Gifted Kid Burnout - Tumblr Posts
I don't understand how I could devour at least three large books in one sitting when I was in fifth grade but now I struggle to read just one page of any of my favourite books
Me
Dark academia but instead of wearing blazers and reading classic novels, I’m wearing my pajamas and reading fanfiction til 4 am
Did anyone else come from successful families on both sides where each generation is expected to succeed or do better than the last but you're in your final year of high school and have done nothing to prove so by wasting your potential despite having worked hard for most of your life?
Is anyone hear the youngest of your family and already considered the smartest or the best of your already highly capable older siblings, but because in everyone's eyes they wasted their potential everyone's putting the expectation to be the "successful one" even though said siblings are already doing well in their own right and it's just the way your family has perceived what they've done as failing?
Did anyone else constantly succeed growing up in terms of either academics or extra curriculars to the point everything became a complete bore to you so you get accepted into an international private school in hopes of giving you a challenge with your families encouragement. So you go and you thrive but over the years your mental health begins deteriorating so you beg to be let to go back to public school where you think you'll do well because what they're teaching now was already taught to you at private school but you brain just wants rest and doesn't care about failing or succeeding you just want to be able to sleep everything away?
Did anyone else do really well in one languages but not know they're mother tongue because of systematic racism so when you're school finally gives you a chance to learn it you're family convinces you to go but you were already doing so well in a different language and now have to transfer to another so you don't let your family down?
Did anyone else do so much extra curricular activities because you were afraid of making friends and these were some of the only ways you could talk to people but you did them for so long and you became so good at them that these became boring to you as well and for once you just wanted to have a weekend, lunchtime, or some after school time to yourself where you didn't have to worry about practice, training, and homework without missing one?
Did anyone else have to take extra swimming lessons because it's an essential life skill but your fear of deep water prevents you from ever using these skills so you stay in the shallows and feel like the money and time spent on those lessons went to waste?
Did anyone else's family sign them for an after school club because you appearently need to learn new skills for the future but you're already so busy and these lessons are expensive so once again you're wasting more time and money but this time even though you've confronted your family they tell you no but you're suffering of boredom and anxiety of not having learned or understood anything for two and half hours?
Did anyone else miss out on the chance to learn basic life skills like communication, cooking, and cleaning, and first aid because you were too busy trying to succeed at everything else to the point it caused you crippling loneliness and made you think that everyone else's opinion if you was more important than you yourself?
Did anyone else have complete plan for the future because you thought said plan would go the way you were expecting things would work out but the world was already shit and because you're failing at just about everything you were good at now you don't know if you'll make it to uni because you don't have enough credits and you might have to repeat. You don't know if you'll go to art school because no one cares about artists careers. You don't know if you'll become an architect because now you're always destroying your work in frustration because it didn't turn out the way you wanted it to. You don't know if you'll write a successful book because you can't sort out in your head how to sort out the plot, characters, and symbolism and weave everything into a compelling story. You don't know if you'll become an animator because of the crappy work hours compared to payment.
You're plan failed and you have no idea what to do. You've wasted everyone's money and time and you've wasted your potential and lost your future.
No, Just me? Okay then.
Etudier
Avant, étudier c’était pour faire briller des étoiles dans les yeux des adultes. C’était pour faire croire que j’étais quelqu’un de bien, de digne d’intérêt. C’était facile, c’était un jeu, je me racontais des histoires, ce en quoi j’excellais, on disait tu iras loin, et j’étais persuadée que c’était vrai. Longtemps, étudier a été une échappatoire, une fierté, un moteur d’ambition, quelque chose que j’aimais.
J’écrivais mes dictées comme des lettres d’amour. Je récitais l’alphabet comme un poème. Etudier valait la peine.
Aujourd’hui, maintenant que je suis adulte (qu’il est laid, ce mot, qu’il est écrasant), étudier est un mot qui me tord le ventre. Ce sont sept lettres comme une menace irrationnelle, sept lettres en moi qui font résonner les pierres. Pour mes études j’ai créé des échos qui font rouler des graviers dans ma gorge et me lacèrent de l’intérieur, l’angoisse en est devenue physique, et moi je suis : incontrôlable. J’ai des coups de sang, des crises de larmes, des rages infantiles. Je me noie entre mes fiches et mes listes interminables.
Il faut croire que même les études réveillent des monstres. Je suis terrifiée : de rater ma vie, de ne rien valoir, de me battre sans savoir pourquoi. Je suis terrifiée de poursuivre dans cette voie et de me rendre compte dans trente ans que ce n’était pas la mienne, que voilà, je me suis trompée, et que j’ai passé toute une vie à satisfaire des désirs qui n’étaient jamais les miens. C’est que je ne suis pas faite pour choisir, je n’ai pas de voie, non ; je suis mouvante et incapable de faire le deuil des possibles.
