I remember in college (16-18yrs old) my ancient history professor put my name in for the AQA Extended Project Qualification without asking me and told me about it afterwards. I was 17, clearly Gifted from the outset, and she pegged me as the student in her class who'd do the work for it because she Expected It Of Me.
The thing is, she didn't mean any of it cruelly or meanly. She genuinely thought it was a good thing, that I'd enjoy it, and that it would be a good challenge for me when I was clearly more than capable of completing the coursework and classwork she set with ease.
And she wasn't wrong. But she didn't ask me and I ended up having to spend several months working on this thing around existing classes, home life being a mess, my own mental health being a wreck, and not one teacher realised I had any problems at all.
I had to fill out a journal regularly of Community Work I did like packing bags and stuff to show "community mindset", research my chosen subject, create draft proposals for it, speak to tutors outside of class time to hash it out, attend extra classes on civics and stuff for the qualification and so much more it was unreal.
I had to write a 5k paper on my subject topic, deliver a presentation, proposal, display board for the examiners to look at and ask me questions about which I had to answer and not feck up at the time.
As well as keep my grades up.
And the worst thing. Thee worst thing. It was easy.
It was easy because I could focus on that rather than my mental health, than my home life, than my relationship issues, than all those other things I should have been working on but didn't have the time because I didn't want to disappoint my tutor who signed me up for this whole thing without asking me because she believed in me.
And I aced the thing. I genuinely did.
I aced my classes, except sciences because well something had to give and definitions of things were what I kicked out of my head at the time (I no longer can tell you how to calculate speed and velocity correctly rip).
I was the gifted kid from childhood who was compared to her struggling brother with his adhd and his learning difficulties and behavioural problems, who was well behaved and polite and smart and not a problem in the classroom ever (except when I chose to be).
And that bullshit dragged with me into university where, honestly, I burned myself up. I established a routine sure, but the first week of uni I had a full on emotional breakdown bc I locked myself out of my room and my drunk flatmates all consoled me because everything, and I mean everything, just came down on me at that moment.
I picked myself back up, went to classes and passed everything. Even stats. Though not really because honestly I just didn't get what the tutor was saying and she didn't explain once.
(And I felt so ashamed of that stats class result, it was hilarious. Especially when I had to redo it in the summer which was just horrid for this Gifted Kid to suddenly be struggling).
I have two degrees, an undergraduates and a masters, I have 5 a-levels and 2 as levels. I have all the gcses my school offered that I took and didn't fail any of them.
I am smart. But I struggled so much in university. Not for taking notes, I used my laptop and relied on the tutors power points to add info to, but with everything else because I hadn't been given support where I needed it.
I am superficial and charming on the surface because I have spent a lifetime masking all my problems and troubles and being the good student who doesn't cause trouble even when they want to just get up and scream. The depths of me are seen more online than in person because y'all don't expect me to be charming and to smile and to express social cues I had to consciously learn on my own because not one adult thought I needed help there.
This is the curse of being a gifted kid.
Especially one who gets diagnosed at 28 with adhd who could have done so much more at 22 on adhd medication because things would have been easier. Help would have been available.
Because when you're just Autistic. When you have Aspergers. When you're High Functioning. You're just Smart And Awkward and written off as fine.
I suffered so much for no reason other than a flawed system that overworks its employees, doesn't fund the things it should fund enough, and leaves kids like me, who show accelerated growth in quantifiable areas of statistical measurement but who need help with other areas, to suffer alone.
There's a reason so many Gifted kids end up diagnosed as neurodivergent. It's because we're smart in one way that means everything else about us is ignored.
The Problem Kids I saw in high school (11-16) were some of the smartest kids I've ever met. But because they struggled with maths, with spelling, with reading, and other things, they got ignored, or babied, or told off when they got bored and grew tired of being ignored and not praised like the Gifted Kids at least got.
One of those kids, Tom, he genuinely was so smart. He wrote a whole ass English paper the day before it was due and he got an amazing mark because he had actually listened to me explaining stuff next to him in class, even when he fucked around throwing erasers about, or doodling, and I went through things in a way he understood because that helped me too.
He's Gifted. He's smart. But he got called a Problem Kid because of disruptive behaviour. Because he drew attention to himself, good or bad, because he didn't want to be ignored and because the subject didn't Interest Him.
I learned a lot in school because I loved learning. That's why I did well. I loved to just soak up knowledge. I still do. The fact that the knowledge I enjoyed learning was information relevant to standardised tests is the only, The Only, reason I got labelled as Gifted and not Problem or Ignorant.
My mother is smart. She loves horses. She Loves To Learn About Horses. Always has. School for her was a story of Not Trying, Not Paying Attention, Not Able To Understand. Because it didn't Interest her. It didn't engage.
She's forgotten more about horses than I'll ever know. And I know a lot.
Intelligence isn't just MENSA tests and pattern recognition and that bs used to evaluate how smart someone is in a psychological assessment.
Intelligence, true intelligence, is being able to share what you know with others in a way they can understand. That's true intelligence.
And I know a lot of Gifted Kids, Problem Kids, Ignorant Kids, Daydreamers, and Drop-Outs who are intelligent because of that fact alone.
So fuck the lack of support for gifted kids and other kids. Fuck the idea that kids can be categorised as smart and not smart. Fuck the mentality that if you're not good at your countries language and maths that you're "stupid". Fuck it all.
We're all fucking geniuses and I won't have anyone tell y'all different.
And we support each other as a result. Got that.
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