We all put our pants on one leg at a time; yet we never see eye to eye. We all came into this world as an innocent infant; not knowing what was considered right or considered wrong. But somehow, somewhere, we learned the stereotypes that imprison every person from being who they actually are.

I was one of those kids that grew up to believe those stereotypes. I was influenced my whole life on what was considered unacceptable in a ‘normal’ life. As a child, I felt like I needed to be like, ‘everyone else.’ Whether it was buying the latest clothing, having the newest phone, or playing sports; I felt like I had something to prove.
In elementary school, I actually got put to the test. The ‘cool kids’ had the sixty four pack of crayons, maybe even the one hundred and eighty pack with the built in sharpener; if you were lucky. If you fell behind in the mile run, you were fat. If you weren’t the King or Queen in four square, you automatically got sent to the toilet; because no one liked the toilet. All these things seemed so little but meant so much to an eight year-old girl longing for friendship with all the kids at recess.
The worst was getting a “needs improvement” on my report card. By golly, the world was ending! When all my peers would talk about how they got ‘S+’ and I just sat there and sank in my seat with a look on my face of unsatisfactory. I would lie and tell them how I got all S+’s on my report card; they all thought I was the smartest chick around.

I grew older and so did my peers. The cool kids didn’t have sixty-four packs of crayons anymore. The kids that fell behind in the mile run were either fatter or running laps around all of us. The King and Queens were either the athletes of the school or the top of their class. Everyone changed. Those peers that I had in elementary school, were all different people. Many continued to make their S+’s into A+’s and their ‘Needs improvement’ to B’s and C’s. One could even say some went down the wrong road. It was what our society considered the destruction of this generation; drug use.
When I was kid, we were all taught drugs were bad. But who was to think that we were all going to grow up and see the King of four square become a pot head? Or the girl getting S+’s all down her report card was going to become addicted to heroin. I came across many people in my time growing up and never would I of expected some of the people that went down that path would even come close to it. I started to notice how much it impacted their lives, especially ones close to me.  I don’t think kids do drugs, “to have fun.” It’s never been that way. As much as many don’t want to admit, there’s more to it. 
Those kids that seemed to have the whole world ahead of them as a child are just as capable of being just like that ‘druggie.’ I’ve seen some of the brightest people get caught up in the drug abuse many teens around us face, some being my friends. Throughout my years I may have taken stereotypes as something to follow by because they seemed to be true. But when it came to drug use I always wanted to believe otherwise. Nowadays, kids get left with no hope when they get caught up in drugs according to society’s standards. But why do we have to treat them like that? Is it a label we place on them because they aren’t like the kid getting straight A’s and the captain of football team?
The way that people choose to cope with their lives is indefinitely out of any of our control. Some choose working out, some choose sleeping. Then there’s the people that result to things like drugs. It’s their escape to be free from reality. I’m not saying by any means that the use of drugs should be accepted. But I don’t think that we should give up on the people overcoming an addiction so easily. They have just as much potential as the next person, it just doesn’t shine through because of the label we place on them for their choices. They’re still that intelligent kid getting S+’s, they just need an extra boost to get on the right path.