Millie(let)

Everyone talks about gifted kid burnout but very few people talk about "the school wanted to put me in special ed because I was socially disruptive, so my parents pulled me out to homeschool me - as an only child in a rural area with no kids - and I never learned how to be a person" inferiority complex because that one's embarrassing.

(not dunking on people who have gifted kid problems but it's kinda funny that it's an assumed condition in these circles given that I have, effectively, the opposite of that)

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in reply to @Gyro's post:

🏳️‍⚧️ Andréa ΘΔ 🐉@lorenziniforce5/29/2024, 4:30 PM

i have both somehow. all the isolation and also all the expectations

Millie(let)@Gyro5/29/2024, 4:37 PM

Oh I had high expectations of MYSELF - "I may be socially awkward but I will be the (book)smart kid and show them all how valuable I really am" and that's how I assured myself the haters were wrong.
Later I stopped being homeschooled for highschool and I returned to public highschool and I was such a laughingstock that I could no longer support the idea that I was "the smart one" and deflated that into "oh the haters are completely right actually," reinforced when I effectively flunked out of my financial aid and had to leave college (thanks to depression and unmedded ADHD).

I got better tho

Millie(let)@Gyro5/29/2024, 4:39 PM

actually sorry to make this about me so much, weh. 🫂

I hope you're able to feel better now.

Lupi @lupi5/29/2024, 10:50 PM

you have no clue how much i can relate to this, except instead of homeschool, it was a very ambitious nonprofit that tried doing alternative private primary school, and my mom only got us in by taking on the responsibility of doing their newsletter and other documentstuff with her previous newspaper (editor) career chops

i was transitioned to public school in fifth grade after moving house and what a fucking nightmare that was from then on, i didn't start to find my footing or even figure out how to mask right until high school, and even then i'm left with the eternal fear that if i'm one iota too "annoying" by letting mooself slip from careful curation that i will be ostracized by those i thought liked moo

i say this to share, not to make this about moo

you're not alone pal, it's a hell of a bind to be in

Millie(let)@Gyro5/30/2024, 3:06 AM

feel that re: masking and being terrified I'll get treated as a joke rather than a friend

Lupi @lupi5/30/2024, 3:17 AM

yeah, getting ditched by what i'd thought was my friends group on a school trip because i was harshing their vibe with whatever poorly masked eagerness and awkwardness i gave off definitely left some longstanding trauma.

it's a fun feeling to be broken into living with the constant belief that you have to breathe manually and spend every moment in the company of others putting on an exhausting, constant performance to be granted belonging. it might not even be true, but after one bad experience too many it may as well be

basically yeah I feel that "never learned how to be a person" thing very well