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When did you realize you were different?
We all have something that makes us stand out. Sometimes it’s seen by others as a good thing; sometimes it’s not. Sometimes we love it ourselves; sometimes we don’t.
Tell me the story of when you discovered a meaningful difference about yourself.
(Any difference works here: major stuff, minor stuff, identities, abilities, preferences, etc.)
Also, I hope it should go without saying, but please make the comments an inclusive and supportive space.
This doesn’t make me special or unique, but I’m sure there’s at least one person who’ll relate.
I spent my whole life listening to my teachers saying the same thing to my parents:
I thought they were just saying that to try and provide some kind of motivation. To make me change my behavior. It did nothing.
To my parents, I was committed to wasting my time and life by not caring about school.
All of this lead to a huge deal of frustration and disappointment. I really started to think it was impossible for me to change, no matter how much I tried.
Post-school, people kept saying the same sentence my teachers used to say, so I started to look at things differently… Maybe they were being honest about it… This made me start to research what was the issue, instead of thinking I was just lazy and couldn’t do anything.
A bit over a year ago I had my first appointment with a psychiatrist. I was diagnosed with ADHD this year and started taking meds just a few months ago.
I have to admit I now (partly) understand what they were talking about. I can concentrate for large amounts of time and my “laziness” is less of an issue. I still don’t think I’m as smart or intelligent as everyone has told me.
It’s hard not to blame my parents… There’s no bad blood between us, as I want to think they were just lacking information on what the issue could be. At the same time I think they just weren’t paying enough attention… I still recall finding a newspaper cutout about hyperactivity and ADHD on my dad’s desk when I was 11/12, but they deny any knowledge of this.
Life goes on and we can’t fix our past so I have to try and shape my future while I still have time.
first comment here on Tildes. I thought it was the right one to make
This is pretty much exactly the story of my life. I grew up in India where, at least then, ADHD was just not well known or diagnosed. I don’t think too much will have changed now.
I hope that you now have the tools to improve your life. It’s a surprisingly difficult thing to deal with.
There’s more awareness nowadays, at least that’s what I’ve been noticing. I was scared my doctor would dismiss my concerns and she didn’t, which leads me to think mental health is taken a lot more seriously. I don’t know if it’s the same way in India, but I sincerely hope it is.
My formal diagnosis was last year, several years after I moved to the US. I’m quite lucky that I had the opportunities to get the support I needed, the last year’s been a marked improvement over prior years.
Even getting a diagnosis and medication didn't help me much - Strattera sometimes helped me focus, but also came with severe depression that I'm naturally inclined to.
Even then, I had a great doctor, but didn't understand executive dysfunction and why I couldn't 'do' things. Why I struggled to make decisions, why I struggled to get started, why I struggled with large scopes.
I'm not much better now, but at least I have a name to the phenomenon and not just beating myself up.
Heck, my dad's executive dysfunction is so bad he offloaded major life decisions to a dowsing pendulum - at least I'm better equipped than my forebearers.
I have a lot of symptoms of ADHD but have avoided a diagnosis, because I don't see the point since I don't want medication. Partly because I'm a little underweight and adderall and ritalin would mess with my appetite, and I don't trust the efficacy of non-stimulant ADHD meds. I guess I could get diagnosed and look for specialist therapy, buy I'm not sure if it would really help. Do you think the diagnosis is useful even without the medication?
I think having an ADHD diagnosis will help you even without medication.
In my case it was a significant factor in self-acceptance and in developing a life style that suits me better, and I don't use meds at all. Meds aren't the solution to ADHD anyway, they're just an option that make it easier to help you develop healthy coping strategies for your difficulties.
Thanks, this is good advice.
Honestly, the medications aren't even the biggest impact in my opinion. Being able to start decompressing from decades of what I thought were personal, moral, failings of character.. It's been a complicated realization that having a dopamine regulation disorder / executive function neuro-divergence / ADHD / (put whatever label you care for on it) is something the doctor could actually measure, and that it wasn't just a made-up diagnosis for fidgety kids who weren't disciplines properly.
I recommend it. I realized, when my son was being evaluated, that I recognized every single thing the doc was describing with acute memories from my childhood. There is so much more available now than when I was a kid. Not just the interventions, and medications (stimulants are one of a variety of pharmaceutical treatments out there), there is an entire body of literature and research that is now accessible. When I was a kid, Dr. Spock and whatever the latest reader's digest said was about as far as ADHD literacy went, unless you personally knew a researcher. I don't blame my parents either, their parents told them it was made-up and just a way to get kids on ritalin to zone them out and that those drugs change kid's personalities.
A.) That's entirely incorrect (thanks Kimmy Schmidt and the very subtle "Dyziplen" Rx for perpetuating the characterization btw). For those who haven't used them, ADHD use of time-release stimulants aren't at all like the Silicon Valley depiction of: study all night, super focus machine, can't sleep! must work! that adderall is portrayed as. Rather, its a moderate increase in the ability summon the will to actually sit down, and begin a task (that otherwise seem absolutely impossible to start, whether that's sitting down and doing math homework, or cleaning up all the clean clothes that accumulated without being folded out of the dryer). That's it. Just a slightly less intimidating mountain of aversion to beginning tasks that others seem supernaturally gifted to do without deliberate, concerted, often-heroic, levels of will power. Things like, putting their keys on the key holder when they walk in the door. Or other equally impossible tasks, like taking the car in for an oil change on schedule, or filing taxes every single year.
B.) They absolutely do not change kid's personalities. In fact, what many people are seeing is my kid's actual personality. They're just not used to him being able to stop bouncing from the constant overflow of new impulses that sound like a turbocharged chipmunk saying in one breath: "hey did you know that my shirt is r..; wait, I saw on the way home a red lea..; Apples! apples are red too! Can I have apple sauce right now! I'm so hungry! I didn't eat at recess" (because he's too busy playing)
Without the satiation of a typical dopamine response to stimuli, his brain never calms down from the hyper-activated state of searching for the next thing. He can't concentrate on math homework right now, he's found a new bey blade dad! (never mind that its the bey blade he forgot he left under the table last week). Concerta (and stimulants in general) don't give him more neuro-pathways to increase the dopamine release to normal levels, but they do assist in the existing ones working enough to compensate. When he's taken concerta though, he's able to actually get out his thoughts without spinning into high gear on a residential road.
