People always say that your teenage years are the best of your life. I think on that saying and ask "What were they smoking?" Yeah, it may have been good twenty to thirty years ago, but now? I think it's changed a whole lot since then.

It started in sixth grade for me. I came straight from a private Catholic school into the grubby hands of a conniving little public school. I was different, obviously. I was raised in a Catholic school, I was ahead of them, and I was a lot more innocent. It all started because a girl spent the night with me and she took something the wrong way and came up with the notion I was a lesbian.

From that time on there never was one person who tried to get past the rumor and try to find out the truth. People hated being in groups with me, hated sitting at lunch tables with me, hated being near me period. People would make puns from my middle name, Elizabeth, saying it sounded close to the word "lesbian" so that meant that I was a lesbian. I had a few friends, but they soon moved away.

My mom finally took it for real in eigth grade and called a meeting with someone from the schoolboard. That helped a lot right there. But people still pulled the crap behind my back, so I couldn't hear it.

I don't really remember my ninth grade year, I don't think that anything went too bad that year, except for me brining my Wicca books to school to study.

At the end of the year, it was so bad that I ran away though. But coming from that, it turned out that more people cared about me than I thought there were.

Come around August, right before school started. I was nervous and undergoing tons of stress because I was afraid of what might happen at school; what rumors would come about. August 5, 1999, I ran away for the second time. Nonetheless, I wasn't as lucky as I was the first time. I was molested...I was turned in the next day by another truck driver. School started again...Everything went fine, except for someone got the bright notion into their head to say that my father raped me and my mother is an alcoholic, which from my vantage point, neither is true and never has been.

I still brought my books to school to study, but people got over it. Things became worse when a girl supposedly threatened to kill the school. I became friends with her and her friends, one of which I was already friends with. People started calling me a devil worshipper because of this...And being me, I fought right back.

Then they all left...Aimee, Hobie, and Anthony (who is now my current boyfriend.) I became friends with others again, though it was hard...Everything went fine except for my *new* friends at school and their attitude toward self injury, which I do. They tried to make me stop, but it's kind of hard for someone to make you NOT hurt yourself. It's not like they can watch you constantly.

That year ended and now I'm a Junior. I make straight A's in my most of my courses, except one; and that's Algebra II. I still go through harrassment, especially at this moment because a girl I made the right decision to not be friends with anymore isn't happy so she's telling everyone every little thing she can think of to tell them, true or not. I still do self injury, but I'm trying my best to stop. I plan on going to college and getting a Ph.D. in Biology.

I know that sometimes when a person is being harrassed they think they're the only one...I know I did, but for anyone who reads this, there are people who will help; in real life or on the internet (preferably the internet because then they can't really judge you.) Just think and know that you WILL survive through it and that you WILL make a difference and the ones who have the audacity to think themselves so high up that they can put another down most likely won't make a difference, and if they do...it won't be a very good one.