Home life is hard for many high school students. Your parents can be abusive, alcoholics, drug addicts, unemployed, divorced, or even insane, but at school, no one knows what happens behind the curtains. You’re basically judged as a book by your cover.

People assume you smoke weed or cry during school for no reason. If you’re “popular”, they assume you have a perfect home life. I used to think that, but when I got to know some of those people, I realized the truth.

We don’t realize that people may be falling apart inside. They can have problems that we may not understand. Parents can emotionally drain their children. Some parents have their own beliefs which they want their children to follow. What if the child doesn’t believe in their parents’ beliefs? They still have to go to church or practice religion the way their parents do, even if it goes against their consciences. If you’re one of these people, you can be going through a lot.
People may think you are self-centered because you only talk about what you’re experiencing in your life. Deep down in your heart, you don’t mean to sound egocentric. You genuinely care about how someone feels, but it’s hard when you feel like you’re the only person in the world going through an obstacle course. You feel like no one understands you. If you let someone listen to you, however; you should listen to them. Maybe they are going through the same thing you are. You can open up about your parents, school, or life in general. Listen to people because you never know what could happen.

You will have your up and downs. People may judge you by appearance but not know what’s beneath the surface. We can be falling apart with no one knowing. Life at home creates who you are in public. Your parents create your attitude; where else would you learn it? You have to make it through in this world even if you’re falling apart. A quote in the book The Fault in Ours Stars, says, “You don’t get to choose if you get hurt in this world, but you do get some say in who hurts you.” Be careful of whom you may hurt because one small thing can change someone’s life.