Growing up in a small town, you will often feel misunderstood. It seems as if the only choice you have is to assimilate. You will find there are not a lot of people that like the same things you like, play the sport you want to, eat the food you normally eat and stuff like that. It’s mostly one culture and you feel as if you have to adapt. I always felt misunderstood cause I was often the only black girl in the crowd.


In my graduating class of 500, I was the only black girl. Now there were black people as in guys, so I would always hang out with them, but after a while it would get old, because sometimes I would want to be around girls who understand the same things I’m going through and do the things I want to do. So I had a group of girlfriends, they were white but they took the same honors classes as me. We related in an intellectual way but often many things were a culture shock to them. Like explaining to them the way I do my hair or explaining the things my family do or even listening to different music as them. On the weekends they would always want to party and get drunk but I never wanted to. They didn't understand that why I would rather sit at home, or go ball with my friends, so they often would forget to invite me anywhere after a while. When life started getting hard dealing with that, I then found myself waiting to go to college. Now that I’m here I've found a group of girlfriends and guy friends who are exactly like me and do the same things that I do.

Since high school and even now in college, I've usually been misunderstood for my shy personality. I would always hesitate to say hello to people first or put myself out there because of my shyness. People would often think that I was rude or stuck up because I wouldn't run up to them to say hello. I just have always felt more comfortable with some people more than others and I think that often came across as antisocial. The way I dealt with it in high school was simply putting myself in more social situations and actually allowing myself to talk to people more. When I came to college I just became more social and really forced myself to get involved with student organizations and clubs. It forced me to open up and really develop my social skills. It’s hard to think of that shy, anti-social girl that I used to be. I’m practically a full blown social butterfly now.

I’ve been misunderstood many times, in many different occasions. I was always very involved in high school; I participated in many committees and community service events. Although I was very playful and friendly in school, I was a little more serious when it came to my community service. I have been told many times that I have a “mean face”, meaning that I look like I’m upset all the time making me look like a mean person but once people got to know me they learned that I was friendlier than I looked. 

When I am “zoned out” or focused, I am not being mean, I’m just serious, but others didn’t quite understand that. One day I went to my counselor's office because I wanted to do community service, I asked the lady at the front desk if she knew where my counselor was and at what time would she be back because she was not in her office at the time, the lady said she doesn’t know so I decided I was going to come back later. When I finally spoke to my counselor about doing community service she informed me that the lady in the front desk does not want me to work for her because I have an “attitude” and I looked at her in a rude way. My counselor had me sit down with her and explain to her that I had nothing against her. 

When I started my community service with her we grew very close, and she then explained to me that I looked like a mean person but I am sweeter than I look. She also advised me to smile more often because I have a “serious” face. She bought me gifts and recommended me to many places. Many similar situations have happened where I have missed out on opportunities for simply not smiling, therefore even when I’m focused or “zoned out” I try to remember to “crack a smile”. 

Throughout High school and the first 2 years of college I felt misunderstood not by my peers and friends, but by my parents. I’m sure many young people have felt this way and can relate. I have always been comfortable at school and within the numerous extracurricular activities I was involved in but I felt my parents simply accepted the things I was doing without truly believing in me. Like many others, my parents wanted me to go to law school or enter into a field that would guarantee a great deal of money. But the decisions about my future were constantly changing and once I told them I wanted to enter into education, it was a very hard fact for them to sallow. It took many arguments and under handed comments for them to realize I wanted to do what I loved regardless of riches. Once we were all on the same page I was able to live my life more freely knowing I had my parents in my corner. My advice to young people who are in a similar situation is to stick to your guns and continue to be interested in whatever you desire. Once your parents see the passion. They may very well come around and be in your corner as well. 

In high school, and even in college, many people believed that I was a selfish person that did not care for others. I have always been the type of person to keep a small group of close friends, rather than to have an abundance of acquaintances. I was always thought to have an attitude and other negative characteristics of that sort. Even though it bothered me, those who bothered enough to get close to me realized that I am a person with a good heart and intentions of helping others. 

