(CNN) -- Jennifer Muzquiz was "goth" in high school. She had, and still has, multicolored hair, a "face full of piercings," and an all-black wardrobe, even though she no longer identifies with the goth subculture. And while her style had always earned her her fair share of strange glances, she says everything changed for the worse after the Columbine school shootings on April 20, 1999.



Jennifer Muzquiz, in all black, decided to study at home after feeling shunned as a goth after Columbine.



It was on that day that Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold killed 12 students and teachers in a shooting spree at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado.



The massacre was one of the deadliest school shootings in history, and it had a profound effect on students and teachers across the country. As the media and the public groped for meaning behind the incident, there were plenty of theories about the motive behind the massacre.



One of these was that Harris and Klebold were members of the goth subculture, or "trench-coat mafia" as they were known at Columbine, and thus had been outcasts.



This theory has been widely refuted, but for goth students around the country, the damage was done.



"As a result [of Columbine], the public were afraid of the 'goths' and 'punks' and 'metalheads' at school," says Muzquiz, who was a high school senior at the time.



"Parents, often successfully, lobbied to get trench coats and all-black attire banned in their local schools. School administrators started considering these groups to be gangs and harassment of students was rampant, with unwarranted backpack searches, detainment in the hallways by security guards, and being called into the administrative offices for questioning."



Rumors ran rampant about kids who "looked like they were going to bring a gun to school," and Muzquiz says her classmates quickly learned if they wanted to cause trouble for a student, all they had to do was report that student had a list of enemies.



"They could simply report to administrators that the person had an 'enemies list' and the school would quickly swoop in to rectify the situation, even when it wasn't the truth. ... The accused would forever be known as 'the kid with the list' and ostracized," she says.



Because of this and the new dress code restrictions, her goth friends "were afraid to go to school." Muzquiz herself caught so much flak for her appearance that she went into home studies. And though she was no longer in school, discrimination couldn't be avoided. People in town would cross to the other side of the street to avoid her and her friends, she says. iReport.com: 'Sadly, teens still tend to shun those who are different than they are'



Muzquiz was even interviewed by the national media about her experiences after Columbine. At first she regretted it and feared backlash. "I had already gotten enough crap since Columbine about wearing all black," she says. But she was glad she did it after receiving e-mails from other students who identified with her and thanked her for the interviews, including one girl who was suicidal until reading an article about her.



"One girl even had e-mailed me and said [she] was coming home to write a suicide note ... and kill herself after school. She read the article about me and it made her think twice," says Muzquiz. "In the article, I said it's not worth letting these people get to you. It's not up to them to tell you that you're wrong. She thanked me."



"[To have] a 14-year-old e-mail me ... it was just, like, whoa, I don't care who says anything bad ... I helped someone," says Muzquiz. "To this day that just sticks with me. Anything I do in my life -- nothing's going to measure to that, the fact that I helped someone realize that there's more to life
Who did the shooting? What did the shootings change? What site is everything from?
Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold profound effect on students and teachers across the country. iReport.com:
question: Who did the shooting?, answer: Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold | question: What did the shootings change?, answer: profound effect on students and teachers across the country. | question: What site is everything from?, answer: iReport.com: