Note to Mentally Ill Teens: You’re On Your Own

[hunter]

3. Through high school and college mental illness was something I was supposed to hide.

I quit high school before the GED existed. (My sister escaped high school by GED. Oddly, the two of us are the only siblings with university degrees.)

High school administrators signed off that I was ready for college. They wanted to get rid of me. I had high SAT scores and college administrators accepted me. Being a minor in college was weird, but much better than the violence I'd experienced in middle and high school. Adults don't beat kids. If they do they go to jail.

I was "asked" to leave college twice under threat of permanent expulsion. Nobody wanted to "ruin" my life. At my very worst I was mostly harmless. I had friendly relationships with the campus and local police, my personal crazy was a nice break from the sordid stuff they usually had to deal with at two a.m. in the morning. I was fine entertainment for the 24-7 donut coffee house break.

The cops would drive me home, sometimes irritating my house-mates by pounding on the door, waking them up and asking if the knew me.

This is why I'm not on Facebook.