#and its also nothing! before the advent of like modern standardized public education i wouldve just been a curious kid

[pantestudines]

having a "former gifted kid" type mental spiral

#i say this because the spiral is actually about how much i hate the word and the general culture around giftedness #mostly because its incredibly inconsistent between schools so people often mean different things when they say it #but also because in my specific case its certainly not a gift but like. what am i supposed to call it. #its literally a neurodivergence in my case that has had many effect postive and negative on my life. but its also a school club. #and its also nothing! before the advent of like modern standardized public education i wouldve just been a curious kid #Without modern public education im not sure i wouldve even been different from other kids. maybe a little socially awkward still but idk #and like. Am i really different from other kids? am I now as an adult different from my peers? Occasionally i will get told as such #how the fuck am i suppose to talk about how much being seperated from my peers and held to higher standards sucked #when the name of the reason why this happened might as well be 'gods specialist little boy' #none of the things that make people think im smarter are really all that useful day to day. and most non-gifted people are like. still smar #i happen to be good at memorizing the kind of facts schools test you on as children #but is that just because i was told as a kid to be good at school and so i tried hard to do that? #even if I am uniquely good at that #does that really make me more intelligent than the high school dropouts who can fix cars like its nothing? #in fact i would say they are at least wiser than me for picking something practical to be smart at #at my school being gifted usually implied you were a little neurodivergent and bad at socializing #often our gifted kids were actually failing classes because they were smart enough to realize they didnt matter #(not me but still) #but at some schools being gifted just means you were an avid reader or were pressured by your parents to maintain perfect As at all times #so if i say. wanted to talk about how being 'gifted' has often made some aspects of academia like hating emails and having time blindness #and not having a good friend network and having many unadressed issues around not really knowing how to make friends #if i wanted to talk about that. and i say 'I was gifted growing up and this sucked' #the person on the other end might hear 'oh woe is me im so smart and this makes my life so hard' #AND FURTHER STILL #on tumblr especially 'former gifted kid' has kindve become parlance for 'guy whining about nothing' #or even 'person who they were told was smart but is actually kinda dumb' #which... yeah! theres a reason many former gifted kids are like that! thats kindve my issue with the program in the first place! #it takes otherwise relatively normal if well achieving kids and tells them they are gods specialist little children. #THIS CANNOT BE HELPFUL TO ANYONE? like whatever chance the kids had at seeming normal has been stripped away #and they now also think they are the smartest person in the room in every situation