We moved around so much when I was in primary school that I didn't have the chance to assess myself against a constant peer group. I enjoyed the moving. I always made friends easily, and never had any difficulties doing well with the academic side. I started reading early. The first passion I remember was international folk/fairy stories, but by 11/12 I was desperately keen on biographies, science fiction, and massive romance novels (Anna Karenina, Gone with the Wind). I was always good at maths. I had a silly and sometimes irreverent sense of humour, and was never in a *nerdy* clique.
The family settled down, deliberately, for the high school years. I had a small, steady group of friends, and didn't stand out in any way. I was bored witless. I skipped class whenever I could, didn't study, didn't hand in anything I could avoid. And so my marks were bad. Not interested in school + bad marks clearly meant that I wasn't very bright. At the same time, I was increasingly aware that the things I was interested in were not the same things that other kids were interested in, though I did my best to keep this covered up. So not very bright + strange and boring. Which left me in a bad place. Back in the days when I'd never heard of depression, let alone that it could be helped.
University was a revelation - challenging questions, independent study. Somehow I didn't have any issues learning study skills, as some have mentioned - apparently motivation was enough and I did very well. I didn't socialise much though - depression had changed me from social to extremely shy. But I got past it eventually, and came out armed with the knowledge that I'm great at studying and even have to tone down workaholic tendencies.
(Unfortunately the discovery came too late. Because I didn't have the high school marks to get into one of the sought-after degrees, and had never thought I was *that* kind of person, I ended up doing literature and philosophy. These days I am in a frustrating job working, for the most part, with rather thick people who think I'm strange and boring.)
