No Longer Eat With The Theater Department

The second year of middle school was a period of learning my actions the hard way. My parents would always tell me, “If you don’t learn it by listening, life will teach you the hard way”. The hard way wasn’t hard, it was more petrifying. In seventh grade, I would go through an incredibly rough period mentally. I would be in a war with anxiety. These memories can be pictured instantly today; the intensity of my anxiety triggered that scar. It started out in the beginning of the year when I had a panic attack in first period. It felt like my sanity was gradually evaporating out of my body. I had to be escorted home because I thought something critical to my life’s condition was occurring. This event would be the beginning of a chain of anxiety that would lead to other negative thoughts that would haunt me all of

I was out of my comfort zone, and it was clear to all my peers as well. They were the vulture, and I was the carcass. People often say that girls are made of sugar, spice, and everything nice, but these girls were toxic. Their words seeped into my skin until I started to believe everything they said about me myself. After all, there were so many others who thought it was true, so it had to be. I had learned about what facts and opinions were, but was failing to apply it to my own life. My classmates said I was ugly, so I was. They said I was bad at everything I did, so I was. I no longer smiled when I headed into dance class, and instead hid my face, hoping their relentless attacks would spare me for just one

I started off this new school year lifestyle during 10th grade, this school was lenient with their rules and treated everyone as if they were adults compared to my old school which did not even allow students to use the restroom. I slowly learned my way around the building and seen how many opportunities there was to come but as the year went on I started to see a change in how people looked at me and treated me, I had no friends or help with my classes when I struggled, I had gotten suspended for simply being late to school and on my walks home had trash being thrown at me while being yelled at with several racial remarks, I sat at lunch by myself and was avoided by people in school. I fell into a deep depression where my life just became school and work, there would be days where I would not speak at all; months went by and I attempted to bd leader for other minority groups within the school who felt different and coached students to not fall apart as I did. I eventually transferred back to my original highschool and carried my hateful experience with me to help others grow and learn that not everything in life's candy and

I am disconnected, lacking contact with reality. It happened in an instant and gradually intensified over time. October of 2015, I had just turned 14 and everything was average, mediocre. I was subdued at this time for reasons I cannot recall and hadn’t been talking much in class. The issue commenced in chemistry class in what lasted a second but felt like a lifetime. The class had been divided into groups, and we were assigned to create a poster. After half an hour of doing the entirety of the work myself, the poster was completed, and I was satisfied with it. Each group was to choose a person to represent their group and explain the poster. Fortunately, I was not chosen. After each poster was presented, they were each taped to the whiteboard

None of my friends from the past were in my classes; hence, I was not able to turn to them for support. I would walk alone in the halls which gave three boys the opportunity to talk to me. In the beginning of the school year, the boys would form an unpretentious dialect with me on occasions. By the end of the first marking period, marching band and color guard ended and the three boys began to hector me daily about my interests. I tried opening up to a few of the girls in my class, but I quickly realized they were not truthfully my friends. I believed that talking to them about the three boys would help me, but they did not seem to understand or care. This caused me to become more insecure. By the middle of the second marking period, I would barely talk to anyone. The bullying grew excessive, which led me into a severely depressed state. The situation made me question my worth and made me feel there was no one who could help. I refused to confide in anyone about what I was going through. The boys’ torture increased as they commented about my physical appearance. Those comments caused havoc in my mind, and caused my self-esteem to continue decreasing. Finally, when the second marking period came to an end, winter color guard started. After a few short weeks, my color guard instructor, Mrs. Annette, noticed a change in my behavior and then gave me advice on how to handle the situation. I did not take advice

Freshman year at Renaissance High School, I was hanging out with the wrong crowd. I was skipping class and didn’t do classwork the handful of times I was in class. Time passed and before I knew it, it was my junior year in high school and while you are supposed to have 33 credits I only had 9 credits and 1 regent exam. When I was 16, I became depressed because I was raped. Throughout the time I spent in therapy, I was considering dropping out of high school. I thought it was too late for me to catch up with the credits I was missing. I felt as if my life had spun out of control and I couldn’t take control again. I thought I wouldn’t be anything besides a Bronx girl from the ghetto who dropped out of school. One night I was talking to an old

After my freshman year, the drama would get to me so easily. I began to take things personally while others would just let it go. At times, I would go to my room and call my mom. My mom would pick up the phone and ask me what happened. It must be very hard for parents to hear or see their child cry. I would cry and cry for hours. I wanted to leave. I wanted to go back to my old school. I wanted my old friends back. That’s when I wanted to become more

7th grade was the year I woke up. My mom called me into her bedroom late one afternoon and was still sitting on her bed, wearing her pajamas. The bright and cheerful sunshine that lit up the room gave a false ambiance of the tension that clouded the air. I already knew what she was going to say, but I did not want to believe it as the truth. I had noticed that my mom and dad's relationship with one another was growing apart just by the way they acted around each other. The conversations between them became shorter and their affection for one another began to fade. My dad spent his nights falling asleep watching TV on the couch, while my mom slowly disappeared back into her bedroom, alone. This had been happening for a while now, so I do not know why I was even surprised when my mom said to me that, “Your dad and I are getting a divorce”. I should have seen it coming. The clues were all in front of me, but I was too afraid to put them together. I was scared because, for the first time in my life, the image of my "perfect" family was crumbling before me. I knew inside that my family was falling apart, but I was desperately holding onto the fibers that I thought were keeping us together. It is hard to believe that one encounter can change the course of one's life forever. In this instance, I was awoken from the dream that I had been living in for so long.

