Agent of Chaos

Day 2 in the Middle School Time Loop: you remember that last time, everyone ignored you at recess because they were talking about a TV show that you hadn’t watched. This time, you lie and say you’ve seen it. They ask you who your favorite character is, and you don’t know any of the characters, and so you’re tongue-tied. They think you’re weirder than ever, or maybe a liar, which is worse (and true).

Day 3 in the Middle School Time Loop: you tell your parents that you feel ill. They let you stay home while they’re at work. You spend the whole day watching past episodes of the TV Show.

Day 4 in the Middle School Time Loop: Recess again. The same person asks you who your favorite character is. This time, you're ready. You eagerly tell them, and supplement your reasons for liking them with solid evidence from all 4 seasons of the show. But! Tough luck: you’re now too invested. The atmosphere turns uncomfortable. They go back to ignoring you like they did on the Day 1 that you didn’t know was Day 1.

Day 5 in the Middle School Time Loop:

Instead of doing the work that I was supposed to do today, I decided to illustrate one of my biggest pet peeves.

Sometimes it feels like everyone around me is speaking in a secret language and I'm the only one who doesn't know it.

people misunderstand what ‘gifted kid’ actually means but it’s ok it’s fine it’s cool it’s good

it’s not about actually being gifted, it’s about an initial higher scoring on standardized testing that means little to nothing or being good at learning in the way elementary and middle school wants you to, so you get marked as ‘advanced’. in reality, maybe you had faster development in certain areas, but the issue with being a gifted kid isn’t that “everyone told me I was so cool and special for reading and then I actually wasn’t :(” it’s “I wasn’t properly taught to handle things not coming easily to me, but the adults around me were counting on me not being a ‘difficult’ child in school.”

people who use it as some weird bragging method or interpret it that way are ignoring the way a lot of school systems force certain roles on students to simplify the learning process. If your kid doesn’t need to take notes to understand a science concept bc they get it naturally, well that’s good, but now you’re not teaching them how to take notes and they’re not learning that important soft skill. but because ‘gifted’ kids are easy and don’t show that they’re falling behind in learning in other categories that are harder to quantify, they eventually fall behind after that catches up to them. It’s about the failures of a one size fits all school system trying to compensate in the worst way possible.

And also the thing where ‘gifted’ kids are super likely to also be neuroatypical, which they don’t get screened for because they appear to be doing well in school. Or “You can’t be ADHD/autistic/etc, because you’re doing so well in school!”. Or being shamed for developing mental health issues/generally not being able to keep up with school work later, because you USED TO BE able to do it just fine.

Or the assumption that just because you can read well or you like math class, you’re somehow more EMOTIONALLY mature than your little kid brain is actually capable of being.

Or gifted kids whose parents and teachers put immense pressure on them to Do Great Things and Save The World and you’re like. “I’m 10 and I have no idea how to do that, but everyone is saying that’s my job?”.

This is the best “gifted kid” post out there. I never took notes until college because I didn’t have to, snd when it got challenging I had to literally teach myself note taking at age 18. It also fucks with your perception of asking for help - you’re advanced, you’re competent, you should be able to understand every topic easily. Asking for help/going to office hours/asking for a tutor feels like failing when you were praised in your early years for not needing to do that.

I had teachers scream at me in front of my entire class because I was “the gifted kid” and therefor I must be lazy and defiant when I was struggling with math. They refused to even teach me anything if I couldn’t do a 100 multiplication problem test in 5 minutes.

I had an IEP.

On my IEP it said I had a learning disability with math. I wasn’t supposed to be timed. They were breaking the law. I was supposed to have paper to work out my problems. They took it away.I was berated for breaking the problems down despite the fact that my teachers taught us to do this in the first place because I was expected to memorize the ‘times table’.I still cant do that and Im 36. I was supposed to have extra instruction and more time on regular tests. They refused.

Each time they were breaking the law but it didn’t matter because I was “gifted” so I wasn’t really struggling.

And in the gifted classes? Did I get a better education in my super special classes? Fuck no. Like mentioned above no one taught us how to study, how to take notes or even the things the other kids learned in their classes. We didn’t even read classic literature in my supposedly better classes but everyone in the regular track did and they went over themes of the books. Stuff I was expected to just know because I had a higher reading comprehension score on the end of year testing.

All of this lead to serious anxiety, depression and the inability to ask for help because any failure would be met with brutal punishment. I failed out of my first year of college because I had a mental breakdown and stopped going to class. I still struggle to this day.

It was never about “feeling special”.