My biggest take away is how much more ADHD kids hear the word "no" than others. We work so hard to compensate by constantly repeating and reinforcing he's a good kid. With so much less impulse control, there's no avoiding all the corrections he'll hear in a day. Knowing why now, my wife and I have a lot more tools to help avoid the baggage I picked up thinking I was just a trouble maker, or stupid, or just weird because why couldn't I just be normal?
Sorry this is so long. I am only a year in, and still unpacking a lot. If you're on the fence though, please give it a shot. Getting evaluated myself was one of the most pivotal moments I've had in beginning to address what I thought was just chronic depression.
This was a great read. Thank you for sharing.
Your son will appreciate your patience and understanding when he gets to adulthood. My parents did right by me by getting me diagnosed very young, especially since diagnosis is harder as a girl/woman. But I don’t think my mom truly understood what it mean to ME to struggle through ADHD. She still used words like lazy and ungrateful to describe me all the time. I still felt like a bad kid even though we both knew I had this disorder. Your son is lucky that you show you truly understand.
Well I'm certainly privileged enough to access medical professionals that could diagnose me (if I have it) it's just that despite bad habits and lack of motivation I'm still getting things done. I'm starting a PhD program soon, despite never really learning good study habits, and I still procrastinate on basic tasks, I haven't seen a dentist in years, not because of any phobia but because I keep putting it off.
All this said, I manage fine by my own, I don't have any problem taking care of myself and getting things done, just at my own pace and in a disorganised manner. What's causing me problems now is my disorganized lifestyle makes it more difficult for my girlfriend to plan around me. Maybe it's just the circles I'm in but it surprises me how many people uses calendars and daily planners to schedule their lives, I never even used to write down when we had homework assignments as a kid.
Anyway I will try to contact a professional about this at some point, and if their opinion is I don't have ADHD, then I'll happily accept that. I'm not itching for a label to understand myself. It's whether there are useful non-pharmaceutical therapies or methods I could gain access to.
That depends on where you are. In my case it was very much an uncomplicated and inexpensive process, and I can only speak to my own experience.
There is no question that seeking help from professionals who will guide you are a big help, especially in a disorder that makes it difficult to stay on target with developing good habits.
Diagnosis will be good. Always better to be informed.
As for meds, I don't use them anymore. They don't do the work for you forever and honestly there is a risk of addiction, among other possible side effects. They were helpful for me though when I had them.
After I got a 4.0 in grad school without meds, I realized I could manage my life without them for good. I still forget super important stuff, embarrass myself pretty often by info dumping and interrupting people on accident. But overall, I've found tricks and strategies to keep it all together. I'm a content person and my life is working out great with some good habits.
Meds are only necessary if you really cannot manage on a day-to-day basis. If you've lost jobs, your house looks like a hoarder house, you can't enjoy things due to lack of focus, etc., then yeah the pros of the meds will outweigh the negatives.
I disagree that your life has to be in shambles in order to justify using the meds. I also managed to graduate with a degree in engineering and gain several promotions as an engineer without the meds, but the cost to my personal life and mental health was so much greater than was necessary. I’ve been taking the meds on weekdays for a year now, and it takes so much less mental toll to perform my job at the same level I was before without them. Everyone should do what’s right for them, but I disagree with adding more unnecessary stigma to stimulant medication.
I guess there’s no harm in knowing if you have it or not. Even if you shouldn’t be on meds rn, you’ll at least have a confirmation that might give you some peace of mind.
Honestly? I’d say it’s up to you.
I can see where you’re coming from weight-wise. I’ve lost a bunch of kg (also because of diet changes), but I needed to stop being so chonky :D It’s probably not wise to start if you’re underweight, but I guess that, if you establish a proper schedule, you’d be able to eat as you always do.
keep in mind I’m not a doctor and these are nothing more than opinions
I hope all goes well for you
It took me 20 years to graduate college. I fucking hate having ADHD.
Glad you've got it identified and good luck going forward.
Kindergarten. As a minority in a majority white school, my (also white) teacher couldn't pronounce my ethnic name how my family members did. Heard it pronounced it the "white" way for the first time and it sounded all wrong. I remember correcting my teacher a few times and then just gave up. Also was embarrassed about my ethnic snacks haha.
Embarrassment/isolation for being different was one of the first emotional memories of grade school. Though I'm sure thats not an unusual experience for young kids.
Oh man, that drives me up the wall. I'm not asking you to speak the freaking language, just pronounce one freaking word correctly.
Give some grace; some words are just really difficult to pronounce correctly for a non speaker of the language.
Or, try pronouncing Darauwakmfonabasi (not a mishmash, friend of mine who now lives in Europe) and see how that sounds
Okay. You pronounce it first, so I can hear what it sounds like, and I'll try to copy it.
That's my approach to unfamiliar names. You tell me what your name sounds like, and I'll copy it as best as I can.
One thing I learned a long time ago about languages is that your palate shape forms at an early age and is influenced by how you speak. Some people literally cannot make the same sounds. Other times it's just super difficult to make your mouth form specific sounds. The sounds are so foreign that it takes a lot of work to form them. Unless someone had a vested interest or a high desire, they will never say them correctly. That's not an excuse to not try, but don't be surprised that they cannot get it right.
Yeah, I know. It's why people from English-speaking countries struggle with the click sounds in Khoisan languages, and why people from Japan struggle with the "ell" sound in the English language. Those sounds aren't present in the languages those people grew up learning.
But that doesn't mean we can't try.
I work with someone whose name is "Lydia".# In English, the most common pronunciation of this name is "li-dee-ah", with a short "i" vowel in the first syllable (like the word "lid"). However, she's not from an English-speaking country. In her native tongue, her name is pronounced "lye-dee-ah", with a long "i" vowel in the first syllable (like the word "lied"). Almost everyone at work pronounces her name "li-dee-ah": wrongly. She has said her name correctly to various people. It's not a sound that isn't present in the English language. But people just read her name, make an assumption about how to say it, and don't listen.
We can do better.