As everyone should had experienced, class introductions are given by each person so they can familiarize themselves with everyone else. Everybody stood up giving their names and hobbies that they deemed acceptable for others to hear. Then when it became my time to stand up and speak, I was rock steady. My eyes forward, confidence built, energy seeping through my veins, I spoke aloud my name (Wally since it was easier for everybody rather than Gualberto) and my favorite past time. “Hi! My name Wally Veliz-Suarez, and I enjoy watching cartoons and drawing them as well!” As my own sound faded in the classroom, other more subtle noises emerged. They were sounds of people snickering, whispering “cartoons” and other mockeries. I choose to ignore this at first, but then people began avoiding me. They treated me like I had some sort of sickness or plague. That if they spoke or made contact with me they would suffer the same curse. That is, being left out of any social group and having no friends to speak to or confide in. Due to that, I started developing bad social habits so those around me would notice me. It started like a droplet, with my just increasing the volume of my voice so I could be heard. Then it evolved to a wave of obnoxiousness and bad jokes (not the dirty kind, just the very unfunny sort). Not realizing that the plan was backfiring, I was ignored even more so. I finally gave them a real reason to phase me out of their world. As a ghost, people would only vaguely notice the things I did. The imbecile I was back then didn’t understand that. So I continued on tragic quest of trying to make friends, digging myself deeper in my grave. When it came to working as a group, their actions were more obvious to me. I was the last chosen, or not at all. It was worse when the teacher told the class to stop doing so. Now, like a knife once stabbed into my stomach, the wound of having been openly

However, my content was short-lived, for it was not long before I started getting picked on by the older kids on the school bus. More often than not, I just sat there and took it until I was in the fifth grade. Now in some ways, I feel it was my fault for not speaking up. But, things happen all the time right? By the time it was over, I had friends and tried to forget about it as much as I could, but the feelings of worthlessness and fear always stayed in the back of my mind. Not too long after, it happened again in my first year of middle school.

I attended Grayson County College in Denison, TX. I had moved there from AC after my first two semesters after graduating high school. It’s a very small town everyone knows everyone and everyone knew me because of my cousins, the Portillo’s or aka the ‘douche bag jocks’ so no one ever really gave me a chance to prove to them that I was indeed not a ‘douche bag jock’ like they put me out to be. The three semesters I attended I made approximately three friends and that included two of my co-workers. Last semester I took on five classes plus worked part time as a waitress. Most of my classes consisted of maybe 30% females and 70% males. I was in a business class that I don’t remember the name of but we had a group project

Starting off my high school career at McAdory High School I was accustomed to not saying a word to anyone and avoiding people as much as possible. Although McAdory had excellent staff and teachers the same could not have been said about the student body. Struggling with shyness brought on by constant bullying, as well as problems elsewhere, I quickly fell through the cracks in an unmotivated state where I stopped caring about school and my grades. I was never able make friends, and would go straight home to play games as those were my escape. Struggling daily I fought to keep myself from breaking down, and instead of being destroyed by all of the bad that surrounded me I wanted to show everyone who had

I found a place but it was group therapy, as I read more into it, the program was perfect. It was free so my dad wouldn’t find out, and it was for troubled teens going through depression, abuse etc. I told my mom about it so she would not worry about why I was out so late after school and asked if she could make up a lie to tell Dad. As always she did, and I was really grateful. It was at a school gym, from there I heard a group of people chatting. I was nervous, my heart was racing, and my palms were sweating.

I was overcome with the feeling of starting fresh. I stopped talking to my father as soon as I found out what really happened. His calls went unanswered until he finally understood that we knew and hated him for it. I started going to a new school and quickly became interested in the arts. I enjoyed drawing and painting but rarely had the chance to do it in a non-arts school. Math and English quickly became my favorite subjects. I liked solving problems and questions that had one definite answer, and I loved reading and analyzing books. Soon enough, I began going to TAPCO, an arts school where I was able to develop my chorus and art skills. Even though my anxiety and social-awkwardness had made it hard to make friends, I opened up more to the people around me and I felt much happier than I had before. The past is something that will always be with you and it is better to accept and face it than run from it. My past is something that has shaped my life and the direction I go in, and my mothers struggle as she went through this nightmare has impacted me and made her a prominent figure in my

At the start of that cold December day, I woke up and got dressed as my normal, emo, thirteen year-old self would normally do. I got to school and went to my classes as usual for the first four hours of the day. In middle school I was a very social person, so I would always be walking to my friend’s lockers to chat with them in between classes. It was a normal thing for me and I never thought something bad would ever come of