Academically I was very advanced as a child, despite my parents not enrolling me in school until I was almost 7. I couldn't even write my name, and yet by 10 I was scoring above children 2 and 3 years older than me. By my last year of elementary school the teachers were having to write new levels of instruction for me. I wasn't allowed to watch any commercial tv, only public, and I usually got books for birthdays and Christmas. I would often stay up all night reading a book because I couldn't wait to find out what happened. (Even today I have this problem, I've stopped reading books as its too expensive!). I was also a very excessive talker, to the point that my mother had to put tape on my mouth to shut me up one time.

I was also a very creative child, I was obsessed with cooking and baking, and art and I played the violin. I spent summers at my grandmothers house learning how to cook and doing crafts with her. I wanted to be an artist or a chef when I grew up, but my parents always discouraged it.

Socially I was very lonely, but as a child I thought it was because of my weird family. I've always wanted to fit in, to be popular, and never have. I never understood the appeal of what the other girls were interested in, and I didn't know how to talk to them. I still struggle with this as an adult too.

Sadly, despite all the ambition I had as a child, I haven't done anything with my life. My parents basically left me to fend for myself, in the belief that because I was so smart I didn't need their help and because they were so busy with my 4 younger siblings, one of whom has autism. They made me go to a religious high school rather than the grammar school I wanted to go to, and because I was never challenged by the work I never learnt how to study. I never made it to college, and at 34 I can't even get a job. I'm a housewife. In contrast, my parents had a child before me that they gave up for adoption, and because her family nurtured her talents and encouraged her to use her intelligence she's just completed a PHD and she's working in a field she loves.

And my 8 year old is almost a carbon copy of me. Except that I could sit still!