# Fake name, but similar principle.
I feel like this is a poor example though. If you refuse to try pronouncing a name slightly differ than you are used to, you're just an ass. But that's not the same as obviously and complexly different names that are close to impossible for someone to say. In those cases, it's totally understandable that you might not be able to say a name or even get close. And recalling that name is likely extra difficult, unless you have a memory for those kinds of details. That doesn't mean you don't try, but it does mean that you should get some understanding when you fail. My last name seems obvious in pronunciation to me, but my entire life people get it wrong most of the time. It doesn't offend me. I'll correct them if it makes sense, but if they cannot or will not correct themselves, then I just let it go. It's unimportant in the end.
The principle is the same. When you're faced with a name that's unfamiliar or that you don't know how to pronounce, you ask how to say it, and you listen when they tell you.
With all due respect, Darauwakmfonabasi is hard to pronounce because it's long, not because it's complex. This means pronouncing it in broken English and pronunciating it properly will require the same amount of effort, in my opinion of course. Though, I am biased since I'm a bit of a "polyglot" when it comes to dialects.
I can sort of pass for white, and my last name is unpronouncable because only half of us took our Mexican names with us.
We just pronounce it the American way at this point, but half the family demands people pronounce it the right way...
Related Prozd skit.
https://youtu.be/p1RKkRCiU90?si=wCQHBjJtLeYKTZm1
I am not different. I think that is a far more meaningful revelation, and one which I came to much later in life. People are mostly the same, in all the ways that matter. Sure everyone likes doing different things or likes different music or whatever but fundamentally most people are pretty much the same. They want security and fulfilment and happiness. They want good things for themselves and each other. The how people do that doesn't matter (although it is endlessly fascinating), the why does and those whys are the things which make us the same.
To look at it another way, if everyone is special - and in one sense every person very much is - then nobody is.
I really love this comment. I think that being not-different is under-celebrated.
I don't find this a good take on this prompt. It's rather obvious, at quite a zoomed out level that all people are human beings. From a certain perspective, people are all the same because they are carbon based life forms.
I also find your "commonalities" to be flawed as well. I routinely meet people in my life and in my line of work that do not want to be happy, safe, or fulfilled. Having interacted with mentally ill people, and being a mentally ill person myself, I think there's a certain type of person who is incapable of appreciating, obtaining, or desiring those concepts. The idea of wanting "good things for themselves and each other" is human, but it's lacking in depth. I have anxious friends who are convinced they deserve nothing good for themselves at all. I find this list to be entirely lacking in perspective on that matter.
I think it is very telling that you find it meaningful that you do not see yourself as different. I see this comment as projection. Perhaps you yourself do not find yourself special and meaning, and assume that this perspective should be more commonplace. And, while from a perspective it is true, from another it is also entirely false.
Personally, from my own perspective, I have done things with little concern for my security. I don't want fulfillment, it's an illusion we make for ourselves to cope with existential dread. I don't want to be happy, because I seriously struggle with self hatred, and on that note, I additionally do not want good things for myself. These are all qualities that exist in myself at this time, and I hope I can deal with the things that make me feel this way. But, even if I do, I know that the existence of such feelings in other people disproves your revelation.
Furthermore, your perspective is quite dehumanizing. If people are the same, than they are far easier to discount as individuals. I could spiral this into the philosophy of an "NPC," but I think that would be going to far.
Perhaps you've never experienced certain things that lead you to realize the unique facets of personhood that each person has. Perhaps you don't see snowflakes, only the white blur of snow. If so, that is a tragedy.
You have every to right to think that what you’re going through makes you special and unique, and all the power to you for believing that.
But.
You are not the only one. And therefore not unique or different.
The German’s use a word: “sonder” - it’s the realization that each random passerby is living a life as vivid and complex as your own.
We all have our issues that we’re dealing with.
Therefore none of us are that special or unique. We’re all fighting battles, living our lives and doing the best we can, to live a life that many around us are fighting to do too.
We all want to see individual snowflakes but also struggle to discern them from the blur.
A tragedy it is indeed.
When German speakers use "sonder" it's more of a prefix that just means special (e.g. "sonderbar" - "weird, odd"). It definitely doesn't mean "the realization that each random passerby is living a life as vivid and complex as your own".
This definition has been thought of by John Koenig in their Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows, but it's not the definition that the average German speaker would immediately jump to.
Thank you for that context.
I didn’t know.
On a global scale, I know other people went through the othering and bullying that I just wrote about. However, in my life, among the people around me, I was unique. Noone else experienced the level of high school bullying that I did... because I was the lightning rod for all bullies at my school. Other gay people at my school have told me, in later years, that they were relieved I was taking the heat off them. By being so obviously "the gay kid" at my school, I drew the attention away from them. I was alone and different.
Sure, there might have been other kids around experiencing something like that elsewhere. But, in my life, in my town... it was me and only me. I know that.
And, I'm pretty sure that whatever issues you're dealing with are different to issues that I'm dealing with. To paraphrase Leo Tolstoy, "All happy people are alike; each unhappy person is unhappy in their own way."
Me being abused as a youngster by a person in a position of power, as a very young male has lead me through many varying thoughts and challenges. This happened in a conservative thinking family, driven by (supposed) values, and have not been discussed since I brought it to light.
I struggle with it still today, even after therapy and hypnosis.
We all have our issues
I don’t feel special or different for it.
I know I’m not the only one, and am not different to many who have been down this path.
We carry on, and do the best with what life can throw back at us.
This is similar to my first thought on reading the question.
Sure, my life was somewhat different from others growing up. And yea, I'm good at some things, less so at others.
But it took me a while of growing up to realize I'm not particularly special. Just like (most) everyone else, I have to work hard for the life I want and the person I want to be. Some efforts pay off, and thats great. But, some things won't work out how I want them to, and it is what it is, and I'll deal.
I don't feel disparaged by this. It's given me a lot of personal strength and motivation. And also, empathy for others, realizing everyone deals with their own versions of wins and losses.
The issue here is that even if you don't want to be different, even if all you desire is that other people will recognize your commonalities and respect that you'd like to be accepted, there are always people policing for undesirable variances.
I don't think of my differences as particularly harmful, threatening, or obvious to the casual observer. Growing up, I would have loved to just f*ing get along and not be "special" or "different". The labels were applied to me by people with precise and narrow definitions of their norms (white, Christian, gender-conforming, unbookish, etc.), not something I would have chosen.
