By Leah Ida Harris Having spent my entire adolescence either medicated on psychotropic drugs or trying to kill myself (in large part due to the side effects of psychotropic drugs I was on), one could say that I never really developed any coping skills. After I escaped the system, my habit was to get lost in activity.  At first it was academic achievement – supposedly to prove to myself that I had value and something to contribute.  But it never brought satisfaction.  I always felt inferior to the other students, even if my grades were high.  Below the surface, there was always a nagging sense of something being wrong.  Often I would get pangs of panic and dread twisting my stomach, for reasons I could not fathom...