Je ne sais pas me définir sans ma quête de perfection, mes ambitions démesurées, mes exigences tyranniques. Je ne suis pas : sociable, jolie, intéressante, drôle, désirable. Alors je ne sais pas qui je suis si je ne parviens pas à réussir. C’est tout ce qu’il me reste. Je ne sais rien faire d’autre que cela, répondre à des exigences académiques, rentrer dans la norme, avoir un parcours sans accrocs.
Pour la première fois, étudier n’est pas facile. Peut-être que je n’irai pas si loin. Peut-être a-t-on placé en moi trop d’espoirs, trop d’attentes : des étouffements. J’ai l’impression que je n’ai jamais grandi, que j’ai fait semblant. Comment se faire à l’idée de décevoir ?
.... @sharmasaurus @justyourregulardepressedteen
Things that scream gifted kid burnout
Being on Tumblr, Wattpad. or AO3. especially AO3
Having several unused notebooks, that are empty simply out of fear of "ruining" them.
A caffeine addiction that started with you pulling all nighters that has progressed into you living off of monsters and never sleeping.
Having a praise or degradation kink, I'm sorry dear, I don't make the rules,
Saint Bernard by Lincoln If you wanna listen
Buying books and never reading them and or reading classics just to say you've read them.
Listening to Mitski , specifically Brand New city
All of Bo Burnhams Inside
Being the mom friend (you wanna give people the affection and attention you never received outside of your academic accomplishments.)
Your love language being acts of service
Having an academia playlist but also having a "lets burn the government playlist"
Hozier
Wanting to run away to the woods but also wanting to run away to a big city and cut off everyone from your past.
Having an obsession with office supplies/stationary
Notes app rants
I actually have somewhat of a story behind mine
As a former gifted kid, I was always told I HAD to succeed. The line between encouragement and pressure was thin. And for a long time, I agreed. I wanted to "go for the gold".
I started questioning this in middle school. After experiencing bullying, crappy teachers and staff vs teachers who were actual saints with shit for support (between lack of funding bc public school and my middle school was a contest of who could suck up to the principal), disruptive classmates (they were annoying, I'll admit that, especially since I really cared about learning, but in hindsight I should've been more understanding), being unessesarily overwhelmed with hw, and just having my eyes opened to the world. I started to really question my education. I fell in love with The Hunger Games and Ray Bradbury in particular, and my parents got me into Star Trek. I got my first smart phone at 13, and got my first real introduction to social media. The older I became, the less I really wanted the gold. I vowed to be glitter instead: flashier, messier, imperfect, brighter, and impossible to get rid of. Glitter became a symbol of my soul and how I was changing and growing and starting to fight against the unfairness around me. I was far from perfect, but it was my mission to stand up to bullying, to call out crappy teachers and supporting ones who actually cared, all with the support of my loving, Karen mom. To be honest, I had a lot of academic elitism and racism that I wasn't even aware of at the time, but my path to redemption and rebellion started when I decided that I wasn't going to take things at face value. My achievements were great, but why couldn't everyone have the same opportunities? And why did all this pressure and extra hw fall onto the smart kids such as myself?
As a way to stand out from the crowd and to outwardly display my discontent for the status quo, I wore the most bizarre outfits I could come up with, many of wich included glitter.
Glitter was also the reason I started questioning my sexuality. Anytime I saw a girl wearing glitter or even just a really cool outfit I felt The Sexual Attraction ™️. Being dense, I litterally thought I was sexuality attracted to glitter lmao.
My feelings of frustration multiplied in high school, as did my love of glitter. Twards the end of high school, I started experiencing my first academic burnout. I had so many feelings of anger, not only to the school system, but myself. The idea that I could be imperfect yet beautiful like glitter helped me through that and encouraged me to push through that. I sought help for my mental health problems, despite my mom's protests. At 18, after the death of my cat (God bless her soul. I miss my baby girl every day), my mom conceded and I finnally got therapy. I finnally felt like I was going uphill.
Then covid happened. That threw a wrench in my mental health. I started off my 4 year college depressed and not even passing. My anger at my family, my schooling, my society, and myself turned into a crushing negativity.
One of the few things that kept me sane enough to survive was glitter. I own several outfits covered in sequins and glitter. Fashion is an art and I was my own audience. If I could sparkle, I had confidence, and hope.
Im still recovering from that low. My grades are still crappy. But my heart has grown so much. I learned so many things I never could have learned in school.