I'm not different in any dramatic way, but it's impossible to avoid recognizing that you're a pink monkey when your community defines you as such. As an adult, I've capitalized on the abilities that make me "special", but I'm still a member of the Misfit Toys tribe.
[Not going to spin on at length, but my story is similar to /u/AlgernonAsimov's, with a side helping of being a member of the only Jewish family in town, and some intersex stuff.]
It gets difficult when you grow up not wanting to be different. You want to be invisible and not be bothered by anyone else.
But for some reason, people have pegged you as the other. They tell you you're different. They give you grief for being different.
Somtimes it's not something you can control. It's not something people say to make themselves feel unique and special. Society has imposed it onto you. Society says you are different.
I spent a lot of my childhood trying to be like everyone else. Yet, I'm always singled out as different and was somewhat bullied for it. I don't even know why.
As i got older, I had to actively put in effort to learn to be like everyone else and not stand out. I went the opposite way of people who try hard to be unique. I was obsessed with wanting to blend in and be as inoffensive as possible.
In that sense, I have a deep sense of isolation and alienation even though I have many friends now. People have constantly told me I was weird from ever since I could remember. It's hard to shake off something like that.
A meaningful relevation for me was that I wasn't special, and I'm more comfortable with myself for that relevation, but I am different in enough ways and to such a degree that I felt alienated from my peers for much of my childhood. I thought there was something fundamentally wrong with me, and there are certainly plenty of people who say that about the ways in which I'm different.
But I've since found that there are labels for some of those things (asexual and aromantic), or labels I already had described more things than I realized (ADHD).
I've also found that some of my friends are different in the same or similar ways and we all just hid it out of insecurity.
I know some people say that having labels for everything just drives alienation and we should focus exclusively on similarities rather than differences, but for me having these labels turned these things from anomolies or defects to just things you can be.
People are the same in the ways that matter, but acknowledging the ways that don't matter provide some of us with comfort and self confidence because they can still have a very real impact on how you experience the world*1 and how people treat you.
*1 Quite literally in some cases, there's recently been a study that tracked and compared the eye movement of children with and without autism when looking at moving clips and images, and it was found that those with autism spent significantly less time focusing on "areas of interest".
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyt.2022.899521/full
One of my favorite teachers from high school once said, "As a child, I learned two things: one - that I am an exceptionally wonderful person, and two - that I am no more exceptionally wonderful than anyone else." It has always stuck with me, and your comment very much reminds me of this. Thank you!
I was different ever since I could remember. I would often frustrate my parents and other adults by doing things that I thought was normal. Other kids also preferred to stay away from me. I also got bullied a fair bit in my early childhood, but that stopped when I became a teenager.
But even as a teenager, I didn't have many friends. I would be in my seat and do whatever I was doing and sometimes the boys next to me would snigger/laugh and say things like "look at what she's doing."
They wouldn't bully me but they did think I was weird. And the confusing thing about that was that I tried really really hard to be as invisible and as normal as possible. But I just stood out for some reason. I don't know why.
Back to my home life, My mother would often say something like "Why are you like this?" "Why can't you be like everybody else?"
My father would get frustrated by me and I would get hit. My aunts and uncles didn't like having me around. They would invite all their nieces and nephews, but not me.
My teachers were also often frustrated with me and would complain about me to my parents. But I wouldn't know why. It would usually include how quiet I was and the refusal to engage when the class had to read a book out loud together. What did I do wrong? I hated homework and didn't really do them, but so did many other kids and the teacher didn't seem as frustrated by them.
I didn't know why. I didn't understand. I just internalised that I was annoying as a person. And developed the stance where if people didn't want me around, then I didn't want them around either.
I didn't understand people and they didn't understand me. There were so many unsaid rules that you were supposed to intuitively know that I did not. If a teacher told you to place a chair anywhere, I would be lost but then all the other kids would know to stack them up in some arbitrary location together. How did they know to put it there?
Later on in my late teens, I obsessed over learning how to be human. How to socialise, what could you say or could not say. I observed people a lot. Came up with scripts in my head for potential conversations. Basically a dialogue chart with responses. I learned to be as inoffensive as possible in terms of behavior. Learned to read between the lines, learned body language. Learned how to socialise.
I got good enough at it that I have a lot of close friends now. I can network and socialise easily compared to my other introverted friends. I can understand and empathise and give responses that would help.
I've even given a talk to an entire crowd and I have thought classes before. I really don't mind public speaking now, although I would be very anxious leading up to it.
Which was what I used to think would be impossible for me.
Then I went to therapy. And after listening to my current issues and my childhood, my therapist pointed out that I sound like someone with autism.
I told him that I socialise just fine now. I don't have those issues anymore. And he said just because someone is autistic, it doesn't mean they can't learn.
So I don't know. We settled on Neurodivergent rather than autistic because I feel like mine is so mild, it would he a bit of an insult to those who have a lot to struggle with.
My issue now is that have a deep sense of alienation and isolation because I feel like I'm different from everyone else. Even though I have a lot of caring friends. I keep having to remind myself that I am just a regular person, just like everyone else. I'm not that different.
But actually, I kind of am.
The only good thing that has come out of all this is that it's useful for work and networking. I stand out without even trying to stand out. People remember me and I don't know why. Again, it's not charisma or anything. This has been a thing since I was a child. I just exist in a corner and for some reason people remember me and call me weird.
As an adult, they don't call me weird anymore since I've learned how to be human like everyone else. But I still am memorable. Which is great for networking and getting jobs from people.
But again, I don't know why I stand out. I look average and my clothes are similar to what everyone else is wearing.
Wow, being bullied and singled out for just trying to exist invisibly really resonates with me. People would chant my name at me on the bus because they could tell it bothered me, even though I had not ever said a single word to any of those kids. That was most of my elementary and middle school experience, before I started getting better at masking my “weirdness.” I have ADHD and was diagnosed at 6, but knowing my diagnosis didn’t stop me from feeling like an outsider.
Thank you for that. I had something similar happen too.
