I dropped out of high school. I know, that sounds surprising considering the enormous stigma that is plastered wall to wall of most of the educational facilities that any of you may have attended that dropouts are nothing more than scattered beer bottles and a crease in your mother's old sofa; but that's me.

I decided to lose my battle with the school system in 2015 after a flare up in my anxiety so bad that I hadn’t left the house in months. The meeting I had to sign the paperwork left me pacing the all too familiar bathroom, my mother standing outside- disappointed in me? I believed she should have been no matter how many times she told me she wasn’t.

I began a GED program shortly after that meeting, intertwined with therapy and robotic medications that together left me feeling numb but by May I was able to graduate with a degree that is the equivalent to what you would receive in high school and the question rose, “am I going to go to college?”

Most people assumed I would apply to start in a year, take a gap for myself and find out what I loved to do (the fact that I didn’t may explain why I’ve changed my major 3 times but that’s a story for another week).

However, within three months, I’d worked myself thin to the point I could finally leave the house without feeling like my lungs were on fire and my body was no longer the earthquake that ruined some of the most memorable times of my life. I was going to be starting college sooner than any of my friends, any of the people that doubted I would become anything.

Destroy the stigma, beat the odds. You are not a statistic.

Just a side note before I check out for the week - my high school principal passed last Tuesday. This article is for you Thank you Mr. Chrabaszcz for being one of the most amazing people I had ever had the pleasure to had shared the world with. You were the only reason I was able to go to a prom, the only reason I was able to still function as a student for the two years I was there, when everyone was trying to take that away. Thank you for supporting me, thank you for being there even after I’d left high school. You were the best principal anyone could ask for.

Rest Easy.