/ot/ - off-topic

My family always tells me about how smart and advanced I was from a young age, and it always makes me feel like shit because I feel like I'm not living up to the expectations they had of me kek. No one's actually told me they're disappointed in me though, so I want to think that they're happy with me just having a decent career. Even stuff like thinking about how I apparently could speak fluent Spanish as a kid, despite having no Hispanic/Mexican family, and now I can't learn a foreign language makes me sad.
I think part of the struggle of growing up after being a "gifted" kid is not knowing exactly how to try. That's why a lot of people experience failure after failure as adults, including me.

Used to be one of the smart kids and 'mature for my age', it doesn't mean jack shit when you enter an overpopulated middle school where you're just another number and your parents are trying to divorce while making your life hell. I thank God I quickly learnt to be a loser and be okay with it. It's okay to be a retard, it's okay to not want to be #1 at every school subject. My life went to shit because of the violence happening around me and I wasn't going to try anymore. I hate school anyway, I always did even when I succeeded at being smart. School is a factory worker psyop, it prepares you to be forever enslaved while having to deal with shitty disgusting male kids (you know the type) and gossipy ostracizing female peers. There's a reason why most gifted kids burnt out and the reason is society and school itself. If I was treated with kindness by the people I was supposed to trust, both teachers and my parents, and left alone to study with no shit eating idiots all around me maybe I wouldn't had been so depressed and suicidal. They never protected me. I had to learn the bad way. Once my average dropped, all the love was withdrawn from me.

Should've trusted my gut and attended a regular school to help force develop my nonexistent social skills.
I can't do much as an adult when I can't even manage my emotions or socialize without breaking down, while slackers, troublemakers, or even some those labelled as "less intelligent" than me, in the past, seem to be doing well.

I know this is lolcow so we all have something wrong with us, but how many of you guys now have some sort of mental disorder or illness? I personally have basically every form of anxiety of earth, including OCD. I've also been questioning if I have ADHD.

>>2464162
For me it's not that I don't know how to try. I wasn't gifted in everything across the board, I had to study in areas I wasn't naturally advanced in so I understand how to earn something through work rather than aptitude. For me it's the fear of failure. I always got everything right the first time I tried it, and if I didn't get it right easily, I beat myself up because I expected myself to be perfect. I probably could have done more with myself as a young adult but I can't handle the fear of failure, so I tend to aim below my full abilities on purpose unless it's something I really care about. I also try to hide the full scope of what I can do from others because I don't want to be targeted by them. Growing up I figured out that people are intimidated and confused by gifted people, especially women. In my experience, being a gifted woman is like being a freak and makes people come at you with a weirdly judgemental attitude by default. Men find it unattractive that you're so smart and critical of their opinions and behavior, and your female peers cannot relate to you because normie women are allergic to showing their passions to others or expressing their individuality, which gifted women do naturally.

>>2464203
I have emotional regulation issues and have had them my whole life, like from infancy. This could be caused by trauma too but it's hard to say because growing up gifted itself makes you more open to trauma, due to having advanced emotional and sensory processing for a child. I remember always having much "bigger feelings" than other people and not understanding why everyone was so apathetic to injustice and their own lives, I cried often and had a bad temper. I was abused by my dad and that made me constantly obsess over not turning out like him and being afraid I was secretly evil and crazy like he was, even if I didn't want to be. I was very introspective and this made me depressed and angry too because I was having these tormenting thoughts and fears, yet I was still 5 or 6 and not able to cope with them. I still have problems regulating my emotions although I obviously know how to act in public, and I have accepted that I'm just a more passionate person than others (in both positive and negative emotions) and it's a difference caused by how my brain processes information that I can't change. I definitely think in women this is often called a mental illness, which is why I refuse to call it one. I'm not mentally ill for having the intelligence to care about things.

>>2464203
I'm about 99% sure I have ADHD. I also have trichotillomania (impulse control disorder where I pull my hair out, fucking embarrassing). Same story as most of the people here, gifted kid who burned out as an adult, and I definitely have some emotional regulation issues.

>>2464233
>and I have accepted that I'm just a more passionate person than others (in both positive and negative emotions) and it's a difference caused by how my brain processes information that I can't change.
Preach.

>>2464274
I think burning out has to do with how everyone else grows up at a standard pace, but then for us everything becomes a game of maintaining the gifted kid charade. I'm also rebellious despite being a gifted kid. I just don't care about conforming with society anymore.

>>2464288
ayrt, you hit the nail on the head. I often felt frustrated that everyone else was "catching up" or scared that the rest of the world is surpassing me while I'm struggling to be the Smart Kid still.
I also was rebellious ever since I was little. My parents and teachers always calling me a "strong-willed child" (i.e. troublemaker) but it was never really out of malice or anything, I just never quite understood why we all had to just…go along with something, just because someone said so? It didn't make sense to me.
I suspect that I might be on the spectrum or something but I've never been tested because I don't know how a diagnosis would actually help me at this point. I also feel a bit embarrassed, like maybe they'll think I'm just some trend seeker like everyone on social media saying that they're autistic these days.

I was diagnosed with giftedness and now in college I don't even think it's real lol.

I was always in the top of my class throughout elementary school. In hindsight it's not because I'm particularly smart but because I was terrified of making mistakes. I think it's more to do with male/female socialization than anything else. I knew I'd get in trouble if I wasn't obedient. By middle school I was so burnt out helping other students and doing extra classwork I started getting terrible grades. I just didn't care anymore. I stopped doing homework and skipped class but got good marks on tests so I passed with a lot of Ds.

>>2464307
I don’t really believe in it either. I’ve met a lot of people who on paper were incredibly gifted with achievements to back it up. But having a conversation with them was painful at times because of how slow or dense they could be. I have a slightly atypical background in that I attended average/normal classes for the first half of my education, and then was switched to honors/accelerated classes in the second half. The only difference was that the students behaved more in the honors classes. Those highly gifted people I mentioned earlier with huge achievements? Just happened to have more opportunities growing up than most. It really doesn’t mean anything about your intelligence.

>>2464274
I dont have trich but I do have the thing where you bite your nails and rip your cuticles/the skin around your nails off. I even kind of like the pain, it's satisfying (I know this sounds schizo as fuck kek). I also chew my cheeks and pick at my gums sometimes. I'm that girl with bandaids always mysteriously on her fingers that I can't explain, my go-to excuse is that I got a paper cut but no, I'm ripping my own cuticles apart like a mental patient kek. I also tend to pull my eyebrows, although I don't pull the hair out unless it's already coming loose. I just like to pull on an eyebrow hair while I think

>>2464203
Went from "gifted" to bipolar with OCD, eating disorder, anxiety disorders and agoraphobia. A lot of those things calmed down with age, however.

>>2464162
>I think part of the struggle of growing up after being a "gifted" kid is not knowing exactly how to try.
Yes, that was my issue. Everything came so easily to me when I was young that I had zero resilience. Even when my weaknesses started to manifest, I just avoided them. I had no ability to sit with feeling stupid or out of my depth. I became jealous of "normal" kids because they didn't seem to have all the shame and guilt I did when I didn't immediately understand something. I never learned to take notes, never learned to study, never learned to try, never learned to fail. I think a big part of it is that most children are motivated by praise and admiration, and there is more awe heaped upon a child who effortlessly understands things than a child who works hard to accomplish the same. I think most "gifted kid burnout" is really just ego death upon realizing that you only ever learned to be smart, and if you're not that anymore, then what are you? Unremarkable at best, and clearly handicapped compared to your peers at worst.

>>2464556
ntayrt but god damn, it's like you read my thoughts