One of my "friends" at the time overheard my family member calling me by a family pet name. She started calling me that even though I'd rather her not do it. But somehow she spread it and everyone called me by that name. Even people I didn't really know. I didn't like it, but I didn't know what to do about it.
My school wasn't small, but it wasn't very big at the time I was there. So everyone in the same grade would know everybody else. Not in the sense that you'd be friends, but you'd recognize faces or learn names even though you've never spoken to them. So sometimes someone I've never spoken to before would refer to me by that name and I'd just be confused.
In hindsight, after learning to mask my "weirdness", I also learned what my "weirdness" was. Like I could look back and be like, okay that was probably off putting, and maybe this and maybe that. I couldn't explain all of it though.
But it was all retrospective as an older person. At the time, I had no idea what I was doing differently and it left a deep feeling that my existence was wrong.
And I'm sorry you had to go through that too. Do you still feel like an outsider even after being able to mask? I still do.
Yes, a lot of the time I do still feel like an outsider. But I’ve collected a great group of friends who don’t make me feel that way, and I’ve learned to mask among others only to the extent that is necessary to maintain good relationships. I let more of the weirdness through depending on how close I am to who I’m talking to.
Yes! Me too. I live in a bubble now and have found other people who are also "outsiders". But even they have their limits.
I've also learned that people can accept the weirdness if you present it in an "acceptable" and confident way. And it's also much easier when they already like you and then you go "Ha! Here's weirdness!".
Something I really struggled with as a kid was that others just didn't seem interested in academic experimentation at all. A recurring theme of my early education was experimenting with the knowledge we were given to figure out more, only to find that none of my peers expressed even a sliver of enthusiasm. Here are two examples I can remember:
Some time after learning single-digit addition and subtraction (I must've been six or seven?), I was at a friend's house and he had a toy that gave multiple-choice math questions, but it would only give the correct answer with no methodology—basically electronic flash cards. They had options for higher grade levels with multiplication and division and I was curious how those worked, so I hammered away at it until I could consistently answer both of them correctly—I know for sure I figured out multiplication and walked away with some grasp of division. I was so excited to tell my friend what I'd learned and I'd never seen anyone less interested in my life. Come on, older kids learn this stuff and I just figured it out, you can too!
Later in first or second grade, we had just learned column addition for two-digit numbers. I remember trying it on three-digit numbers with success, and was so excited about the realization that I could add numbers of any length to each other! I showed this to other kids by adding up these page-spanning monstrosities and explaining my process, only to be met with a dumbstruck expression each time. One told me something along the lines of "teacher only taught us two-digit numbers." I know that, but isn't it exciting that you can figure out the rest yourself?!
I'm still struggling with this :D
I love understanding why and how stuff works. Recently I got very into knots and it's both very simple and very complex at the same time, but I love learning new knots, discovering how they're similar to other knots I already know and understanding why they don't just unfurl.
So many people seem to just be content with hearing about something and then just accepting this as a fact without any further digging, experimentation or critical thought; there's just no curiosity at all and that's incredibly sad.
I love this, and I find this often in my life. I love learning about how things work in the world, and I constantly see the people around me just not engage with how wonderful and fascinating life is.
I remember when starting kindergarten, it was unusual to already know how to read, to count to above 100, and other things like that. Being the smart kid, the one who usually got a perfect score on tests and was always reading, became a big part of my identity for a long while. (Along with "the kid who builds stuff out of Legos.")
But there were other smart kids and I wasn't particularly talented at anything non-academic. I was shy, quite bad at sports (picked nearly last for most teams), and it's not like I was popular. And of course there were older kids who were above us, and younger kids who were below. So it felt less like an advantage and more like a specialty, something parents and teachers were pleased by. This was my lot in life. I was okay with it and didn't question it. An adult might say I had a bright future, but I didn't really know what that meant.
This resonates strongly with me. It's also led to some major resentment in my adult life when I realized how those same teachers and parents utterly failed to teach me the required secondary (life) skills necessary to use my academically pleasing skills after graduation. As it turns out, solving a page of equations did fuck all to impart any tenacity, appreciation of hard work, generalized problem-solving, or whatever the justification of rigorous math curricula of the day is. It merely made me excellent at solving equations involving logarithms (and prepared me well for my next academic adventure).
It's like the South Park sketch about the underwear gnomes and their business plan.
The real-world benefits of study are often exaggerated. I'm inclined to think having a talent (any talent) should be helpful to ward off some feelings of insecurity, particularly if you worked at it, too. But confidence at one thing often doesn't transfer. (I had no clue about dating and was extremely insecure about it.) It was more like I could often ignore a problem and work on other things. I'm a procrastinator to this day.
I didn't blame my parents or teachers even though their advice was often limited, and I can easily imagine how some better advice might have resulted in a different path. (Better music instruction, for example.)
I assumed they couldn't help because they didn't know, and I try not to blame people for being themselves. I guess I have a fundamental assumption that it's up to me to figure things out on my own.
I've had various times throughout my life when I realised I was different. Some of them don't count as realisations, but were always there in the background, or were forced upon me.
Two important turning points occurred within one month of starting at different schools.
My literal first memory is of being walked up a school corridor by my Grade Prep teacher. I was carrying my book bag and my cushion. We walked into a new classroom. I saw my Grade 1 teacher for the first time.
I was being promoted a grade, only one month after starting school.
My mother told me the story, years later. My habit during recesses and lunchtimes was to stay in the classroom, and not go out to play with the other children. This one particular time, I was standing at the teacher's desk, across from the teacher, while she was reading the newspaper. Suddenly, I asked her "What's a polly-tik-ian?" I had been reading her newspaper... upside-down... and I didn't recognise the word "politician".
The Grade Prep teacher was barely starting to teach her 5-year-old students their ABCs, and here was me reading adult-level text, upside-down. As she told my parents, there was nothing she could teach me.
So, I was promoted a grade.
I never had to realise I was different. This had been made clear to me from soon after starting school. It was just the background of my life. I was the kid who got put up a year. I was a year younger than my classmates... and I was still the smartest kid in class (until later in high school, when other smart kids turned up to share that honour).
I was isolated, outcast, different. From what my parents tell me, it was partly by own choice, but my memories are also that this was the other kids' choice as well. I didn't want to play with them, and they didn't want to play with me. I was different for my whole childhood.
