Love, love, love this! Thank you for sharing, and I am sure many of us can relate. Oftentimes we forget how self-deprecation actually can hinder us from growth! Great piece :)
thank u so much for the sweet comment!! i really do worry ab the proliferation of self-deprecating remarks as a substitute for jokes, when lots of the time there isn't anything funny there :( i'd much rather be foolishly optimistic and overdramatically vain instead! <3
sonali-- what a thought-provoking (and exceptionally timed) piece! i have a ton to say... your writing tends to do that to me :) it helps that i've recently been confronting the roots of a TON of my beliefs centering around academic achievement and success!
as a preface: i take great issue with the separation of children into gifted/non-gifted/average categories!! it suggests that each person learns in the same way, deals with the same circumstances, and comes from the exact same background and privilege. this is simply not the case, but the american academic system operates on the assumption it is. sorting children by capability and "potential" is so dismissive of each person's uniqueness and fails to acknowledge that there is great diversity in learning styles. beyond that, it removes so much value from the act of learning in itself (is that not the whole point of school?), and fixates on statistics-- grades, test stores-- as a marker of someone's abilities and of their desire to learn.
i grew up being placed into gifted/advanced academic programs. i was incessantly told how exceptional i was and how i deserved the entire world and would go very very far because of my intellect, etc: the regular dialogue fed to the kids whose learning styles and proclivities best conform to western academic practices and teaching structures. there was a definitive outgroup created in my elementary school, and hence a power hierarchy: inflated egos and high expectations ran rampant among the "gifted kids." it makes sense that 10 year-olds would cling so strongly to this identity of smartness; it's a formative time in your life! along with the label, i think, comes the development of personal expectations about what you are supposed to achieve. your self-worth becomes deeply integrated with your academic performance; after all, that's what you're told defines you.
i think what makes "gifted kid burnout" feel so painful is that it's a betrayal of the messages you were fed about how things were meant to play out. the gifted child was meant to be perfect, to hit no bumps in the road, to skyrocket to success on a seamless, barrier-less trajectory. it's hard to confront the fact that life isn't perfect, especially when you were conditioned to believe it would be. not only that: that you deserved that perfection because of your exceptional intelligence. to confront difficulty might feel like an existential betrayal of the way you think you're meant to move through the world; it means accepting the fact that progress is nonlinear, and that things, well, don't come easily all the time.
the proliferation of complaint about gifted kid burnout, then, is a collective grasping at a new identifier to replace one which has been lost. it is a hyper-fixation on suffering which feels undeserved because it was so profoundly unexpected. it is an attempt to cling to a collective struggle, to find meaning and to differentiate oneself, when the core of your self-definition was revealed to be false.
your concluding comments on suffering actually remind me a lot of a critical analysis paper i wrote last year, which explored the relationship between suffering and creativity/success, and the pervasive dialogues which tell us that suffering makes our work mean more. i specifically studied the romanticization of the "suffering artist," studying the consequences it had for the treatment of mental illness, and also the stigma tied to it. the trope essentially promotes the idea that suffering is critical to producing meaningful work; this leads people to (in your words, because they fit perfectly) "[plunge themselves] further into pity and despair." it causes mental illness to be viewed as a creative tool, and a mysterious key to unlocking genius. i must say, from personal experience: no!! it does not make you a genius! i can vouch: at my lowest mental points, i feel foggy, out of touch, lost, and unable to focus. my ability to think clearly is overwhelmingly hindered. the glorification of suffering entraps people in states of disarray, which they (and society) falsely regard as the source of their extraneous, unique greatness.