I was in the special ed classes too. They bounced me from entirely gifted to entirely special ed and back for 2 years. I didn’t learn much of anything in those two years unless it came naturally to me or I read ahead.

I actually learned more about math in one of my special ed classes than I ever did in the gifted program. I didn’t even know what a square root was until my last year of high school. No one had even mentioned it and I was also in algebra 2.

And yeah I got to have so many slurs thrown at me while in special ed classes. I had multiple classes where the teachers barely even spoke to the students all year.

No one was treated well by the system.

Being special put as much of a target on your back as being behind.

my dear babies who grew up with undiagnosed adhd who are now medicated adults and still struggling, this ones for you.

let me give you a cute tip ok? ready?

you don't have to do things as fast as possible

ok i know that this is jarring to read, but stay with me. you may be having the realization at this very moment that every single task that you have ever undertaken in your life, your goal was to complete it as quickly as you possibly could. and maybe you're medicated now or maybe you aren't. but this has always been your philosophy.

this is not actually necessary and not how neurotypical people view things like tasks or responsibilities

a real life example of how this information has changed the way that i behave and has had a positive effect on my mental health:

i noticed that when getting ready to take my dog for a walk, my primary goal has always been to get the harness and leash on her and get out the door as quickly as i can. for no reason other than i was lead to believe as a kid that faster = efficient = better. however, there are other factors, such as: i sweat very easily and moving around at a fast pace trying to collect all of the things i need to rush out the door exacerbates this. these combination of factors results in me getting highly irritable and overstimulated.

i later realized that this is the way that i get ready to leave the house no matter what i am doing

now, when i am getting ready to take my dog for a walk, i purposefully do everything at half speed. i gather stuff slower. i move through the house slower. i put the harness on slower. i clip the leash slower. i open the door slower. i make a conscious effort to do everything almost in a way that feels like slow motion to me.

and you know what? applying this behavior to almost every single task or activity that i have to do results in me having a significant magnitude less anxiety than if i am in my usual "do this task as if you are racing against an invisible clock" state of mind.

the old saying "slow down to speed up" is quite poignant when it comes to dealing with neurodivergency, especially adhd. even if you're medicated, you may still be consistently making mistakes because you're probably still moving with a level of urgency that is unwarranted. you're not in a race. it's ok to do things using inefficient methods, especially if it is a benefit to your mental well-being.

the autistic view of the world has insight and beauty in it, and we’re taught that there’s something wrong with it.

What’s fascinating is that the parents who didn’t know it was the work of an autistic kid praised it as well.

Technically, we don't know that it's an autistic kid's work, either. 5e infographic doesn't say Cadence is autistic.

"appropriate play skills" is such a horrid phrase, goddamn

people demonize autism so much that parents think their children aren’t playing “correctly”. it’s play, how could it ever be wrong?

see i think a common misconception is that autistic people dont get sarcasm. while some dont, a lot of us actually enjoy sarcasm - we just cant read tone. i love being sarcastic, but if someone else is being sarcastic and theyre totally deadpan, 9/10 times i wont pick up on it. yall need to inflect.

exactly, this was the exact meaning of the post!

I myself try to have a specific tone when I'm being sarcastic, because otherwise people may not understand me.

I wouldn’t like tell someone they’re not autistic or whatever because it can be so helpful to kind of find a label for the thoughts and feelings you have etc. And again I don’t think a lot of these people are “faking” it like how a lot of people back on old kinblr faked mental illness for kinblr points. I don’t see a big issue with calling yourself autistic and not turning out to actually be, my biggest issue is do you think about how you’re treating other autistic people. Do you care about lower functioning autistic people’s autonomy. Do you understand how your autonomy could be effected if you’re professionally diagnosed? Do you know anything about what being autistic entails in the face of the public, or even friends and family? It feels like they’re utilizing the label without understanding that autism isn’t solely a good thing

Are you going to stare at the person on the bus stomping and flapping their hands. Are you going to make fun of a classmate who can’t handle public speaking well. Do you feel awkward around people who need caretakers and aids. Do you give the person with a “mental age of a child” the time of day when they try speaking to you. Do you treat these people like people or do you act the same as any other ableist while having “autistic” on your carrd

This is about memes, I know, but it is PAINFULLY accurate to when a nuerodivergent person wants to connect to another via special interests. Like, that is how I show my affection like when a cat gives you a dead mouse. You may not care for the dead mouse, but you understand ‘hey, this is a sign of love. It is a weird ass sign of love, but a sign nonetheless.’