A second turning point came one month after starting high school (Grades 7 to 12). I was 11 years old, and my classmates were about 12 to 13. Also, a lot of the other students were strangers to me because our high school took students from various primary schools in the area.
As part of our new high school life, we had different classes throughout the day, ranging from English and Maths to Physical Education and... Home Economics (how to cook). I had Home Economics as one of my classes in Grade 7.
I distinctly remember this moment.
Another boy threw a knife at me. Not to scare me. He was trying to hit me. Luckily, he missed.
In those first few weeks, he'd identified me as a quiet, academic, bookish, non-sporty type. Therefore, I was gay. That meant I was a target.
A target I became, and a target I remained - for the rest of my time at high school. All six years of it. I won't go into my experiences of being bullied at high school. Suffice to say, I graduated from high school with psychological damage that took about a decade to recover from, and which has scarred me for life.
Again... that's how I realised I was different. I was fine with being gay. I never had the slightest qualm about my own sexuality. I was fine with myself. My only problems with my sexuality came from other people. Again, I was outcast, isolated, and different - but, in contrast to primary school, where the other kids and I just left each other alone, in high school, a significant number of the other kids went out of their way to make my life miserable.
I was othered from an early age, for two very big reasons. I never had to realise I was different - other people were more than happy to point it out to me.
EDITED to change an age. I was 11 when I started high school, not 12.
Did the teacher not see this? If not I am so sorry that this happened to you. Because fucking hell, what a shitbag to this to someone else, just because is just wrong.
I can relate to this. It is fucking hell to go through.
Of course not. Even that kid wasn't dumb enough to do something like that while the teacher was in the room.
The teachers didn't see most of what was done to me during high school. It happened when their backs were turned, or when they were out of the room, or when they weren't present, or even outside of school.
The teachers did see some of what was done to me, but, as far as I could tell, they did nothing. (Mind you, I was doing my best to blend into the background for those 6 years, and didn't really look at much outside my own personal hell, so if they did try to help me, I wouldn't have seen it.)
I had a French teacher for a couple of years, who loved me. She said I was the best student she'd ever had. She was also totally incapable of controlling an unruly class. One day, she sent me out of the classroom because she had no other way of stopping the other kids from bullying me. (My surname is vaguely similar to a French word for something delicate, fancy, and decidedly unmasculine. I wore that French word as a nickname for a couple of years.)
That last line made me laugh, because I relate.
I'm in the tech space and have been for my entire adult life. Burnt out over Covid and I'm slowly training to be a Therapist / Counselling Psychologist.
Life's too short to hammer through a job you don't care about mate. Look into retraining sooner, rather than later. Teachers aren't paid as well and it can be stressful (it's my wife's former job) but damn if she didn't love exam results day.
Teacher here (no joke)! You picked the right person to share this with. 😁
If you’ve got questions or need pointers, hit me up either here or by PM.
After a lot of hesitation, my wife made the switch a couple of years ago. She quit her job and enrolled into a program to focus full time on becoming a teacher. She’s much happier now and she is doing a great job. Starting a new career at 40+ hasn’t been a problem at all. It’s definitely worth exploring this idea if you think you’ll enjoy teaching.
It was so early that I honestly don't even know. Probably somewhere at 4-5 years old? And I remember telling a school psychologist at 9 or 10 that "I'm just weird I suppose" - I always got teased or even bullied because I just didn't fit in anywhere and never had. I sometimes feel like I still don't, but I've never had more friends than I do now, so I'm fine with being different nowadays. I am who I am and I don't really care anymore if people don't like me - life's too short to worry about getting people to like you, especially those that tend to passively shame you for being different. Besides, I don't want people to like me for whatever facade or mask I used to wear. I want them to like me for me, so I no longer pretend to be someone I'm not because that's a waste of everyone's time
I've always known I'm different on some level but it honestly wasn't until college that it really started to sink in. My entire life I've known that I've had some kind of neurodivergence, but it's been difficult to put my finger on it. Earlier in my life it that meant that I spent a lot of time with people who were weirder. My friends were all rejected by society in some fashion, some were also neurodivergent, some were queer, and others were just eccentric or minorities. However, in college I was forced to spend a lot more time around normal people and in this context I was provided with feedback that I didn't get from other weird people.
I've always struggled with loosely defined social concepts. What is considered nice or proper, what is manly or womanly, and what romance means to someone are all examples of loosely defined social concepts. I never really understood why someone would use these words or labels to define something that would differ so vastly from person to person. When I would question this many normal people would respond with questions for me - they were surprised that I was questioning these words. It wasn't framed in a negative way and it wasn't a judgment, but rather honest curiosity.
In addition, when working on projects together, I would often be told that I ask great questions. I don't think this particular aspect of my neurodivergence really set in until I started working. The continued feedback that my questions were great as well as comments on my ability to see the larger picture as well as minute details eventually made me realize that I think differently than most people. I also find it kind of amusing that whenever I try to describe this to people, they want me to put a finger on precisely how I differ. It's almost as an if simply because I think differently that I can magically start thinking like them as well and compare and contrast the differences.
At some point in the last decade I stopped caring or even trying to quantify how I think differently. Ultimately, I am who I am and I recognize that I am neurodivergent, but attempting to quantify it past that point doesn't seem particularly useful to me.
Second grade.
My parents had raised me on adult-level English; no baby talk whatsoever. My second grade teacher, who had previously taught sixth grade, told my parents that my vocabulary was beyond her ability to quantify. That was likely why that, while my classmates were mostly still learning how to read more than simple sentences, I was already on chapter books. That one parent-teacher conference unintentionally framed the next 10-15 years of my life
I struggled to find people my own age that I could relate to. I could converse easily with people old enough to be my grandparents, or would be seen as cool by those younger than me, because I would stop and actually listen to them. However, looking back now, I can count on one hand the number of people my own age I could really consider to be a true friend, and I'm fortunate to still be in contact with my best friend from school.
Now, just because I could easily talk to adults that doesn't mean that all academics were a walk in the park, far from it. But, I believe that because my parents instilled in me a love of knowledge and learning, that was what made me too "different" for my peers. I mean, I read the dictionary and encyclopedia for fun; not many kids I knew did that.
