Confidential

 When I was fifteen years old, a freshman in high school, I began going through a change that would shape the rest of my life. In a high school with no more than a hundred students between all four grades, everyone knew your story. They knew everything about your life from who you dated, to who your parents were, what your home life was like.

I came out at age fifteen. It’s when I had my first girlfriend. I lost my best guy friend then because he realized I would never love him the way he loved me. My mother had been sick for four years at that point. I was helping to raise all of my younger siblings. I struggled through a body image complex, as well as many other issues that went hand in hand with high school.

One of the worst moments I can remember was my freshman year after I had just told my friend that I was gay. One of the guys on the basketball team found a journal that we kept between us. He read it out loud on the school bus on the way back from a field trip to half of my class. Mind you, that was only ten to fifteen people, but when the word came back around and I found out… I was devastated. I had no idea how I would ever survive the teasing and the humiliation.

Here’s the truth...

High school is hard. For some people it’s even miserable. For four years I searched for something to give that time in my life purpose. To make it make sense. I couldn’t relate to my parents. I had only one other friend who was gay, and she held that secret to her heart, never to let it out. I had friends who were going through pregnancy, one who was placed into foster care, others who dealt with rape, their parents divorce, and other unimaginable things. For a sixteen year old that is a lot to take on. Especially when there is no one around to help you through it.  I wish that I knew during that time that I wasn’t alone. That my life wasn’t the only one that was so difficult. I wish that I knew that although it wasn’t “normal”, I also wasn’t by myself. There are many young women out there who face the same issues every day. In fact, at some point or another, we all go through something.

That’s why I think that shows like High School Confidential are important. In 2008 the first season of this show was released. It followed the lives of 8-10 young women through all four years of high school. It tells their compelling stories, and brings to light the difficulties that many young women face every day.

This Wednesday the show will be back for it’s second season. For four years these young women have lived their lives on camera. Four years of strife and joy, trouble and triumph. Four years of girls slowly becoming women. The great thing about this show is it will help other young women cope with the same issues. Unlike my high school period when I felt I had no one, these young women will show us that we’re not alone. The show definitely isn’t only negative. It also shows some of the positive moments in high school. I hope to see the wonderful things I enjoyed like prom, homecoming, school-dances, first loves…

Hopefully this series will be educational for parents as well. Had my parents understood what I was going through, had I known that I could talk to them, life might have been easier during that time. Let’s hope that this series gives that assistance to families across the nation.

So join me on Dec. 19^th to watch High School Confidential Season 2 premiere on WE. The season will open with back to back episodes of freshman year part one and two at 8 and 9 p.m.  We can recall our own lives as they find theirs, but remember… It’s confidential.