Thanks for sharing.

i stumbled upon this thread randomly, and your story grabbed me

so i attempt a poetic distillation:

When I was a kid everyone told me I was smart.

Those teachers who were calling me smart were usually doing it while explaining to my parents that I wasn't doing the homework.

I was mostly just mediocre at a lot of things. Why did I leave it at home on the table?

When I got to middle school I felt timid and isolated.

High school was going to be different. I just wasn't being challenged enough, that's all.

My GPA first semester freshmen year was a 3.8. It would decline steadily every semester from then on, finding its final resting place at a 2.8.

College. I would be "challenged enough" in college.

It was political science the first semester, philosophy the second, and severe depression with intermittent panic attacks the third.

Dropping

out of college is what turned my life around.

Suddenly

I knew for the first time that I had never been smart.

That it was an illusion created by the people around me and I fell for it hard.

There was nothing special about me at all.

That was why I left my homework on the table when I was a kid. That there was something wrong with me biologically.

I have a family history you know.

Clearly I needed to get a job, but I struggled to get out of bed in the morning.

My friends were all going through tough times too.

I think I was a source of pity for a lot of them.

I climbed slowly out of that pit of muck for years.

When I found myself on solid ground I kept climbing. Now, like the universe, I cannot help but expand.

Pushing up against me is like pushing up against a mountain. Go ahead.

Tell me about my characteristics. Call me by my social role.

I know what I am, but it's like they want to pretend that the world isn't filled up with smart people.

When people call me smart, sometimes I still cringe. I don't want people to say I'm smart.

I simply want to be seen as I am.

Complicated stardust, just like you.