Dealing with this gave me an important life lesson—the only person whose opinion about you counts is your very own. The talk and slander did not bother me because I was indifferent; I have never looked to others to affirm my identity. I am an individual and I am confident. People’s harmful words will have much less of a ripple if you constantly remind yourself of how amazing you are. Disregard the rest, the only person to please is yourself!

I was extremely misunderstood in high school.  People thought my sense was humor was harsh or felt I laughed at things that weren't funny. I felt the need to constantly explain myself or justify my feelings so  people would get where I was coming from. The way I dealt with it was just coming to terms with my personality, I'm  weird, that's it. It's one thing to explain your ideas to someone but explaining your personality is something you shouldn't have to deal with.  If people think you're "strange " because you express yourself differently then they clearly aren't ready to deal with your awesomeness, give them some time. 

When I was in middle school, I was encouraged to apply to a high school they considered to be very prestigious, Hunter College HS, the same school my sister attended. After visiting the school, I didn't hate it, but also wasn't sure that it was really the right fit for me. Nevertheless, after hearing the school praised so much, I decided to take the test (kind of like the NYC Specialized High School Admissions Test, except you had to take it in 6th grade).

I got in, and quickly found myself bored and uninterested. The school had a focus on liberal arts with strong art, theater and social studies programs, but I was always more of a math and science kid growing up. It also had about 200 students per grade, a lot less than I would prefer. In 10th grade, I told my parents that I wasn't happy there and wanted to transfer to a different high school. I knew they might end up being a little disappointed and that the school I would transfer to  might not be as good, but I still felt like it was something I had to do for myself.

Within months of transferring, I knew I had made the right choice. My grades improved, I go more involved in clubs and sports, and was just a lot happier overall. This decision also helped spark a desire to continue my education through my undergraduate degree and likely even further down the road. I doubt I would have cared as much about academics as I do now had I stayed at my first high school. 

Being misunderstood comes with the unfortunate territory of being a teenager. Teenagers are often treated like little children but expected to act like adults. Teenagers have immature minds that cause them to struggle at times to express themselves in a rational fashion. These two factors serve as primary reason as to why teenagers are often misunderstood. Just like every other teenager, I have been misunderstood in high school and in college. Often times by individuals who claimed to know who I am but did not know me at all.

The ability to deal with people misunderstanding you often detects the maturity level of a teenager. When I feel like I am being misunderstood by someone, I try to think about what would cause them to not understanding me. It may be because of my speech or my body language or maybe they have a preconceived notion about me and interpreted my actions in a different light than it was meant to be. After trying to understand the other person, I do try clarifying the situation and getting them to understand me but then I realize that I cannot control what others think of me.

I think that at some point, everybody gets misunderstood.  Whether it be large or small, it happens.  Since I tend not to be the most eloquent person on the face of this Earth oftentimes when I try to say something my vernacular isn't quite right, I make a syntactical error, or somebody misinterprets my tone of voice.  This can lead to a big misunderstandings.  My biggest issue in terms of being misunderstood is that oftentimes when I say something sarcastically, people tend to not hear the sarcasm in my voice.  This can lead to people getting VERY angry over something that was not intended to be a big deal.  Those issues can usually be smoothed over with an explanation and an apology though.

But the type of misunderstanding that is harder to deal with are the type not about something you say, but about who you are as a person.  I was bullied in high school... I feel in part because I wasn't very good at expressing myself.  Especially in middle school, I was what most people would refer to as a social outcast... I had a very small group of 'nerdy' friends and we generally kept to ourselves and tried to avoid contact with our peers when we could.  But around 9th or 10th grade we started branching out and actually interacting with the rest of the school.  And surprisingly (well not really surprisingly, but it was surprising at the time) most of those jerks who were mean to us before weren't actually that bad.  Reaching out to people when there is some sort of misunderstanding can usually be a great first step to getting said misunderstanding solved.

