When I started acting differently in high school, a lot of my friends and family just assumed I was on drugs or sick. That's what you hear in every other story. I was always that kid who was sick or just constantly missing school, and in high school, this was amplified.

Around November of my sophomore year in high school, circumstances made it so that I would no longer be attending school for the remainder of the year, and I would complete an online program at home. Almost immediately when you leave school, everyone wants to know what happened, and rumors get spread. When I left, it created a toxic environment I could never return to.

I. Was. So. Bored.

There were no longer dozens of people around me all day. People I used to see every day were no longer around for me to talk to. This was a rock bottom in my life. I had group therapy four times a week. Netflix and I became very good friends. My online work and I became estranged. There were too many hours to fill in a day, and it was exhausting.

We had a few spoken and unspoken rules in my house at this time. No boyfriends was a big unspoken one; I was too fragile to begin a relationship. I had to wake up, eat breakfast, and go to therapy every day. Major secrets weren't allowed. Schoolwork had to get done.

I put myself in a position where I was not only amidst what felt like an emotional crisis, but it was also beginning to affect my education. My education eventually had to become my decision. An online program meant I had to do my work and meet deadlines in my own time. Exposure to this certain extent of educational freedom, while trying to learn things I didn't really appreciate, made me realize the things I could actually want to learn.

That's probably what kept me from refusing to return to school the following year and dropping out to become a hippie. While I'm pretty sure I would've made a great hippie, I'm glad my experiences and education eventually led me to my love for writing.