus. If I didn't get there fast enough to find an empty seat, I would have to find someone nice enough to let me sit with them. Sometimes that meant standing in the front of the bus until the bus driver told someone to move over. On one occasion an older girl told me I could sit next to her. She seemed really nice, of course anyone who would let me sit next to them willingly would have to be nice. A few weeks later I got on the bus and one of the only available seats that I saw was next to her. I took it, and she started whispering to the girl in front of her. I couldn't hear them, but soon she got up and squeezed past me. Not a word to me, she totally ignored that I was there. She sat with her friend in the seat in front of me. I tried telling myself that at least I had the seat to myself. A few weeks later I had to sit next to her brother as he had the only available seat. He actually climbed over the seat in front of us the second I sat down and moved farther back in the bus. Again I tried telling myself that I had the seat to myself, but that couldn't prevent me from having to duck down so no one would see me crying. Usually though, I just got a look of disbelief from the person I sat next to. I tried to sit as far away from them as possible, usually I ended up hanging out in the aisle, so I wouldn't bother them too much for the 10 minutes that they would be forced to suffer next to me. My bus driver passed by my stop the first day, so I just rode the whole route until he asked me where I got off at. Since there were only maybe 2 people left on the bus, I got up and moved closer to tell him. Occasionally throughout the year he would drive right by my house without stopping, but no one would say anything and I would just ride around for a while until he realized. Every time he did this people would look at me like they were waiting for me to do something, but I couldn't do anything. I think if your SM kid is going to have to ride the bus, make sure someone lets the bus driver know about it. I knew mine knew I could talk, since I had already told him once where I lived, so I'm sure he was pretty confused when I wouldn't say anything. Of course, there was the time we had a substitute bus driver. He had no idea where I lived, and when he asked me at the beginning of the ride the bus was too packed for me to move closer to tell him. I didn't say anything, although everyone was staring at me, waiting for me to say something. He asked me again where I lived, and he sounded really annoyed or something. I knew if I waited someone else would tell him, and they did. He asked them if I was deaf or stupid. The kid seemed kind of embarrassed, like he felt bad for me. I turned my CD player up so I didn't really hear them much after that, but they were talking about me. The kid was trying to be nice, but the driver was just being a jerk about it. I had to slouch down a little so they wouldn't see me crying again. I ran off that bus before it had stopped, and my mom made a phone call to the school district. The next time I saw that guy driving the bus, he was a lot nicer to me. I stared at him in the mirror most of the way home. Eventually I discovered the public bus station about a 20 minute walk from my school. I had to cross a busy highway to get there, but once I found that there was no way you could get me on the schoolbus again. My mom started picking me up after school again. Someone who has never felt depression can't imagine what it really feels like. For a while, I was incredibly depressed but I never showed it. I didn't think it was real depression, because I had read that real depression lasted for a certain period of time, but mine just came and went randomly. There was one time when I was just laying on the sofa, unable to move. I felt so horrible, I had no desire to do anything. I couldn't have moved if the house was on fire. I felt like a part of the sofa. I think if I had given up, I could have died right then. I could barely keep my eyes open. There was no crying, it wasn't like a normal sadness or a bad mood. Luckily it passed and I got a little better, but then there was the time I had the pills in my hand. Putting them down was the best decision I ever made. The only reason I did it was because I knew my family loved me, and I couldn't do something like that to them. When I put them down there was no "Oh God what was I thinking? I need help!" I just felt like, "Oh well, I guess I won't do it." I shudder to think of it now. It scares me so much to even think about it. It was a turning point in my life though. I believe good can come from everything, so even this had a good side. I saw suicide as giving up, which I didn't want to just give up. I knew things had to be able to get better. Other people could be happy, why couldn't I? I knew I had 2 choices, either live miserably for the rest of my life, or get over it. I refused to think about living like that forever, so I had to do something about it. I did some strange things to get over my depression. I forced myself to smile. I would just look in the mirror and smile, hoping that if I looked happy I could convince myself that I was. Then I happened to read somewhere that orange is a 'happy' color. Looking at it is supposed to make you happy. I started surrounding myself with orange. Maybe it was the color, maybe it was the idea, but I think it worked a little. I still surround myself with orange, now just because I like the color. This page isn't the color it is for no reason. I'm hoping that by staring at it for a while, it works on other people as well. I have so much orange stuff now, sheets, hangars, a stapler, folders, a calculator... When my mom and I went shopping for college, it turned into 'this is orange, should we get it?' even if it was something ridiculous. She still doesn't know about my depression, she thinks I just like the color a lot, which I do. But even so, seeing it so much at least reminds me of why I have it, which makes me happy because it reminds me that no matter how bad things may be, I'm alive to experience them. Just before my depression really took over, I decided that if I liked the Rutles so much, and they supposedly sound so much like the Beatles, wouldn't I like the Beatles too? I was still into downloading music at this time, and I downloaded 'I Saw Her Standing There'. I fell in love, and downloaded a bunch more songs by the Beatles. I was too embarrassed to tell my mom