because this is beginning to become an essay in itself i'll stop for now; regardless, thank you for sparking so much reflection for me. and, i might add, in such admirably eloquent language ^-^
hope you are taking good care of yourself and making space for rest as the school year gets into full swing. much love <3
thank u so much for the thoughtful comment, jane!! i wanted this piece to be as understanding and empathetic as possible, so i'm glad it resonated with u!! love how u noted that we're fed the idea that those who are more intelligent (in the way we measure intelligence) are "deserving" of perfection. it's a deeply capitalistic notion to value people solely based on their potential for advancing society, and very dangerous that we ingrain these messages in children so early without realizing the divides it encourages! and it's definitely heartbreaking to think about those affected by the system in both ways -- those fed false hope and those fed the idea that there's little hope for them...although i don't love the tweets about how gifted kids experience this unique kind of struggle that no one else understands, it's a logical thing to do when you aren't taught to cultivate a separate sense of self. i think we can only work to tackle the problem when we understand the emotional charged nature of it all, and i'm glad you've been self-reflecting as well!! i, of course, adore ur work, but ur so much more than any of your eloquent phrasing or thought-provoking observations. you deserve to see urself as a whole human being, not just a machine for productivity!!
i'd love to read ur critical analysis paper as well -- i completely agree that my mental illness has only made me a worse academic and more unproductive creative...also, even if it *did* somehow help me make more progress, i would rather just be happy!!
good luck for the upcoming school year as well!!! i'm so excited to read more of ur work when u have time but ur right -- you've already written such a well-constructed mini essay right here <33
yes-- I am trying so hard to extricate my self-worth from my productivity and the material markers of my educational work (ie grades and performance reports, etc). our view on what defines success has been so twisted in favor of a capitalist framework of financial achievement and productive superiority! on top of that, there’s so much pressure to make everything look easy while also pushing yourself WAY beyond what’s natural or comfortable as a human. hence: we tend to romanticize suffering and link it to genius rather than concede it’s often a result of being subjected to capitalist pressures.
it’s definitely felt difficult to make time to write amid such an onslaught of academic pressure now that college is back in session... things are in the works, although more slowly than I’d like them to be :) thanks as always for your response!!
I love this so much! As someone aspiring to have a career in academia (ideally as a professor, but with the way the job market is, who knows) and a "former gifted kid", this is something I've been forced to reckon with recently. In addition, my COVID infection in April has left me with noticeable brain fog, which used to lead me to despair. If I didn't have my intelligence, what was I? It's through self-reflection and posts like yours that I've discovered I'm still a worthy person. Even if my word-finding takes longer now and I misspell things I didn't use to misspell, that's completely fine. I am alive, and so are you! And that is something worth celebrating!
first off, kudos to u because that's such a daunting goal -- teachers are so undervalued but literally the backbone of any society so i think it's a super noble dream!! (i would love to be a teacher if i wasn't worried so much about making money too, which is annoying.)
brain fog is REAL and so scary -- i'm so sorry you're experiencing that!! it took a long time for me to treat myself more kindly when i noticed my intellectual abilities felt dampened in the face of depression, and even longer for me to carve out a new identity based on something else *other* than what creativity i could offer - but you're right!! we're literally just human beings, and no matter what we were told when we were younger about the likelihood (or unlikelihood) of our potential for roaring success, we can forge any destiny we want for ourselves!
i agree with every point you listed, i don't know why we collectively hate to be called average ( based on my experience ), being 'average' isn't inherently bad. so what if we didn't graduate college at 9, become a world acclaimed artist, became the youngest nba player or achieve a multitude of achievements over the course of time -- it's okay to not get 100s every time or win every game. it's okay to be normal and it's time we realise it. burnout happens to everyone and EVERYONE can go through and come out stronger. hv been loving your last few pieces, the stuff u publish are always so intricately put together yet u convey your points articulately !! ( sorry for any spelling errors im rlly hungry rn )
thank u so much!! i totally agree, i think that your strength of character is far more important than any of your creative or intellectual pursuits -- attaching yourself to the "gifted kid" label inherently degrades your character because it simplifies you into this easily digestible, one-note kind of person and leaves no room for growth! (also omg i'm 7 hrs late to this comment but go eat something yummy!!!)
we have Got to be on the same wavelength i literally just talked about this w a friend yesterday !! esp the part of this terminology being inherently exclusionary, or dare i say, a result of people wanting to affirm their individuality when the burnout is in fact apparent across all young adults who become disillusioned after exiting high school!
yes!!! literally everyone feels sad and weird after high school and just because our like...falls from academic glory (??? cannot write without being overdramatic lol) aren't *as* visibly drastic, it doesn't mean that it's not Real. that's just capitalism!
