When I was in elementary school, I had lots of friends and was very confident. In the first year of middle school (grade 6)everything was going well, I had lots of friends and was having fun but I had a really mean teacher that hated me and singled me out. At that age, it killed my confidence and made me really insecure. Grade 7 I tried to fit in and did really dumb things to try to impress people. I lost all my friends (old and new). I tried to make friends with those people for the next 5 years with little to no avail. People would use me and I just took it, I was not invited to any parties or events, but still tried. Just this year (Grade 12), I started to just shake off what people said and found that most the consequences for things I did were self inflicted. Without caring what people thought or said, I have had the best year of my life, been invited to all the parties and made more friends than ever before.