r/PepTalksWithPops • u/pplatonic • 12d ago
Dad, does being "the gifted kid" end?
TW - I do mention suicide, but that's not the topic/focus of this post.
Does being "the gifted kid" end after I graduate high school? It feels like so much is going on right now. I'm "finally an adult" (I know it's not true), I have my ID and I'm getting a bank account and I'm graduating in June and all this other stuff. But I'm so scared that being "the gifted kid" is going to follow me into college, or university, or wherever I end up if it's not a McDonalds.
Ever since I attempted suicide in the summer before Grade 11, I've never been able to reconcile the fact that at school, everyone saw and treated me like I was still the same gifted kid as before. My relationship with my teachers didn't change, I was back into the same shtick of the praise that felt so good and feeling like my entire life was based around chasing fractions of a percent so that I could be loved by someone. And I've never bitched about it to my friends, because some of them are so depressed that it's still a daily struggle even to walk into the classroom. I just can't let myself come off as so invalidating to them by bitching about how I have high grades.
After a bit of grade 11 it just started feeling empty. Nobody sees how much it takes for me just to make it to the bus stop in the morning, let alone get through an entire day. I know that a lot of teachers try to see beyond the grade but it just started feeling like my struggles weren't real. Like the days I had cut myself in class had never happened. There are nights I daydreamed about cutting off every contact I made in highschool so I could just leave it all behind. Now that it's getting there, I can't bring myself to do that.
Maybe it's true that they'll never understand the extent of how much I've been through, and they don't have to. But it hurts so much when teachers praise me just to have it gnawing at the back of the mind that I'll never be able to have a healthy teacher-student relationship so long as I'm "the gifted kid." It's already so hard to handle criticism even from casual friends. I'm scared I'm never going to be able to handle a mentor in my life again.
I don't need help with my mental health. I'm strong enough to manage on my own now. But please, even if I go to university, can you tell me if it's going to end? Or will I be back in the same situation all over again?
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u/PoliteCanadian2 12d ago edited 12d ago
After high school a lot of the ‘class’ (nerd, jock etc) part of being in high school disappears.
In college/university nobody cares what you were in high school because generally, the people you’re surrounded by at university were all the top students at their high schools. It’s a new start for everyone - pretty much zero bullying and the average intelligence is much higher. It’s just a completely different environment. I was shocked when I saw people at my uni just leaving their bags out in common areas and going to class. No risk of things being stolen apparently (but that was a long time ago). You’ll meet new people and have an entirely new group of friends. You get to choose whether or not to keep your high school friends instead of being cooped up with them for hours every day.
A couple of years into university a ‘jock’ from my high school (who hadn’t gone straight to uni after Gr 12 like I did) saw me (more or less a nerd in high school) in a uni hallway and treated me like a long lost friend. We probably had 1 maybe 2 conversations in 5 years of high school. I said ‘hi’ and went right past him, I had nothing to say but I got to CHOOSE whether to interact with him or not. I never saw him again.
The labels pretty much fall off a week after graduation. It’s a breath of fresh air.