about my love of the Beatles, but I wanted to let her know so I could buy one of their actual albums. We were getting a catalog in the mail that had shirts and other stuff of all different bands, and I found a few Beatles shirts I liked. I showed them to her, and from then on there was no stopping me when it came to collecting Beatles stuff. Of course, in school people made fun of my shirt because the Beatles aren't cool anymore, but I didn't care. My first album was actually a bootleg, which I didn't know when I bought it. Then I got the Anthology series, where I first heard 'The Fool on the Hill'. I was, and maybe still am, convinced that it could have been written about me: Day after day, alone on the hill The man with the foolish grin is keeping perfectly still But nobody wants to know him They can see that he's just a fool As he never gives an answer But the fool on the hill Sees the sun going down And the eyes in his head See the world spinning around Well on the way, head in a cloud The man of a thousand voices talking perfectly loud But nobody ever hears him Or the sound he appears to make And he never seems to notice But the fool on the hill Sees the sun going down And the eyes in his head See the world spinning around And nobody seems to like him They can tell what he wants to do And he never shows his feelings But the fool on the hill Sees the sun going down And the eyes in his head See the world spinning 'round He never listens to them He knows that they're the fools They don't like him The fool on the hill Sees the sun going down And the eyes in his head See the world spinning 'round 'The Fool on the Hill' can be found on the Beatles' Magical Mystery Tour, buy it, it's really good. The song practically speaks for itself, at least for other SM people, but I want to explain a bit for people who don't experience what we do every day. I think it fits just about every SM person in the world: 'alone on the hill'- we're all alone, except to be bullied or made fun of. 'The man with the foolish grin is keeping perfectly still' - I always had to sit perfectly still, I couldn't move a muscle for fear of attracting attention to myself, and my foolish grin whenever anyone talked to me because I couldn't do anything but smile. 'Nobody wants to know him' - No explanation needed. 'They can see that he's just a fool' - Everyone thought I was just some fool who happened to be in their class, I was the stupid idiot who didn't deserve to be there. 'And he never gives an answer' - I'm going to start using 'NEN'-No Explanation Needed. 'Sees the sun going down', 'See the world spinning around' - SM people are so much more perceptive about their surroundings than other people. We've had so much time to just watch the world around us, that we notice things other people don't. 'Head in a cloud' - I was always daydreaming. It seemed the only way to get through a day of school was to pretend I was somewhere else. I couldn't pay attention to the people and things going on around me. 'The man of a thousand voices talking perfectly loud, but nobody ever hears him' - For one thing, SM people have lots to say but no way to say it. Then there's the idea that many of us seem to hold arguments and conversations in our heads. And we may talk loudly, but not in the same way everyone else does, maybe we use other forms of communication. This line has so many meanings, it's hard to pick one that fits the best. 'And he never seems to notice' - We often eventually become so conditioned to just taking whatever people throw at us, literally or figuratively, that we don't even notice anymore. 'And nobody seems to like him' - NEN. 'He never shows his feelings' - Again, I couldn't really show or let people know what I was thinking or feeling. To do so would probably do nothing but call attention to me, which I didn't want. Plus, you can never really show how it makes you feel to be bullied all the time, or it would only get worse. My favorite line of the song, the one that made me catch my breath when I heard it the first time: 'He never listens to them, he knows that they're the fools, they don't like him' - Suddenly I realized, they're the fools, not me. Everything else in the songs fits so perfectly, that this line made me think that maybe it fits too. It was as though Paul was saying, 'The people that treat you like this, the ones that ignore you and make fun of you, don't listen to them. They're the fools, they're the ones with a problem. The people that don't like you, that's their problem.' I didn't have to let them hold me back anymore. I didn't have to listen to them or let them get to me. The guy in the song seemed so much happier as a result of not listening to these people. I decided to be like him. This was the beginning of my long obsession with the Beatles. Essentially, after listening to the music for a while, my depression completely disappeared. My life was completely changed. I have a page listing the songs that had an impact on me here. I know people who know of my Beatles obsession probably think I just think they're cute or something, but it's so much more than that. I'm surrounded by the Beatles, in posters, calendars, magnets, books, clothing, even a Beatles lunchbox. Just the sight of them reminds me of the music, and renews my happiness. I can't listen to the Beatles and stay in a bad mood. But they are pretty cute too. I mean, look at that hair! 
Hopefully I at least get Beatles fans to continue reading. Back in school, I was walking to class one day when a senior stopped me and asked me if I wanted to join the stage crew for the school play. I normally would have pushed the idea out of my head, but for some reason I chose not to this time. I was at the next stage crew meeting, no idea who would be there or what I was supposed to do. My best high school memories are of the school plays. This year, we did Alice in Wonderland, and I mostly just painted stuff. My biggest problem was not knowing what needed to be done, and not being able to ask anyone. I usually just stood around until someone gave me a job to do. They needed me to help change sets between scenes, which would involve going out on stage to carry stuff on or off, while the curtain was open but the lights were off. Being in front of the audience, even for only a second, was the best part of stage crew that year. Does that make sense? Previous Page | Next Page
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