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Ninth grade was supposed to be my breath of fresh air. After leaving a school that I wasn’t very fond of, I was very excited to start at a new school. I was especially excited about the academic rigor that the school offered, and the AP classes they offered.
As the school year progressed, I quickly learned that cliques had taken their place at my school, resulting in people not being receptive to new friendships. They had their crew, and that's who they were sticking to. Due to a lack of interest from other kids wanting to make new friends and talk to new people, this left me with no one to hang out with. Fake friendships were also a prominent issue. You could never really know if someone truly liked you, as most of the time when you’re not looking, they are gossiping about you behind your back. This toxic environment soon spread to me.
I keep thinking that I was the problem and that the reason no one seemed engaged in starting a friendship with me was that I was maybe “too dorky” or “too focused on school”. Maybe the reason that no one wanted to invite me to their lunch table was because I acted odd around them. I tried replaying in my head all my interactions with my classmates; I was willing to acknowledge if I was the problem, as long as I could find a way to fix it. I had done everything I could to try to get people to talk to me. I would go to soccer games, talk about their favorite singers, laugh at their jokes, and do everything I could think of to get them to even think about letting me into their friend group. But, after all of this wasted energy, I was still ignored and invisible.
Going through the school year with no friends was the hardest challenge I have ever encountered. Going to school every day for seven hours just to be ignored, lonely, and miserable was soon chipping away at my mental health. I struggled with seeing the positivity in my situation. I was so ready for the school day to be over, that as soon as the last bell of the day rang, I was first outside the building. After beginning to eat lunches alone, I slowly began to retract to myself. My only friends were the books and schoolwork I burrowed into. I thought, “If I’ve put out the energy to these people and they’re not giving, then why should I keep trying to be friends with toxic people?” Part of me was glad that I wasn’t a part of these people’s drama and their toxic habits; I would rather be by myself than having to spend my time with toxic people.
Although I had this platform to spread awareness of mental health for minority girls, it was hard for me to talk about this while having my mental health struggles. I found myself struggling to find the good in things, and I became accustomed to a pessimistic mindset. My two main moods were bitterness and melancholy. My mindset on life was even worse; every night before school, I would gripe in my head about how I would have to wake up the next morning to be at school for seven hours just to be lonely. It was thoughts like these that hijacked my anxiety to a point I had never seen before. I would always be anxious over what would happen at school the next day, or anything in general. Throughout my struggles, I realized that I needed to seek further help; trying to better myself on my own wasn't working. Around March, I began to see a therapist to help me sort through my anxiety and to help better my mindset. I can’t imagine how the rest of the school year would have gone if I hadn't changed my mindset and perspective on my situation.
The mindset that helped me the most was the “Glass of Water”. Instead of looking at your situation as a glass half-full (positive) or a glass half-empty (negative), try neither. Instead, take a neutral mindset; you simply have a glass of water. Nothing positive, yet nothing negative. It is simply a neutral viewpoint to help you through your struggles.
Now that the school year is over, I now have the opportunity to look back on this year and reflect. Although my mental strength was tested immensely, I've grown in ways that I wouldn't have been able to in a comfortable environment. I learned valuable lessons about friendship and the kind of friend that I’m looking for (and how I can be a good friend). My message to anyone out there struggling with something similar that I went through this past year is this: don’t let your environment define you. This year, I was put in an environment that was not healthy and made my mental health slip away from me. I thought that I was the problem with not having any friends and thought everything happening this year was all my fault. The thing I had to realize was that sometimes you aren’t the problem— it's the environment that you’re in. If you’re ever in a toxic environment and you feel as if you cannot grow, please don’t ever blame yourself; sometimes your environment is holding you back. For now, try shifting your mindset. It doesn't have to be positive or negative. Just remember, you have a glass of water.