What Dropping Out Of High School Taught Me About Being A Man
Photo from Chris Wilson
By Chris Wilson
If Chris had been in a rock band, he could have called his twenties the Destruction Tour. At 25, the tour was in full swing and he had lost grasp of reality. A diagnosis of type II bipolar and chronic depression turned out to be the headliner of the show. Here, for the Pass the Mic Summer Reading Series and readers of the Future of Masculinity ewsletter, is a story that takes us through the life of a boy on a quest to become a man—dropping out of high school, substance abuse, facing death and the redemption of taking back his life so he can help others who feel lost.
You can only get so many failing marks before you start to believe you're stupid.
In a last-ditch attempt to get me back on track, my parents transferred me to a new high school in Grade 11. I would go entire days without saying a single word. I ate by myself in a library cubicle. I walked like a ghost through the hallways.
But most days I would never show up. Even if my mom dropped me off, I’d walk through the front door and out the back. I’d sit in a park or wander around the city. Anything was better than being in a place that made you feel worthless.
I had given up long ago because it’s a soul-crushing experience to try and fail in school. School reinforced everything horrible that I believed about myself. I’d never amount to anything. I didn’t have any valuable skills.
There’s no love in the voice that screams at me, “Don’t fuck this up!” The only comfort is that I’ve been hearing this voice for my entire life. It’s nothing new, but it doesn’t make it any easier to swallow. The words cut like an open-heart surgery where the anesthesiologist forgot to put me under.
I feel worthless—like I shouldn’t even have a seat at the table with other humans. I should be in an alley eating scraps of food with sewer rats.
No matter what I do or how hard I try, the voice mocks me for dreaming of a better future.
Me: “I want to be a dad one day.”
Voice: “You? Are you fucking kidding me? You can’t be a dad. The kid will be a bigger fuck up than you.”
Me: πI wonder if I'll ever get married?”
Voice: “This will be a gong show. You’ll make a terrible husband. Probably a worse husband than a dad, if that was even possible.”
I had to pause for a few moments after I put those words onto paper. I started crying not because those words hurt, but because I can’t help but feel a deep fucking empathy for the guy who believed they were true.
The voice inside my head was (and still is at times) vicious. Every day was like Vikings who raided and settled into my thoughts to destroy my existence. Those thoughts have left scars that would look like battle wounds of lobbed-off arms if you could see them.
The voice inside my head was a reminder that I sure as hell would never do anything my parents would be proud of. It was easier to do nothing so nothing was expected of me. I didn’t feel stupid if I didn’t try, so it made my reality an easier pill to swallow.
Having the ability to look back provides me with the luxury of saying I know what would have been best for this kid. I didn’t need a fresh start, I needed therapy. And lots of it. But back in the ‘90s, therapy was seen as a last resort.
My parents struggled because I didn't have the emotional awareness to recognize that what I was battling was bigger than teenage angst. My parents set up a meeting with a psychologist who wasn’t willing to make a diagnosis at the time. It would be another decade before I entered therapy.
Dropping out of high school didn’t feel like a choice, it was an inevitable reality that I was somewhere I didn’t belong.
I gave up. I knew I couldn’t do it anymore. I looked out the window of a shoebox-sized office and waited for the vice principal to tell me I’d be suspended if I didn't start showing up for class. The irony wasn’t lost on me. The last-ditch attempt by my parents to have me take high school seriously had reached a breaking point.
I figured I’d save him the breath of a long-winded speech about the importance of school and cut in with three words: “I’m dropping out.” I could tell he was caught off guard as he rocked side to side in his seat.
Except it wasn’t just school. I was sixteen years old and felt like I didn’t belong anywhere.
Lining up at temp agencies at six in the morning with a face and size that matched a Little Rascals character was surely comical as I competed for labour jobs against laid-off steelworkers.
We all reach a point where we need help. The hard part as a guy is being afraid to ask for it. I didn’t want to look weak, like less of a man, someone who couldn’t figure it out on his own.
The courage it takes to seek help is one of the bravest things you can do as a man.
Except for me, it all boiled down to conversations I didn’t know how to have. I didn’t feel comfortable voicing my pain with my parents. It felt like no one understood what I was going through. To be honest, I didn’t even have the words to make sense of what I was going through. I struggled in silence.
I never lost faith in the end of the story though. I knew I was capable of something more. But I had a few lessons I still needed to learn. I didn’t understand that we all get a chance to invent our lives, make them up, imagine what could be. We need to be taught these skills. We need guides to show us how.
Looking back I see that I was only at the beginning of my journey. It was not my end. I was about to answer my call to adventure. This is where I get a chance to give my life to something bigger than myself by asking questions like, “What are my actions moving me closer to? What do I actually want? If I keep doing what I am about to do today for the next five years, will I end up with more of what I want or less of what I want?” With the guidance of a mentor, I could overcome my fears, cross the threshold, and commit to the journey you're going to join me on.
From the Future of Masculinity weekly newsletter, where our community’s hearts and minds come together each week to do the work, tell the stories, and build the blueprint for a future where men and boys experience less pain and cause less harm.
Chris Wilson is a bipolar creative with a knack for personal development. He geeks out on productivity, minimalism, and enjoying life. He runs Simplify Your Why, where he shares lessons learned on overcoming his battles with depression, type II bipolar, and entrepreneurship.
Since 2012, he’s helped hundreds of people get out of their own way and lead lives of fulfillment (all without the use of drugs or pictures of cats riding unicycles). Chris is a cognitive-based therapy expert with 500+ hours of direct facilitation with one of Canada's leading mental health programs for youth. He proudly served as a life coach with a Canada-wide initiative that helped increase high school graduation rates by an average of 75% for youth in low-income communities.
You can try out a free course he made, aimed at helping folks lead happier, more productive lives while enjoying more simplicity and less stress.