My difficult illness makes me feel bad most of the time.

When I first had onset of my illness I was a new high school student at a Catholic high school in Brooklyn. One of my professors told me he loved my handwriting. I felt good. I can’t really explain how I became ill but my rough first year of high school and fear I’d get beat up by mean girls at school who also stole from me. I got my gym class uniform stolen and I had sneakers stolen as well. I remember going shopping for these Reebok sneakers with the colors of Africa red, black and green that had just came out in 1993. I had been through a lot of bullying but nothing more than verbal abuse. I got teased but I also wore a size 14. I was around 12 and a half years old and I had signs of becoming ill at age 13 where I would hear distant voices that became loud, mean or angry voices in my head. Socialization was something I didn’t have in high school with other teenagers. I feel like the girls being a year or two older than I was and me skipping two grades caused them to be jealous of me. I felt proud that I was on track to graduate from high school at age 16. I know teachers are there to support students and I had teachers like me in school.