Love, love, love this! Thank you for sharing, and I am sure many of us can relate. Oftentimes we forget how self-deprecation actually can hinder us from growth! Great piece :)
thank u so much for the sweet comment!! i really do worry ab the proliferation of self-deprecating remarks as a substitute for jokes, when lots of the time there isn't anything funny there :( i'd much rather be foolishly optimistic and overdramatically vain instead! <3
sonali-- what a thought-provoking (and exceptionally timed) piece! i have a ton to say... your writing tends to do that to me :) it helps that i've recently been confronting the roots of a TON of my beliefs centering around academic achievement and success!
as a preface: i take great issue with the separation of children into gifted/non-gifted/average categories!! it suggests that each person learns in the same way, deals with the same circumstances, and comes from the exact same background and privilege. this is simply not the case, but the american academic system operates on the assumption it is. sorting children by capability and "potential" is so dismissive of each person's uniqueness and fails to acknowledge that there is great diversity in learning styles. beyond that, it removes so much value from the act of learning in itself (is that not the whole point of school?), and fixates on statistics-- grades, test stores-- as a marker of someone's abilities and of their desire to learn.
i grew up being placed into gifted/advanced academic programs. i was incessantly told how exceptional i was and how i deserved the entire world and would go very very far because of my intellect, etc: the regular dialogue fed to the kids whose learning styles and proclivities best conform to western academic practices and teaching structures. there was a definitive outgroup created in my elementary school, and hence a power hierarchy: inflated egos and high expectations ran rampant among the "gifted kids." it makes sense that 10 year-olds would cling so strongly to this identity of smartness; it's a formative time in your life! along with the label, i think, comes the development of personal expectations about what you are supposed to achieve. your self-worth becomes deeply integrated with your academic performance; after all, that's what you're told defines you.
i think what makes "gifted kid burnout" feel so painful is that it's a betrayal of the messages you were fed about how things were meant to play out. the gifted child was meant to be perfect, to hit no bumps in the road, to skyrocket to success on a seamless, barrier-less trajectory. it's hard to confront the fact that life isn't perfect, especially when you were conditioned to believe it would be. not only that: that you deserved that perfection because of your exceptional intelligence. to confront difficulty might feel like an existential betrayal of the way you think you're meant to move through the world; it means accepting the fact that progress is nonlinear, and that things, well, don't come easily all the time.
the proliferation of complaint about gifted kid burnout, then, is a collective grasping at a new identifier to replace one which has been lost. it is a hyper-fixation on suffering which feels undeserved because it was so profoundly unexpected. it is an attempt to cling to a collective struggle, to find meaning and to differentiate oneself, when the core of your self-definition was revealed to be false.
your concluding comments on suffering actually remind me a lot of a critical analysis paper i wrote last year, which explored the relationship between suffering and creativity/success, and the pervasive dialogues which tell us that suffering makes our work mean more. i specifically studied the romanticization of the "suffering artist," studying the consequences it had for the treatment of mental illness, and also the stigma tied to it. the trope essentially promotes the idea that suffering is critical to producing meaningful work; this leads people to (in your words, because they fit perfectly) "[plunge themselves] further into pity and despair." it causes mental illness to be viewed as a creative tool, and a mysterious key to unlocking genius. i must say, from personal experience: no!! it does not make you a genius! i can vouch: at my lowest mental points, i feel foggy, out of touch, lost, and unable to focus. my ability to think clearly is overwhelmingly hindered. the glorification of suffering entraps people in states of disarray, which they (and society) falsely regard as the source of their extraneous, unique greatness.
