1. I was labeled gifted and talented in school way back. Most adults would tell me that I am very gifted and intelligent. I was given fine opportunities in art, music and business. I thought that I could do anything very quickly and efficiently. I also have ADHD and ASD.
I got into a pretty good university at 20 years old. During the second year I started falling behind. I was quite heavily bullied in school so I started to get socially anxious. I ultimately dropped out after 4 years. I started smoking weed to my anxiety and depression not understanding that it made everything worse.
At 27 I started a business thinking that I can make it easily because I am gifted. Fast forward to now I am 40,000 in debt, I have procrastinated on writing my book, finishing my education, making the cold calls. My days are spent in anxiety as time passes faster and faster and I can’t decide on a vision of a future. There are so many things that I am interested in but I haven’t even tried due to inability to make a decision. A friend told me to focus on one thing for a few months and then switching if it doesn’t work. But I’ve procrastinated on that as well for 5 months.
I basically try to make music, paint, study and restart my business all at the same time but end up looking self-help videos on youtube or late life success stories.
My nurse told that I am still young and should not be too worried just take a step at the time.
But I am so done with jumping from task to task. I also gained 40lbs in 3 months after gaining a sixpacka after a years effort.
I constantly backfire and procrastinate on decisions. I feel so behind in life. I feel burned out. Only thing I look forward to is going to sleep. I do not want to wake up to this mess.
2. School messed me up. Being in gifted programs messed me up. I think part of it was I was expected to do well in school and my parents didn’t think I needed education outside of school. Socially and emotionally, I’m a mess. I was so good at school and so disciplined and for what? All of my peers had better childhoods so they all have decent lives now. I had a shit childhood on top of the burden of “giftedness.”
I think the day I graduated high school was the last time I ever saw benefits from being gifted. I’d argue there never was any benefits because all of the pressure from family caused me to do more than I was capable of. This followed me into college where I struggled and got diagnosed with adhd as an adult. I barely made it out of college and 5 years later in still so burnt out. I feel like I legit can’t learn anymore. My brain rejects new information and it’s hard for me to remember things. I had a good job and couldn’t maintain it because i was so fucking over trying so hard.
I’m getting better. I want to go back to school to start over fresh with a new career, but a masters program scares me because of my gifted background. I’m scared of school and being at school with wealthy people.
3. I have nothing to show for it except for some transcripts from middle school
4. So I was the ‘super smart child’…And now I don’t know how to study because I never had to and I’m failing. I’m also extremely lazy because I never had to put much work in to understand stuff or get stuff done. I’d say that I’m still smart, but it’s not enough to be smart to pass your exams.
5. When I was a teenager all throughout school I only focused on academics. As long as I was top of my class I felt just fine and most of the time, I was. Some of it even came easily to me but I still did work hard. I quit many creative pursuits or didn’t try hard at them. I didn’t realize then that to be good at creative things like singing or writing requires a lot of practice and effort. I just liked being good at things and that was academics. So even though I was in a music class I hardly ever practiced, taking only what came easily.
Now I’m in my 20s and in a music programme learning from people younger than me and realize where my voice and ability could have been if I had tried then. To have been consistent at singing would have brought me so much joy. Of course I can try now and am trying but can’t help but wonder about what could have been.
I think I specifically feel this way because academically things are bad for me right now. Once a great student, I have now been procrastinating for months at grad school. I am tired and it feels like I no longer have the one thing I sidelined everything else for- academics.
6. When I was eleven, I was sent to college straight out of the fifth grade. Things like that happened back then, and it still happens today from time to time. Like you, I was a bright kid. I could learn things super fast. I did very well in grade school. I was, like many of you, labeled as a “gifted” child. Unlike, I hope, most of you, my parents and school district decided that I needed to be hyper-accelerated straight into college. I was told I was a genius and I was told I had limitless potential. And then I was told to act on it, like, now. At eleven.
This was a terrible idea. I hit the wall at 13, couldn’t pass college level math and science classes. But unfortunately, instead of having parents who would stop and try to figure out what was wrong, I was made to feel like it was my fault. I was met with screaming rages and belittling rants at home. And in a panic, I changed my major to something I could pass, a very easy history program, with the plan then being to go to law school.
(Kids, don’t go to law school.)
I graduated at 15, then went to graduate school, then law school. Then I was thrust into a terrible profession at 22 — and discovered I was borderline unemployable.
It has been 24 years since then. I’m okay now. At long last, it’s getting to be okay again. But the scars are thick and deep. I internalized a lot of bad thinking, like many of you seem to have, and spent a lot of time absolutely miserable, full of shame and anger and resentment about what happened. I crashed out of the profession in my thirties. I spent years underemployed. And all because someone decided I was a “genius”, when I’m not. I’m okay, but I’m not that.
