People need to understand that mental health is much more
important than academic or financial wealth. I cannot gloat that
my family is rich, or that i am sheer brilliance in the eyes of
scholars. I am not rich, probably never will be, and I am average
at just about everything I do. But I didn't particularly
mind, because I was happy with who I was. And then suddenly
school became much harder, with stricter teachers and shorter
deadlines. Teachers suddenly took my innocent misunderstandings
as incompetence, and revelled in pubicaly humiliating me to the
point of tears. I was branded as "dramatic" or
"too sensitive" because I cried whilst being called a
"revolting liar". Suddenly I couldn't afford text
books and was laughed at for being "the poor kid",
children openly asking "why are you poor?" even though
i didn't know I was - I was clothed and fed, but soon I
learnt that in school "poor" meant you couldn't buy
yourself gifts whenever you liked. it became too much; I started
crying between classes, hiding in deserted bathrooms to throw up
until I was fifteen minutes late for French; was told I was
"quelle perte de temps idiote" by a man who was meant
to encourage, simply because I had forgotten the difference
between "de dessous" and "de dessus". I was
no longer happy. I started to self destruct; would rip the skin
of my knuckles to distract myself from the oncoming slaughter of
not knowing the right answer. I started to become angry at my
supposed poverty, and all the taunts I received just because I
didn't have a phone. I visibly shook in crowded hallways, and
then one day I refused to go. My mother tried to force me, and I
cried with snot running down my chin, begging "Please, I
can't go. I want to but I can't". This lasted for an
hour, until she noticed I had started to subconsciously tear the
skin of my forearms, creating large red welts that distracted me
from the tightness of my chest. I didn't go that day. A week
later I had to see a doctor who would stare at my face and ask
dumb questions - she told me I had all of these problems before
writing a list of prescriptions eight pages long - fluoxetine,
diazepam, ferrous sulfate, all these drugs - just so I could
function. None of them particularly help, and Now I'm
nothing. I'm not rich, or smart, and I'm definitely not
happy.