One particular instance stands out from (if I remember correctly) fifth grade. One of my classmates, in a moment of frustration, asked me "Man, what do you gotta use such big words for?" I could only shrug and say something like "This is just how I talk." It wasn't just the way I spoke, but I hadn't realized that some of my peers couldn't actually understand a portion of what I was saying.
In the end though, I don't regret the way I was raised. Sure, I was one of the more lonely kids, but I still managed to make friends here and there. I can look back on my childhood and say with certainty that whatever I lost was more than made up for by the things I managed to learn as a kid by truly listening to the adults in my life.
I get that today, from my fully adult housemate! :)
He insists I'm trying to show off - but, like you, that's just how I talk.
Your experiences are remarkably similar to mine.
There was a sharp improvement in how my peers treated me, starting in middle school. Then, the average student realized that treating the smart kid well and feeding his ego was a quick path to unearned better grades. The honors, advanced, and AP classes were a nice self-segregating unit with other smart kids. I'm unsure whether I preferred being left alone amidst gen pop—it's like we mutually recognized and respected that we were different and it was best for all involved to keep in our separate lanes—or the inane academic posturing with the advanced classes.
Sounds like you managed to find a way to utilize your abilities to your advantage. I had a different experience, as my parents pulled me out of the school system so they could better focus on my academic strengths and weaknesses via homeschooling. Now, make of homeschooling as a whole as you will, but my overall experiences were positive, and I think I did better at home than I would have done in public school. Plus, we we're itching to get away from the school district anyway. They were, and still are, utterly incompetent. As an example, they literally misspelled by dad's name on official school-related mail until just before we withdrew from the system. I don't trust them 20+ years later. Glad you had it better though. Mutual respect sounds nice. I admit I'm a little jealous of it.
I've always known. I'm not white and was adopted as an infant by white parents. I also was the first foreign adoption in the area I grew up. Needless to say, it was always extremely obvious.
"Are you a boy? Or are you a girl?"
Four Pokemon generations in, my answer to that started getting uncomfortable and muddy feeling like I need to click boy, lol. Flipped a switch in my brain when I picked girl for the first time.
When I was in first or second grade, I was an okay student, middle of the pack, not one of the “smart kids”, but the thing is I didn’t really care to try. One day in third grade I believe, I decided that I was going to start trying. There was a class ranking system with the smart kids’ sitting on the desks all the way in the corner, the farthest away from the teacher. (The problematic kids would be right in front of the teacher to keep them in line). I wanted to be in that corner. If you were in the corner no one would bother you, it was the high ground and you could even nap. Great real estate. Anyway, I started getting As and Bs and eventually straight As. I moved up the rankings and years passed, I turned into a “smart kid”, it became part of my identity and I was recognized by students and teachers for my achievements. There were a couple of other kids who would still frequently get better grades than me. They became friends but we would still compete with each other, I would genuinely try to get to #1 but would often fall to #2 or #3. I learned that there’ll always be someone smarter than me. But now looking back on this, i realize something unexpected happened, those kids that were smarter than me on tests didn’t really meet their full potential as adults. I know this sounds judgy, but bear with me. After high school, they didn’t really seem to challenge themselves, didn’t go to competitive schools and get difficult degrees, didn’t go into exciting science related careers, they absolutely nailed school and then sorta gave up and got boring desk jobs. Since we grew apart, I never understood what happened. Did they burn out? Did they only do well in school to please their parents? Did they not have a genuine curiosity for learning? Did they not have a long term goal? Anyways, that part taught me that success isn’t just about intelligence or raw talent; I wasn’t as smart as them but i had grit. I kept going when others quit. Keeping that in mind has helped me achieve things that I would have otherwise considered out of reach.
As one of those smart kids: none of the above. We got to cruise through school. While you were working hard, and learning how to work hard, we weren't. We could just sit there, listen, read, and then score high on tests.
However, when you leave school and enter real life, just sitting and listening and reading won't get you anywhere. What succeeds in life is hard work - which is what you learned while we were cruising.
This right here. School was not difficult for me. Don’t get me wrong, I didn’t get straight As, but I was a solid A/B student. I even took more advanced classes at times. I decided in high school that it was “good enough” and there was no need to put in a ton of effort. I spent time learning things I wanted to learn instead.
Anyway, I vividly remember getting to college and realizing it wasn’t going to be as easy. I had to learn how to study at 18/19 in my freshman year of college. Determination and hard work can take you far, and sometimes I think that’s more valuable than being “naturally intelligent”. I’m not really sure I truly learned that lesson until some time in the military gave me the cold slap of reality I needed.
As one of the kids consistently #2 in his class, I second what the others said about never learning to work hard. Elaborating specifics,
In addition to a lack of perseverance (as others noted), it also leads to a lack of self-judgment on the appropriate time to give up on a task due to futility.
Somewhat.
Bit of both. I couldn't imagine NOT doing well, and I also have an innate desire for knowledge. Some of my sadness spirals were caused by the realization that I have lost skills I was formerly so proud of in college due to disuse.
Absolutely not. I went to college because that's what was expected. I presumed I would continue for a Ph.D. until I learned that grad school requires a drive and specific research interest, both requirements I lacked. Instead, I squeaked by with the lowest possible "cum laude" GPA and called it quits with a B.S.
My reasons
I don't think I'm wildly different, but one thing that was impactful in forming my identity was that I took LSD at a fairly young age back in high school. I think it gave me an entirely different perspective on reality going forward (in a positive way, in my case) and it was just an experience none of my peers had really had.
I credit LSD at the age of 17 with a large part of my identity. I feel like it opened my mind in a way my peers' weren't. I've never touched it again because I have an easily addictive personality, but I'm always grateful for that experience.
When I had to fake being attracted to my boyfriend in highschool. I'm asexual and aromantic.
When I was in early elementary, I knew how to read much better than my peers. But I was also kicked out of the classroom (my desk was put in the hallway) because I talked to much. My teacher wrote, “turbo mouth”, on my report card.
Age 10, I was putting together Radio Shack kits and listening to ATC on the VHF radio I made. I made a PC out of Lego that had a “functioning” floppy drive and you could open up to see the motherboard components.