I am a better person than I was in middle school, if a bit more pessimistic. I'm aware of my biases. I'm aware of my impact. I've learned to forgive my shortcomings. I see myself growing into a pile of glitter, and one day, I hope my positive influence spreads far and wide, like that bit of shimmer in the corner of the carpet that no vacuum cleaner can reach. You don't always know where it came from, but you smile when you see it.
I may not always "go for the gold". Many times, gold is simply unattainable.
If I can be a pile of glitter instead, that is more than enough.
i'm curious, if u want rb this with why you chose your url!
I actually have somewhat of a story behind mine
As a former gifted kid, I was always told I HAD to succeed. The line between encouragement and pressure was thin. And for a long time, I agreed. I wanted to "go for the gold".
I started questioning this in middle school. After experiencing bullying, crappy teachers and staff vs teachers who were actual saints with shit for support (between lack of funding bc public school and my middle school was a contest of who could suck up to the principal), disruptive classmates (they were annoying, I'll admit that, especially since I really cared about learning, but in hindsight I should've been more understanding), being unessesarily overwhelmed with hw, and just having my eyes opened to the world. I started to really question my education. I fell in love with The Hunger Games and Ray Bradbury in particular, and my parents got me into Star Trek. I got my first smart phone at 13, and got my first real introduction to social media. The older I became, the less I really wanted the gold. I vowed to be glitter instead: flashier, messier, imperfect, brighter, and impossible to get rid of. Glitter became a symbol of my soul and how I was changing and growing and starting to fight against the unfairness around me. I was far from perfect, but it was my mission to stand up to bullying, to call out crappy teachers and supporting ones who actually cared, all with the support of my loving, Karen mom. To be honest, I had a lot of academic elitism and racism that I wasn't even aware of at the time, but my path to redemption and rebellion started when I decided that I wasn't going to take things at face value. My achievements were great, but why couldn't everyone have the same opportunities? And why did all this pressure and extra hw fall onto the smart kids such as myself?
As a way to stand out from the crowd and to outwardly display my discontent for the status quo, I wore the most bizarre outfits I could come up with, many of wich included glitter.
Glitter was also the reason I started questioning my sexuality. Anytime I saw a girl wearing glitter or even just a really cool outfit I felt The Sexual Attraction ™️. Being dense, I litterally thought I was sexuality attracted to glitter lmao.
My feelings of frustration multiplied in high school, as did my love of glitter. Twards the end of high school, I started experiencing my first academic burnout. I had so many feelings of anger, not only to the school system, but myself. The idea that I could be imperfect yet beautiful like glitter helped me through that and encouraged me to push through that. I sought help for my mental health problems, despite my mom's protests. At 18, after the death of my cat (God bless her soul. I miss my baby girl every day), my mom conceded and I finnally got therapy. I finnally felt like I was going uphill.
Then covid happened. That threw a wrench in my mental health. I started off my 4 year college depressed and not even passing. My anger at my family, my schooling, my society, and myself turned into a crushing negativity.
One of the few things that kept me sane enough to survive was glitter. I own several outfits covered in sequins and glitter. Fashion is an art and I was my own audience. If I could sparkle, I had confidence, and hope.
Im still recovering from that low. My grades are still crappy. But my heart has grown so much. I learned so many things I never could have learned in school.
I am a better person than I was in middle school, if a bit more pessimistic. I'm aware of my biases. I'm aware of my impact. I've learned to forgive my shortcomings. I see myself growing into a pile of glitter, and one day, I hope my positive influence spreads far and wide, like that bit of shimmer in the corner of the carpet that no vacuum cleaner can reach. You don't always know where it came from, but you smile when you see it.
I may not always "go for the gold". Many times, gold is simply unattainable.
If I can be a pile of glitter instead, that is more than enough.
i'm curious, if u want rb this with why you chose your url!
In my skull there is a pile of documents with a team of rodents desperately trying to organize them with their tiny tiny hands
Tiktok has no business being this relatable
Also to those of us who were both. Who were amazing but just... Not in the ways they needed to be. Who could conjure a musical in three days but still struggled with basic algebra in highschool. Who burned out completely and got failing grades while they were still in the gifted kids program. Who knew for a fact you were talented but also that no one would listen. Who always felt like all the talk of "I was a gifted kid, which means I was really good at school" just missed them. You're not alone either. I see you. You don't have to pretend it doesn't hurt just because you were gifted.
