The Trouble with Being Gifted

I think that sometimes, having a disability is easier to admit then being gifted or smart.

The funny thing is, while going through school I always thought I was stupid, and lazy. I hated myself at times, wondering why I couldn't just be smart like everyone else, why couldn't i just do my homework and get good grades?

Now that I am almost through College I have come to slowly realize, I was smart.

Teachers focus on the children with disabilities and the outgoing students. Those like me who were smart and gifted, who they should have pushed harder, giving harder work, just slip through the cracks. I was always bored in school. The work was easy and so boring, I wasn't motivated to do my homework. What was the point?

When I got to high-school (when we moved to Colorado) my grades plummeted. Teachers at my high-school didn't really see me, didn't think to ask why i wasn't doing my work? why was I failing? Instead they ignored me and pushed me to the side as a 'lazy kid'. I would go home and be treated by my dad like i was stupid, worthless, good for nothing so i believed it.

It's only in college that I know have a chance to flourish, its a subject I am good at and love. I am a quick learner, show me something once and usually I can do it from then on. I am a quick reader as well.

I always wanted to be smart, now that I know i always have been, I've found it a kind of hollow victory.

A friend I had made told me I was TOO smart, that when I talked, I just sounded "like the book" and never gave anyone in my group a chance to feel out the questions and get it wrong or right on their own. Anytime we were put together anything I said she would argue and it would turn into world war III.

Last night was the last night of a short 5 week class. We were asked what we had learned in class this semester. Most of the students said the objective voice, or detail. They had all learned something.  I was off in my own corner thinking of SOMETHING to say, because for most of it I already knew or was good at. I can't say, "well I'm smart, or I already knew all of this" because it would be taken wrong no matter what wording I used.

I felt like I was always on the outside looking through a window at everyone else. I thought, 'if i was smart I would be with them' but now that I realize I always have been, and that I am smart, I find myself on the opposite end of the house, looking back through another window wishing to be slower, and not such a quick learner.

People are open and willing to accept someone with a learning disability or something else. But if you tried to explain your problem was that your gifted, that your smart they would just assume you were a know it all or bragging.

I cannot say I was wronged by all my other teachers, but I feel like I was a little. That if my teachers had payed more attention to me, and noticed why I struggled, and helped me succeed I would have flourished and ended up differently.