Age 11, there was a new kid that everyone was afraid of because he was too cool and played hockey and had a huge house. He had older brothers and new lots of cool stuff and could easily physically intimidate him. He didn’t intimidate ME, and I became his best friend. And I realized I could “disarm” people, and that others couldn’t.
I distinctly remember realizing that I had to dumb it down to have more friends. That was age 12. I had to pretend I didn’t know the details or didn’t care so that I could fit in better, and once I fit in I could become a leader of sorts. People didn’t like know-it-alls, but they did cede to confidence.
Age 16, they streamed me into a gifted class where I could do ANYTHING I wanted for English and Social Studies 10 and 11, and I got an automatic A in both. They wanted to see what bright kids would do unhindered by curriculum. By then I knew I was “different” but still didn’t feel so.
As an adult, I remembered when I was 9 or 10, reading about how electromagnets in dams could generate AC electricity from flowing water (specifically rotating magnets), and I thought why don’t we use those in cars to recharge the batteries (because my parents car battery had recently died). And realized (as an adult) that as a kid I had conceptualized the “alternator” and was probably good at inventing stuff, but no one was there to guide and mentor me.
And so still almost 30 years later it has generally been…
I was maybe 12 or 15. A kid in my class made a public invitation to their birthday. That was common back then, they used to write the time and place of the party on the chalkboard. I copied it in my notebook, and, on the day in question, went to their house. Unannounced. I didn't really know anyone, but they invited me so I was there. At one point, someone said, "@lou, what are you doing here?". It was humiliating. It turns out that the public invitation was just for show, and I was supposed to understand the complex social dynamic that determined who was really supposed to go. I ate my pasta and never went to a classmate's party again. That was maybe the first time I realized the disconnect between me and the normal social experience.
I had a similar experience as an adult when I went to a small study group at the university, completely unannounced, and was essentially ejected from there. I later realized you can't go to a study group like that without first asking for permission. That was even more humiliating and the professor responsible for the group was extremely aggressive.
As a child, I once threw a kid in a pool and couldn't recognize he was drowning because his movements and facial expressions of pain and struggle meant nothing to me. No, I'm not a psychopath, I did not wish to inflict harm. I literally didn't know he was drowning or in any distress whatsoever. Thankfully, an adult rescued him. The adult scolded me. This surprised me quite a bit and made me think there was something wrong with me.
Now, I know what you're thinking: this guy must be on the spectrum. According to a neuropsychologist, I am probably not autistic. But my psychiatrist believes I'm schizoid.
To be fair, not many people can recognise the signs of someone drowning. People expect to see them waving around and yelling for help and looking like they're in obvious distress. But actually what happens is that they kind of just look like they're quietly bobbing in the water.
https://www.surfertoday.com/surfing/signs-of-drowning
If adults have to learn to spot a drowning victim, I wouldn't expect a child to be able to realise someone is drowning.
From my personal experience as a kid, I was in a pool with my siblings. My youngest sister was beginning to drown and I didn't even notice. I could see her. I just didn't realise she was drowning. I didn't even know what drowning would look like.
My oldest sister (significantly older) then walked over (it was a kid's pool) and carried the youngest sister out of the water.
My parents had no idea my youngest sister was about to drown too.
The adult shouldn't have scolded you for not realising someone was drowning. You were a child and had not learned to recognise drowning.
Again, it's not intuitive to recognise a drowning person.
Yes. I was close and directly above him though, and had him in full view. I think most people can recognize drowning at that distance.
I think a realistic drowning would be pretty impactful in a movie. The juxtaposition between a peaceful display and imminent death would be unsettling.
I guess I can share the full story, which I wrote before:
[1] not his actual name.
I would say it was less of a snap realization and more of a slow dawning that occurred sometime in the middle of college through my late twenties.
My schooling as a child was a mix of homeschooling and private school which greatly limited my social development. I always had some inclination of this, but the extent didn't hit me until I was a young adult. I got along well enough socially, donning a friendly face and being amicable to the best of my knowledge, but I was so clueless that I didn't know how clueless I was which meant I had been a royal mess all that time without realizing it. I'm in much better shape now in my thirties and can now in most situations come off as more or less normal (as far as I can tell, anyway) but there are still notable gaps and weaknesses that will either take several more years to smooth over or may just persist forever.
For the same reasons I've not felt like I've fit in anywhere in particular, which paradoxically got worse as I managed to get my life in better order, but by now the feeling is familiar enough to not bother me too much. In fact I would say the biggest problem is looking like I belong when in reality I don't — the incongruity is strange.
When I realized I didn't "see" social groups and tiers. I saw everyone as equal to myself. I also had zero judgement. I didn't see someone fat as fat, thin as thin, and so on. Appearance-based treatment just never occurred to me. Society changed for me the worse as I grew older.
One thing that stood out to me growing up was that I seemed to like different kinds of video games, movies, and music compared to my friends and many other people I knew. These are games like Animal Crossing and Chibi Robo, movies such as Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and Akira, and music like KMFDM and Boards of Canada. My friends recognized this and would lightly tease me by saying things like "Oh this is definitely a C-Cab game".
This wasn't out of any intentional desire to be different. I think I was partially influenced by my brother's tastes and I just liked the way these things made me feel. It's actually been kind of nice to meet other people into those things, because I enjoy talking about these interests and sharing the love for them with others.
When people started pretending to know what I am saying
I've been different for pretty much as long as I can remember, and each new difference I noticed just got added to the pile without much fanfare.
A way more meaningful discovery for me was that I wasn't unique. And not being unique meant that I wasn't alone either. The traits I have didn't make me alien, broken, or incomplete, they were just traits you could have.
It specifically started somewhere in 2020 when I came across and joined an asexual meme community. Of course I wasn't asexual, it seemed like something I'd want to try one day, but I could relate to not getting why people would go wild for each other, or not knowing what the criteria for hotness even were.
For the next few months I kept coming across more things I related to until I decided to actually just read up on asexuality and it was me.
I thought I'd already gotten over my insecurities about sexuality and romance since that was my early twenties and I hadn't actively thought about it since high school, but at that moment I finally understood the idiom "a weight off your shoulders".
Since then I've been comfortable enough to explore more things and find more communities I relate to.