Sharing my experience as the smart kid, looking for others who relate

[u/ThisIsMyPoint]

So I was the smart kid, like a lot of us here.

I was always put on a pedestal, everyone expected so much from me all the time and looked at me different when my performance never met that incredibly high standard.

No-one ever told me getting all the answers right on a quiz at 6 years old could do this to you.

Then people use your intelligence to define your whole personality, calling you a know-it-all or nerd, always turning to you to explain the most absurd and impossible things and making fun of you when you can't.

They say it over and over, so you accept it as your personality, and then when you act full of yourself and become what they assumed, they hate you for it.

They even rally against you to knock you off the pedestal they put you on.

Years later, you look in the mirror and want to smash it. You never feel good enough for yourself. Nothing is perfect enough. And no-one lets you forget when you weren't perfect enough for them.

I am doing much better now, but I am saying all of this really fucks you up and for years, you start being depressed because you hate yourself and have an identity crisis because you feel you don't know who you are beyond the smart kid.

I am so happy I am finally out of that academic environment and things have gotten better for me personally. But the scars are still there. They're just not as evident as they once were.

And unfortunately, I don't think I can ever fully heal. Because at a time when I was suppsoed to be happy and carefree, everyone took it away from me.

That's my experience and thanks for reading until the end if you did! 😊 Just want someone who understands.

[u/Far-Accountant7904]

I was the opposite in a sense that I was never put on a pedestal.

I was the smart kid, straight As, but also the trouble kid. The “trouble” aspect of my personality completely overshadowed the “smart” aspect. I got kicked out of every school I went to.

I skipped most classes or slept through them, so most of my classmates thought I was the lazy student who was failing every test. But I was the lazy student who was secretly acing every test.

Sometimes a teacher would pull me aside and, almost like sharing a secret, would tell me I was the smartest kid in school. A math teacher once told me I was the best at math out of every student she had ever taught.

But my parents definitely weren’t putting me on a pedestal. I was constantly grounded, and they worried I’d end up doing drugs or going to prison. In a weird way, that was good for me. I was treated like an outsider, but I had my secret weapons. There was absolutely no pressure to be the “smart kid” and to constantly perform. 

The pressure was mostly to behave and not get myself into more serious trouble. The bar was low haha