Kinda fucked up that we all coo and sympathize with "former gifted kids" but never talk about the students who had to stay late after school or over the summer for remedial classes/clubs, who struggled to get above a C, who were given up on or punished. Who tried so hard to understand or just couldn't. Who were grouped with the "stupid kids" (a classmate called us that in remedial math btw)
Autistic kids and adhders who can't relate to their gifted peers and are constantly alienated by them. Kids who struggled in school due to dealing with a chronic or mental illness or physical/learning/developmental disability. Those of us who have had to drop out of highschool or college. Kids who worked so hard and wanted to be seen as smart, but never were. Who watched as their peers seem to fly by them in school, while they were left behind. Who were bullied and put down by those in the gifted and honors classes. Whose confidence was absolutely destroyed by education.
I love you all and I'm so sorry the school system failed you. I'm sorry you weren't properly accommodated and given the education you deserved. I'm sorry people put you down for something that they never had to fight for.
I'm smart but dumb bc Im in all ap classes but the other day I accidentally stole a baby Yoda hand fan because I forgot it was in my hand
Just to be clear, we can all agree that Raf is absolutely going to go through Gifted Kid Burnout Syndrome in the next 2 years, right? Like- Potentially neurodivergent, super smart kid who wants attention from his family. PRIME (pun intended) EXAMPLE OF A KID WHO GOES THROUGHT GIFTED KID BURNOUT.
I'm going to hunt down fics of this
I think the worst part about my father’s reaction to me being queer is not the anger and lashing out and emotional manipulation, that I can handle just fine, it’s the ”now I’ll have to put my effort into making [my little sister] something” because I have so fucking clearly just been coached to be something, anything, important and successful instead of, you know, happy. Or fulfilled.
And now I absolutely relish in all my wasted potential.
the gifted kid burnout has turned into just plain burnout help!!!! the only motivation i've felt in the last week was to write fan fiction this is a PROBLEM i have MIDTERMS COMING UP
a show of hands, has anyone else lost steam?
I have a paper due in a week that I haven't started, had to call my doctor to book an appointment (that I very much needed) and cried, and I can't focus on anything that doesn't give me an immediate dopamine rush.
I'm at a whole new level of burnout that I never thought was possible the fuck
All I have ever wanted is to be remembered
But last night I had a dream in which the universe sung me awake gently with the revelation of what a delicate mercy it is to be forgotten.
I wake and try and write about something beautiful
About something hideous
About something that matters
I don't remember that last time I wrote about something that mattered
Nothing seems to matter anymore
I cannot make it
So I start with one line
I try and start with the truth
I write
The first time my sister told me she wanted to kill herself She was 11
I write
The first time I had my heart broken I was 10 and if I met him again now nearly 8 years later I think id let him do it again for old times sake
I write
The first time I left a note for my mother that said I hate you, she framed it on her desk for a month
I write
The first poetry notebook I ever had started as 157 reasons I hated myself
I write
I am afraid I will die with this potential and in the end, all it will be good for is blooming flowers over my grave
I write
I used to be able to write stories. But now all I can imagine is how they end. And in this way, they never even begin.
I write
I have spent so much of my childhood grieving a life I haven't even lived yet that most days I feel like it's already all over
But they remain ugly truths until poetry deigns them worthy or being resurrected into something beautiful
But first I must believe in some things right to be both
Beautiful and hideous
I look in the mirror and try to believe
I try to believe and I can't
Most nights I cannot sleep because I am so afraid I am running out of time
But I don't know how to use it.
I don't know what I am supposed to use it for
It just keeping draining.
Slipping
Pulling me with it
I will drown by the time I'm 20 if I don't figure out what to do with it
I tell myself all I have to do is choose
Something
Start
Somewhere
But it's not that simple
I chose poetry once
So I woke up every morning and tried to write
And was stuck with a blank page that did nothing but tell me that poetry didn't want me here
That I wasn't welcome
That I wasn't worthy
I am so afraid of making the wrong descion that I don't make any
I tell myself it's okay to slip up on the things I am told I should care about if i am using that time on something that's worth it
But how does anyone know something is worth it until it pays off. Or until it doesn't.
I am slipping below the surface of myself
I seek forgiveness from the girl I could become waiting for me in the future
For I know I will not reach her in this life
I am bleeding potential
All over this goddamn bedroom floor
Bleeding out
Aimlessly
I will be gone before I can do anything with it
I wonder if I am so worried about being remembered when I am gone
Because I already feel forgotten and I'm still here
I am still here
- not poetry poetry just vent poetry? screaming out into the void poetry? Poetry about lack of poetry poetry?
The day I realised I’ve not had a single hobby or “talent” just for me and that it has always been to please others… yeah that’s the die my soul broke into numerous pieces.
I am simultaneously consumed by the fear of being too much while also dreading not being enough