Ever since I was very small, I've felt like the odd one out. Even the person I think of as my best friend sometimes gives me the vibe of preferring to hang with someone else. Now don't get me wrong, I've had friends... most of the time. However, come partner choosing time in class, they would almost always choose someone else over me. It starts to drag on you after a while. You start to wonder if you even have any true friends. For a long time, I really didn't. I had friends, but they were friends who almost always had better friends to hang out with than me.

In middle school, I devised a test, a test to see if anyone would choose me. I would sit down at a table, alone, and wait for people to sit with me. The people who sat with me were my true friends. For about a year or two in high school, it worked. People would come sit with me. However, before and after, I would have to move. Sometimes people would invite me to their table, but otherwise it was 'Can I sit here?' In college, I realize, that's how it works for everyone, so the test doesn't really work, but in high school and middle school, it was one of very few ways to tell if people really liked or cared for you.

Now one thing a lot of people can relate to is that feeling. That feeling you get when there's an odd number of students and you're stuck with the teacher. It's a feeling of dread and loneliness and embarrassment, a feeling that you're not good enough for the other kids your age.

To kids with learning disabilities and/or social issues, it's common to be left with the teacher, especially in a school that's filled with 'normal' kids. The stigma is very real and very damaging.

In fourth grade, I lost all my friends due to my social problems. I was also bullied very badly. Perhaps that is when that feeling started growing in me. I had to switch schools it was so bad. In fifth grade, I found myself really shy, not uncommon in a new school setting. I'd often read or sit alone while the other kids played, because I felt they wouldn't accept me if I tried to fit in. In sixth grade, I had my very first seizure and the first thing I woke up to was that feeling, that thought. The gym teacher was giving me gentle instructions, and, clueless to what was happening, I thought that I was the odd one out in a gym exercise, and that the gym teacher was my partner. Not a fun thought to wake up to, especially in a situation as scary as a first seizure. However, by that point, I'd been conditioned to think that, with the amount of times that situation of being paired with an adult had happened to me.

In high school, the odd one out situation happened less often, but I was always the last one picked in gym class.

By the time I reached college last year, that feeling was so ingrained in my brain that I still often feel that my friends are just pretending to be my friends. I have to repeatedly tell myself that they're not.

This isn't supposed to make you feel sorry for me. I just want to bring awareness to the situation. In 9th grade, I started doing what I feel everyone should do. I was a friend to someone who wasn't really friendly and thus didn't have many other friends. There are many people out there who you might feel uncomfortable to be around because of, for example, mental or social issues that they have, or because of stereotypes or stigma. I can name several I know off the top of my head.

What you should do, what everyone should do, is ignore the flaws or try to help the individual overcome them. Befriend the people who you're not sure are completely friendly. It makes a difference, a huge difference. A good number of the people with mental or social or other issues have no friends. A lot of them eventually commit suicide. Stepping in as a friendly face for someone unusual or mentally unstable can pull a person from the abyss. In high school, I too had suicidal thoughts, but the amount of people on the Oxford Campus here at Emory who were willing to be my friends made all that go away.

I'm not the worst of the mentally unstable. There are people with much less support and protection than me. In America especially, those with problems aren't often helped. Because they are not helped, they commit crimes. Because they commit crimes, they go to jail. Because they go to jail, at least in the US, they often don't get the help they need.

Think of all the people who would be better off if someone had stepped in and helped them, been a friend to them, when they were young.

I'm where I am now because of my family, specifically my twin sister and mother. They were there for me through thick and thin. They pulled me away from the abyss and helped me last long enough to reach Oxford, which had so many friendly faces that I found it extremely difficult to stay depressed. This isn't to say no one is depressed at Oxford. I know some people are. But the nature of my depression (low number of good friends) allowed the people at Oxford of Emory to cure it.

There are people out there who aren't so lucky. There are people out there who really need a friend. A single smile could make someone's day brighter.

I learned this the hard way, through years and years of being that child left out. I want to do everything in my power to make sure no more children have to be the odd one out as often as I was.

So the next time you see that child standing alone. The next time you see that person looking sad. Sit down next to them. Start a conversation. Be the friend they need to get them through the tough times. Help them find the light they need to escape the darkness. Help them learn to be the person they truly want to be, rather than the person they're forced to be.

If everyone in the world helped one other person who needed help, the resulting chain would lead to a much better world, one of acceptance and peace.