I am not even sure there were best of times. Just the worst times.
I lived through a lot in high school. I fought through so many dark emotions. People were not kind to me. I was verbally attacked quite regularly. I kept my circle small.
I’ve been wanting to chronicle some of the moments in my life that I felt needed to be archived. I’ve been wanting to create a biography of sorts, one memory at a time.
This seems like a good opening.
This is the perfect chance to discuss one of the darkest times in my life and what I learned.
TW: Depression & Suicide
Spoiler: The attempt didn’t succeed. I’m still here.
Humiliation & depression are strong motivators.
I’ve always been a sensitive soul. Things never rolled off my back the way they do for so many other people.
I was also a little quirky, expressive, and loud by nature. I was who I was, and there wasn’t anything wrong with that. However, high school is brutal and doesn’t really find acceptance in the odd.
Between missing my father, who had ghosted my life after his last marriage, and a consistently angry mother, I was feeling some things. I had 2-3 friends at this time. One had decided that she wanted nothing to do with me because, and I quote, “You yelled to me from down the hall! It was embarrassing!”
A boy I really liked, well, I wrote him a long love letter. He proceeded to read it to the entire class during some downtime. They all had a good laugh at my expense.
I felt exceptionally alone. I had a terrible relationship with my parents, was humiliated for having a crush, and found myself down one friend out of three. Up to this point, I had already been struggling with some serious depression, suicidal ideation, self-harm, et al.
I saw the humiliation and raised the stakes with one suicide attempt.
After all, I didn’t really know how to seek help. Mom had sent me to therapy briefly at one point, then withdrew me. It didn’t matter to her that I liked the woman. She blamed her for my being a stupid teenager.
What I learned in high school, though, the greatest lesson of all, came after the attempt.
You would not believe the number of people who will come out of the woodwork to be “kind” the moment they find out that the crap they dealt you in the first place made you want to unalive yourself.
People who were never kind suddenly wanted to be nice to me. They wanted to talk to me. Some tried to befriend me. There was this wave of, “We want to help you!”
I don’t think I was the only person learning lessons about emotional health in high school, let’s put it that way.
Some people who never gave me the time of day suddenly talked to me like we’d been friends for years. It felt fake. They regretted their cruelties, and now I was expected to appreciate fake kindness?
What kind of BS was that?!
Word spread between two different schools.
I had spent most of my childhood in one town. From 1st to 9th grades. Then I transferred schools when I moved.
It was my Senior year of high school when this occurred. It was not centered at one school. When it happened, it spread between my current school and the school I had previously attended. It was widely discussed. Everyone knew what had happened by the time I returned to school on Monday.
The biggest fallout I noticed was at the career center. You see, we had the option to do half-day courses at the county career center, and I was in business management (surprised?! LOL).
They took me aside to see if I wanted to go into homeless teen housing and try life away from home. I ended up turning it down. Fear ran that decision. I wasn’t sure how to handle life; I had emotional struggles I couldn’t explain, and it felt like a poor choice at the time.
The instructor for my class also did something explicitly for me. She knew I wanted to go through the e-commerce lessons, but she hadn’t built the packets. These were quite self-guided. We’d work on them in class between general lessons.
Anyway, she started building the packets the weekend it happened, so I would have them to work on when I came back to school on Monday. It was unexpected and appreciated.
I originally wrapped what she had done into the same folds of fake intention as everyone else. I’ve since reframed that thought. Honestly, I think she wanted to give purpose and inspire me. I later appreciated that act of kindness.
I even came to recognize that my classmates were given a real-life lesson of what bullying can do. I think it was actual regret for their behaviors. I suspect that my suicide attempt taught two small school systems what happens when you don’t consider the consequences of your actions.
What felt immensely personal was public knowledge in two towns.
I did switch to an alternative high school after this. I wanted a smaller environment. By this time, I was quite goth. I was covered in chains, black makeup, extremely depressed, and just tired.
I stopped taking the school bus and tried public transportation to avoid other students. What I learned was that mentally & physically disabled people are assholes, too.
I had some intense interactions with one man in particular. There were no open rows on the bus one day, and I learned how much of a jerk he could be. I sat next to him, half into the aisle to avoid being too close.
He threw himself against the wall of the bus, screaming that he was being squished. Then he complained about my choosing that seat when there were so many others.
He taught me that, sometimes, brains don’t mature and only bodies do. He was mentally disabled and worked in a small factory here in town for people with disabilities.
Ultimately, I managed to finish high school. I graduated with abysmal grades. Oh, were they bad. I didn’t care; it was done. That is all I cared about.
I learned a lot in high school, but those lessons came in the form of human nature. It wasn’t bound text. It was an unfortunate lesson, but it helped guide who I am today.
Angela J Shupe 
I was thinking…