I woke up feeling like shit because I dreamt my school took us to a really big field with museums and stuff, and I was left alone the whole time. The worst part is that it's the reality.

I've always been that one friend that walks behind when the sidewalk is too small to fit everyone, the one that is barely allowed to speak, the one that listens to everything friends have to say but can't ever talk to them about things that bother me. I'm always the one left behind, the one no one seems to remember.

It's my fault, not theirs, but it still hurts. It's not their problem that I deal with social anxiety, that I physically can't bring myself to talk to people unless it's of vital importance. I don't blame them for leaving me behind.

Just some weeks ago, we were five. But one of them, the nicest one, the one I thought I could most trust, made us realise she was willing to drop us for other people. So we split. There's three of them, two of us.

I can still talk to them, they're pretty kind, and I even sit next to one of them in drawing club. They at least know me a bit more than the rest of my classmates, and know I can be fun to hang out with when overcoming my anxiety.

But, going back to us. I don't know if I can even use that word, "us". She's been my friend since elementary school, fourth grade to be exact, but I still hesitate on calling her my best friend. I feel more like her personal therapist than her friend, to be honest. I love her, I really do, and I know that she needs attention to make up for the lack of it in her home, that she asks me for advice because she has no one else physically there for her, I know she's a good kid, I know she needs someone to listen to her, to love her.

But it's tiring. All I ever do is listen, and when I can talk, it's to respond to what she's talking about. Whenever I want to talk about something mine, she looks openly bored and changes the subject as soon as she can. Whenever she sees someone she's friends with, she leaves me standing there in the middle of talking and goes over them. When she remembers I exist, she waves me over, but it's always uncomfortable to her friends and to me, so most of the times I end up leaving. I feel people pity me, like "oh look, there goes her servant again". Maybe it's just my anxiety, but I wouldn't know.

You're probably asking yourself "why haven't you left her??". Well, the answer is simple: I'm scared of being alone. I've been in this school for nine years, and I know my classmates, I know how shitty they are, I know I would stay completely alone, no one would care about me. No one cares about me, why would they try to change?

I'm completely stuck on this problem. Listen, I hate my school. It's completely anti-me. They're extra catholic, I'm an atheist. They're homophobic, I'm bisexual. They're transphobic, my brother (whom i love very much) is transgender. They're square minded, I'm open to change my mentality. They're part of this fucked up education system, I hate school and the way they slowly kill us.

Unfortunately, my parents don't want me to change schools, and there's not much I can do to change that. Also, the perspective of a new school, a new environment, terrifies me. Yes, I've changed schools countless time before, I've moved to dozens of different places, but it's been too long since that happened. I don't know how present me would deal with it, if I would even be able to make people not dislike me. I'm just scared and tired.

I wish I could be different, I wish the world wasn't such a shitty place, I wish people were nice. But it's not. And I don't know what to do anymore. I've tried changing, I've tried opening up and helping people, only for my emotions and trust to be stomped on and thrown into the garbage. I can only hide in my safe place to avoid that happening again, and even that hurts. It hurts being alone, it hurts not having people who I can trust completely, it hurts sitting at the back of the class quietly, watching everyone have fun, while my only sources of entertainment are my books, my pencils. It hurts being me.