Over The Rainbow: The (Yellow Brick) Road to Enlightenment

By Irwin Ozborne
Contributing Writer for Wake Up World

In junior high school, I was a painfully shy student. It was to the point I would go through an entire week without peeping a single sound. While it was quite easy to shield my anxiety during most classroom activity, the lunchroom was always my greatest test. How could I possibly hide myself in a crowded cafeteria?

There was always one table in the back of the room which only had about five kids sitting there (the tables sat about 20-30 people). With so many empty seats at the table, it was the perfect spot for someone with severe, debilitating social anxiety. This group was the outcasts of the school. They wore the same clothes every day, never paid attention in class, didn’t follow the rules, had long straggly hair, and were already experimenting with drugs and alcohol. But, they were also different in the sense that they had no desire to fit in with the “cool kids.” They were perfectly content being in their own skin.