The Urge to Just Disappear: Cutting Ties with School and I already did.
Disappear… There is a strange peace in disappearing—not in a dramatic sense, but in quietly erasing yourself from a suffocating place. It’s not metaphorical; it’s about blocking classmates on Instagram, cutting ties with so-called friends, and severing all digital and emotional connections to school.
School.
A place meant to be a foundation for the future has become a cycle of forced interactions and meaningless assignments for me. I don’t fit into the school mold and reject the fake laughter and gossip. Every day, I wear a mask and repeat the exhausting routine. What if I just disappeared?
The Feeling of Wanting to Disappear
It starts as a thought—a whisper telling me to block everyone, to detach from the weight of people who don’t know the real me. The urge for solitude grows; the idea of never hearing their voices or seeing their filtered lives becomes intoxicating.
I imagine clicking “block” on those who make me feel unwanted. With each block, I reclaim the mental space they occupied, feeling lighter. But why was I there in the first place? What was the purpose of enduring fake friendships and hollow conversations? Was it what society dictated? Maybe school isn’t preparing me for the future but just a holding cell until we’re tossed into the real world.
Questioning the Purpose of It All
I often ask myself, what does it mean to be successful? What does it mean to be known or remembered? School promotes the idea that we need to be someone significant, that we must achieve a certain level of “fame” in our social circles to truly matter. But is that really the case? I observe my classmates putting in so much effort to be popular, to be liked, and to be admired. Yet, none of this pursuit feels genuine.
Fame, at its core, is an illusion. It’s a desperate attempt to be validated by others. But what if I don’t need that validation? What if I don’t want to be remembered by people who never truly saw me for who I was?
If being known in school means pretending to be someone I am not, then I would rather disappear. I would rather be unknown, unseen, and free.
The Reality of Cutting Ties
When I finally decide to remove myself from that world, a brief moment of fear emerges. What if they notice? if they start talking about me? if I become the subject of their whispers, their assumptions?
But then, I realize something: it doesn’t matter.
The people who never truly cared about me will forget me in a few days. And those who did care—if they even exist—will reach out if they genuinely want to keep me in their lives. But I have already made peace with the idea that most of them won’t.
The truth is, school was never about me. It was about maintaining an illusion, about playing a role I never signed up for. By disappearing, I am not losing anything. If anything, I am gaining freedom. I am choosing myself over a system that never chose me.
Finding a New Path
So what happens now? I disappear from school and promise to never come back.
Now, I focus on the things that actually bring me joy. Art, music, streaming—things that make me feel alive instead of drained. I create my own space and my own world where I am not judged by the standards of people I do not respect.
Disappearing from school isn’t just about blocking people. It’s about reclaiming my life. It’s about choosing to exist on my own terms, without the suffocating expectations of a place that was never meant for me.
And for the first time in years, I feel like I can finally breathe.
I am free. Free from those evil demons and that cursed building. I AM FREE.
Thank you, for letting me disappear, starting a new social life, releasing me…
-Vallenina