I haven't thought about that in SO LONG.
That's amazing. You and I were in exactly the same situation, and we both approached it very differently. I felt extremely alienated at Delphi. A lot of the girls there treated me as though I was out-ethics, and that just made me want to be out-ethics even more.
I was very flippant about graduation - the people who got up there to graduate like that - with the horns blaring and the cheering and screaming, well, I didn't have a personal connection to any of them. Those mini-graduation ceremonies were just an excuse to sneak an extra snack from my lunchbox.
But that was my own personal defense against what I was going through. I think somewhere in my heart I wanted to be up there, too.
When I tried, I never had any trouble at all keeping up with the curriculum, or Delphi's standards until the downward spiral started.
One day, I just started reading books about other religions and was disciplined for it. I got angry that I was getting into trouble for reading, and was disciplined for the anger. I felt that no one was hearing me when I said, "I should be allowed to read whatever I want, and this shouldn't be an issue", and so I started "individuating" (a derogatory scientology word meaning 'to split from the group and go off on your own').
My parents were out of town at the time at FLAG, so I didn't feel like I had any backup. My parents would never have stood for me getting in trouble for reading, no matter what I was reading. But they weren't there. They were just getting reports that I was going bad. Which made me individuate even more.
Then again, that just sounds like basically every teenager I know.