FOAD Thursday: To All The People Who Made Me Think I Was Stupid

Slow on the uptake, maybe, but not stupid.

I say "slow on the uptake," because it took me 54 years to realize that there were a lot of people who were full of a lot of shit who made me feel bad about myself for no other reason than I do life differently than they think I should.

There was the school psychologist in sixth grade who told my parents that I was borderline retarded because I had trouble with the pattern recognition portion of the I.Q. test. Even though I was writing at an eighth-grade level when I was in fifth grade, I supposed that I must just be stupid, because in sixth grade the teacher gave me an F on my story for following my outline too closely. He said that I must have written the outline after the story, which I did, but only because he said that we would be docked points if we didn't follow the outline we wrote for our stories closely. I don't and can't write that way, so I wrote the story first.

About ten years later, I learned that I was actually somewhat dyslexic, particularly when it came to numbers and patterns. Didn't stop me from thinking I was stupid, though.

To Gina or Tina or whatever your name was in the eighth grade who sneeringly called me a space cadet.

I think about too many things at once and have a tendency to go off in multiple directions. It may be somewhat frustrating to deal with a person who's like that, but it isn't an indication of stupidity. There are many intelligent people whose thoughts tend to be scattered. It might be an indication of ADD/ADHD, but not a dull mind. Anyway, I can't even remember what your name was, so I don't think you really matter in the scheme of things.

To all those along the way who have called me stupid, an airhead, a flake, and a loser, at long last, I say "fuck you."

Yes, I can be kind of a flake sometimes. I have a bad habit of agreeing to do things when I'm emotionally in a good place and then wanting to run and hide when I actually have to do them because I'm afraid I'm just going to screw them up. I'm a bad fit for a normal job because of this tendency. 

Being a bad fit for normal jobs doesn't make me lazy or stupid. It only makes me a bad fit for normal jobs.

Overly sensitive? Yes, probably, although there are plenty of people who are extremely insensitive, so it can be a push.

Defensive? Rather definitely.

Weird sense of humor that most people don't understand? Guilty as charged.

Weird in general and doesn't fit in with normal society? Absolutely.

Depressive, introverted, geeky, withdrawn, and possibly not even actually from this planet? Indeed.

Stupid?

Nope.

You don't get to hurt me with that one anymore, because it isn't true.

I may not have figured out how to use the weird gifts I was given in a lucrative way, but that doesn't mean I'm stupid. It just means that playing by the rules doesn't work for me.

~Cie~