One big issue I had with my mom until my third year in high school was that she thought I prioritized playing video games over school work. I can see why this was her opinion; I never did my homework at home and I never brought any report cards home to show her my good grades. 
My mom's nagging pissed me off so much that I decided to give her all my electronics and I told her not to give it back to me for a whole month. After the month has passed, I would show her my report card. She was happy to agree. 
I wanted to make sure my mom would not try to link the good grades she would see on my report card with the absence of video games, so I printed out my last four report cards (my school allows access to them online). After my mom saw the good grades I had for the previous eight months, she admitted she was wrong and apologized. 

We all have different opinions and mindsets. It's what makes you YOU! But that doesn't mean we are wrong for the way we think. As long as you know the difference between right and wrong, you can never really be wrong. I was recently misunderstood due to conflicting mind sets. But was I wrong? Well I'll leave that for you guys to decide. 

I am a very calm person who really doesn't like to have problems or drama in my life. I try to keep myself out of trouble as much as I can. I believe as you grow up, the more mature you get, the more you need to get out of the "kid" mindset and into the "adult" mindset. I always tell my friends, especially my girls that I don't really follow the "girl code". In my opinion, I think that's very childish and stupid. I live my own life by my choices, my actions, MY codes; which is what is right and what is wrong.

I believe throughout my High School and College experience I was mostly misunderstood, in regards to my love for education. Simply stated I was always considered the “nerd” of the group and at times thought of as the teachers pet. I can’t explain why I love school and love to learn, but ever since I was a little girl reading and learning was always my passion. I would read books for leisure and study math when the rest of the kids my age were hanging out and getting into tons of trouble.

In all honesty being misunderstood about my love for education and learning did not affect me. I just looked at my friends as if they didn’t understand what they were missing. My theory is that everyone has to educate himself or herself, especially during High School and it would only make sense if you made the best of it. Why would want to go to school a majority of your life and not learn anything or not even bother to learn anything that your interested in? In addition, being misunderstood paid off especially when people were desperate to have me help them. It was funny how the “nerd” suddenly became important, when previously all jokes were on me.

Overall, being misunderstood isn’t the worst thing that can happen to you. In my opinion, so what if people don’t understand your motives or beliefs. As long as you are content and not harming anyone with the things you want to do, it doesn’t matter what other people say. Regardless, someone will always pass judgment, even if you’re right or wrong. The most important part is that you stand up for yourself and believe that you are doing the best thing for yourself. And if the people you consider your friends are giving you a hard time for not “fitting in” then they may not really be your friends. My final advice is that you have to accept yourself before anyone can understand you, and stand up for yourself before anyone can stand by you. Don’t be shy embrace all your quirks and let world know that it is okay to be misunderstood.  

In high school we all grow and work on discovering ourselves and finding out who we are. This makes it easy to be misunderstood by people that have known you your entire life, especially your parents. In high school, I always felt like they misunderstood me, as if they never went through being a teenager before. At times it felt like we were from two different worlds and we could never agree on anything. This put a strain on our relationship and caused many arguments. With time I realized how much I missed the relationship we had. I realized that they were only trying to do what they thought was best for me because they cared. Whenever I felt misunderstood I would calmly explain how I felt instead of getting angry. We started talking more instead of fighting which helped our relationship. As I look back I realize how many lessons they taught me and thank them for always looking out for me. 

In life in general, I feel that it is very easy for many people to be misunderstood.  Some people are quick to make judgments as well as assumptions about others based on their appearance or due to their own beliefs.  I can definitely say that I have been misunderstood plenty of times throughout high school as well as college whether it was from my own peers, my teachers, or even my family members/ parents.  Even now as a 21 year old senior in college, I am constantly misunderstood.  Working at Albany High School, teachers, staff members and the students always mistake me for a high school student.  They may talk to me or treat me as a younger individual, and that can definitely be extremely frustrating.  It’s not until I began to speak that they recognize the fact that I am not as young as I appear to be.  I feel that one way to get through that frustrating feeling of being misunderstood is to stay true to who you are and to communicate what you feel to others.  You should not be suppressing those feelings, but by expressing them and openly communicating them with others, you are allowing them to see your true feelings and who you truly are as an individual, and not just what they want to see.