Everyone has the one year that, in reflection, you have no idea how you survived. For me, that year was seventh grade. The beginning of school had started out well enough. I liked most of my classes and I had made a few new friends. But, it didn’t take long for things to turn sour.

I began to have issues with my homeroom teacher, Ms. D. I have a sister with special needs, and Ms. D took it upon herself to lecture me on what I was doing wrong in regards to being a good sister to her. Despite not knowing anything about my sister and my relationship with her, she assumed many awful things about me. After one of these conversations, I finally broke down in tears. I reported what had been going on to the school guidance counselor. However, the guidance counselor was far from helpful, and the situation worsened. I could barely go into homeroom, Ms. D stressed me out so much.

On top of this, my classmates began to tease me for my Catholic religion. They would call me names, and whispered to me when the teachers weren’t in hearing range. There were many times teachers heard the abuse, yet they said nothing.

My problems in school threw me into a great pit of self loathing. I could not look in the mirror without feeling ugly, and stupid. I was convinced that there was something wrong with me, and that it was my fault this was happening. Because of those feelings, I didn’t tell my parents anything about my classmates bullying, and only gave them a general idea of the situation with my homeroom teacher.

To deal with the stress of what was happening to me, I began to pull out my eyebrows, eyelashes, and hair. Pulling my hair out felt good (as odd as that sounds) and it relieved the pent up worries that ricocheted around my head. My parents, did not feel the same way. When they discovered I had been pulling out my hair, they were very upset and scared. It was the first, and only, time I had ever seen my father cry. Their fear and anger was the only thing that made me stop. But, even though it would have been the perfect opportunity to do so, I didn’t tell them about my issues at school.

After the hair-pulling confrontation, my inner emotions got the best of me. I sunk into a bleak abyss of depression. Entries in my diary said things such as:

“I am worthless. I will live, I will die - and I will be utterly Unremarkable. I have been so ignorant, thinking I could make a difference in this world. In the end no one will remember me, I am Nothing.”

“I cannot do this. I cannot keep walking in to homeroom pretending I don’t hear the way she says my name - like it’s some sort of disease… I can’t keep going to class and listening to my classmates mock me and my GOD. It’s a cycle, and I just want summer to come, I want it to be over. I am MISERABLE.”

I hated myself. I wore my hair in my face, as if it was a mask that hid the shame throbbing in my heart. There was a time in my Latin class, when my teacher got so fed up with the way I wore my hair that she walked over and arranged it over my shoulders. I felt ugly and worthless, and it seemed nothing would change that.

Through all of this, nobody noticed. I had the ability to put on a smile, to make myself seem happy and blissful… no matter how alone I was on the inside. Truthfully, I was terrified of saying anything. I was emotionally drained, and no interest in trying to explain to explain to my parents how I was feeling, and why. Truth be told, I wasn’t really sure why myself. Sure, there was the bullying at school, and my low self esteem didn’t help matters… but I had faced these demons before and managed fine. So then why was I so numb? Because of my own questions, I continued with the charade of happiness, letting in almost no one.

On a few occasions, I discussed my confidence issues in gym class with one of my wellness teachers. She was very understanding, and told me that the more I believed in myself, the more I could achieve. During fitness testing, she ran with me on the pacer, and when I got eight push-ups (a big jump from the two I’d managed at the start of the year) she emailed me saying she was proud. I don’t think she realized how much of an impact her words made on me.

The school year eventually ended, and summer came. And, with summer came a renewed sense of hope and joy. I found strength. There was no specific moment exactly, when I snapped out of the depression. It was a gradual choice. I realized that summer, that I had the ultimate choice to be happy. That, although I can’t control the actions of others, I can control my reaction. I have the beautiful decision of what I see in the mirror. I am the only one with power over how I feel.

Not only has the above philosophy helped me with my emotions, it has helped me let things go. As Confucius said, “To be wronged is nothing, unless you continue to remember it.”

I’m pleased to say that I am in a really good place now. Choosing how I deal with issues, instead of letting my first instinct control my feelings, makes me feel good about myself. A year ago from now, I would have been crying to myself in the girls bathroom over something a classmate had said. I now have the grace and inner peace to let rude comments roll of my back. As President Lincoln once said, “Folks are usually about as happy as they make up their minds to be.”