For those who don't know me, I can't lie. I went to a wealthy school called Orono. Boys wore their boat shoes, khakis and drove their dad's boats on Tonka. Girls flaunted their J. Crew or LuLu and rolled up to school in their Range Rovers.

I grew up in a nice middle-class home. I never worried where my next meal was coming from. I always had clothes on my back. I slept in a nice bed. I had a loving and supporting family. Life was pretty great.

But things weren't always fine and dandy. In fact, I knew when my parents struggled when it came to money. They never really told me. But I knew.

I knew because my mom and dad had been wearing the same clothes for over five years. I knew because we really didn't go on too many vacations as a family (only two in total). I knew because my mom and dad would beg one another other to not to get each other anything special for their birthdays or Christmas. I knew because they sacrificed for me, like I'm sure many other parents did for their kids at Orono. They wanted their kids to have a better life than they had.

But not every kid that went to Orono came from a rich background. I guess you could say I lived in the "ghetto" for Orono goers.

But either way, I looked pretty darn spoiled. But don't think for a second that I took my parents for granted. Please, don't think that I wasn't thankful for what they did for me. Most of the time I really hated it because I couldn't give my parents what they deserved in return.

There was a period of time where I would write in my prayer journal -- only a fifth grader at the time -- everyday and worry about whether God would hear me on our money issues.

But 8 years later, and it's what everyone stereotypes in their minds about Orono that keeps me up at night. It's the comments people hear about others, or the posts on Facebook that makes them draw their lousy conclusions.

So going to a local college where everyone knows you went to "Orono" comes with it's struggles. People begin to think you're a wealthy, stuck up, little brat who gets everything you want. The way they say, "Oh, she's from Orono," makes it sound like they just had soap in their mouth.

To hear people who I once considered my friends say, "We came from different backgrounds" or "She was wealthier than me" as valid excuses for why we couldn't be friends is a bunch of bulls***.

And the sad part is I let them win. I let them get to the best of me when I needed them the most. And maybe that's why I couldn't trust them or feel comfortable around them, but I realize now that it was their failure to make the effort to really get to know me. The real me. To sit me down and ask me what was wrong. To talk with me, because they don't know where I came from, what I've been through, or what bothers me.

So they don't know me, and they never will.

They'll never really know what I went through growing up. They'll never really know that I'm pretty sure I suffered from depression because of their lack in effort to be my friend. And they'll never really know the story of how I made it to where I am now.

Just because I'm some Orono girl.