because this is beginning to become an essay in itself i'll stop for now; regardless, thank you for sparking so much reflection for me. and, i might add, in such admirably eloquent language ^-^
hope you are taking good care of yourself and making space for rest as the school year gets into full swing. much love <3
thank u so much for the thoughtful comment, jane!! i wanted this piece to be as understanding and empathetic as possible, so i'm glad it resonated with u!! love how u noted that we're fed the idea that those who are more intelligent (in the way we measure intelligence) are "deserving" of perfection. it's a deeply capitalistic notion to value people solely based on their potential for advancing society, and very dangerous that we ingrain these messages in children so early without realizing the divides it encourages! and it's definitely heartbreaking to think about those affected by the system in both ways -- those fed false hope and those fed the idea that there's little hope for them...although i don't love the tweets about how gifted kids experience this unique kind of struggle that no one else understands, it's a logical thing to do when you aren't taught to cultivate a separate sense of self. i think we can only work to tackle the problem when we understand the emotional charged nature of it all, and i'm glad you've been self-reflecting as well!! i, of course, adore ur work, but ur so much more than any of your eloquent phrasing or thought-provoking observations. you deserve to see urself as a whole human being, not just a machine for productivity!!
i'd love to read ur critical analysis paper as well -- i completely agree that my mental illness has only made me a worse academic and more unproductive creative...also, even if it *did* somehow help me make more progress, i would rather just be happy!!
good luck for the upcoming school year as well!!! i'm so excited to read more of ur work when u have time but ur right -- you've already written such a well-constructed mini essay right here <33
yes-- I am trying so hard to extricate my self-worth from my productivity and the material markers of my educational work (ie grades and performance reports, etc). our view on what defines success has been so twisted in favor of a capitalist framework of financial achievement and productive superiority! on top of that, there’s so much pressure to make everything look easy while also pushing yourself WAY beyond what’s natural or comfortable as a human. hence: we tend to romanticize suffering and link it to genius rather than concede it’s often a result of being subjected to capitalist pressures.
it’s definitely felt difficult to make time to write amid such an onslaught of academic pressure now that college is back in session... things are in the works, although more slowly than I’d like them to be :) thanks as always for your response!!
I love this so much! As someone aspiring to have a career in academia (ideally as a professor, but with the way the job market is, who knows) and a "former gifted kid", this is something I've been forced to reckon with recently. In addition, my COVID infection in April has left me with noticeable brain fog, which used to lead me to despair. If I didn't have my intelligence, what was I? It's through self-reflection and posts like yours that I've discovered I'm still a worthy person. Even if my word-finding takes longer now and I misspell things I didn't use to misspell, that's completely fine. I am alive, and so are you! And that is something worth celebrating!
first off, kudos to u because that's such a daunting goal -- teachers are so undervalued but literally the backbone of any society so i think it's a super noble dream!! (i would love to be a teacher if i wasn't worried so much about making money too, which is annoying.)
brain fog is REAL and so scary -- i'm so sorry you're experiencing that!! it took a long time for me to treat myself more kindly when i noticed my intellectual abilities felt dampened in the face of depression, and even longer for me to carve out a new identity based on something else *other* than what creativity i could offer - but you're right!! we're literally just human beings, and no matter what we were told when we were younger about the likelihood (or unlikelihood) of our potential for roaring success, we can forge any destiny we want for ourselves!
i agree with every point you listed, i don't know why we collectively hate to be called average ( based on my experience ), being 'average' isn't inherently bad. so what if we didn't graduate college at 9, become a world acclaimed artist, became the youngest nba player or achieve a multitude of achievements over the course of time -- it's okay to not get 100s every time or win every game. it's okay to be normal and it's time we realise it. burnout happens to everyone and EVERYONE can go through and come out stronger. hv been loving your last few pieces, the stuff u publish are always so intricately put together yet u convey your points articulately !! ( sorry for any spelling errors im rlly hungry rn )
thank u so much!! i totally agree, i think that your strength of character is far more important than any of your creative or intellectual pursuits -- attaching yourself to the "gifted kid" label inherently degrades your character because it simplifies you into this easily digestible, one-note kind of person and leaves no room for growth! (also omg i'm 7 hrs late to this comment but go eat something yummy!!!)
we have Got to be on the same wavelength i literally just talked about this w a friend yesterday !! esp the part of this terminology being inherently exclusionary, or dare i say, a result of people wanting to affirm their individuality when the burnout is in fact apparent across all young adults who become disillusioned after exiting high school!
yes!!! literally everyone feels sad and weird after high school and just because our like...falls from academic glory (??? cannot write without being overdramatic lol) aren't *as* visibly drastic, it doesn't mean that it's not Real. that's just capitalism!