Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion Senior in High School - next steps

Just a warning: this is a big, stressed-out hot garbage pile of a rant.

Hey, 16 y/o here from a tiny town - just some context here: I skipped first grade, which immediately got me notorious as the "weird kid genius who skipped a grade" in our tiny school district. I was pretty weird - obsessed with cats, very impulsive, poor sense of boundaries. In addition to my poor childhood social skills, my Mom was an immigrant who can't drive and my Dad had a severe illness so most of my childhood was pill bottles, CSI Miami, GirlsGoGames, Newgrounds, and my dementia-afflicted grandmother (bless her soul) who lived with us far beyond when she should have because we couldn't afford the old folks' home. My Dad's side is not in contact with our family, and my Mom's side is all dead. Both my parents were weird paranoid recluses and they got worse over the years and also have had two more kids since then who are both young.

Untreated bipolar disorder has basically wrecked my life since 2019. I'm planning on getting that fixed (read: chemically lobotomized) once I either get emancipated by court order or turn 18.

You go on TikTok and it seems that ""failed"" (no one is ever a failure, but,) gifted kids seem to be the norm on there. I think it's a consequence of an artificially puffed-up ego combined with natural social weirdness combined with the internet. Emo nerds lip-syncing to "Oh no!" and "Are you satisfied?" by MARINA is the natural consequence of telling every kid that can learn their times tables quickly that they can be an astronaut.

I want to stop feeling like a failure just because I haven't done anything incredible to earn infinite validation. Because I'm not a failure. But I feel that way due to depressed narcissism. It's impressive to read at an 8th grade level when you're 4, but it's not so impressive when you're 30 and... what? You read at a "39 year old" level?

I screwed up my grades due to an untreated psychotic episode, and I dropped from first in the class to about the sixteenth. Which... isn't bad. But not in the top 10%. Not far out from it - it's in the top 11%. But it's all bullshit anyway. Grades are dumb. I'm tryna do an associate's degree online before I graduate since CC is free where I live for DE students and I've maxed out basically all of the classes at my little country school anyway. I don't know, man. I'm not high right now, either. I don't smoke weed because my social skills are too bad for me to acquire it.

"yo man... got... y'know, the devil's lettuce?"

I'm just thinking out loud here. Er.... by text. I'm watching my fingers type this out and I'm now hyperaware of that and I can continue this weird inception of self-awareness infinitely but I'd rather not.

I mean... I'm just looking for friends, I guess? Tryna not feel like a freak here. I feel like the way I naturally communicate can seem pretentious, like a robot that's liquified and split itself down too many paths and then solidified and the final product of the essays I write is just those metaphorical solidified former robot pieces strapped together with duct tape.

Aaaaand... That metaphor came apart. Just like my life (luhmayo ecks dee)

I wish more modern teenagers used forum-style stuff like this. I'm sick and tired of short-form content always being shoved down our throats.

I need to get a job. I'm basically an adult at this point - I'm no longer cute and no one's gonna provide for me. I need to gain a backbone.

And study for the SATs (I got 1400 on my PSAT, no practice since I didn't know what the National Merit Scholarship was, and on 5 hours of sleep due to a rat infestation). Narrowly missed it.

My car will be fixed soon. I have my permit.

My life is an exercise in permanently delayed gratification.


uhhh WOW this got off-topic.
I was just about to ask what colleges would take someone with medium GPA and high SAT but I got a little carried away uhhhhh

mods plz dont remove my post this forum is kinda dead anyway

I wish it were not so difficult for young gifted individuals from isolated parts of the community, to fulfil their potential and aspirations. I don’t have any answers and don’t live in the US, so know very little about the resources and pathways that may be available to you. You do seem very aware of self and the challenges of your situation and have identified your immediate priorities - to study for your SATs, getting paid employment and ensuring you have the means & transportation to enable you to make the most of every opportunity.

Whilst you are starting from a relatively disadvantaged position, you have years to pursue gratifying goals and every challenge met will likely be rewarding in itself. My husband lived in a dairy shed for a year and woke daily at 3 a.m. to milk a herd of cattle to save up for med school and worked a total of 15 jobs through his years of Uni. The difficult path he had to take, forged his abilities to become one of the best in his specialty (by reputation, rather than by status and monetary gains) and he has been a postgrad examiner.

In my own personal experience, hard work and attention to detail eventually pays off, as those in senior positions do want reliable skilled people in their workforce.

mouchette,

While you are correct that very few adolescents are on this forum, there are a fair number of persons who have lived through gifted adolescence into adulthood, and may also have parented gifted children into adulthood. I also happen to have been working with adolescents for a couple of decades, at the intersection of education and mental health, in a setting that seems to collect diverse learners of many kinds. From my vantage point, my first impression is that you are a survivor and adept problem-solver who has managed successfully to transcend an unusually laden childhood context to a remarkable degree. If you were to "accomplish" nothing else in your life (and, to be clear, I strongly agree with Eagle Mum that you have many years of progress ahead of you), I would consider you to be a success already. Reaching this point in your life with this level of resilience--not to mention (fwiw) conventional markers of educational and developmental accomplishment--is far more challenging than you may sometimes give yourself credit for.

You have a practical and realistic plan for your future, which acknowledges strengths and challenges, proposes solutions, and doesn't rely on either handwaving or fairy godmothers. You will likely find (as we all do), that the details of your plan and path change along the way, but you have demonstrated that you have the flexibility to adapt and develop alternatives. Delaying gratification can feel endless at times, but possessing this skill is what distinguishes those whose trauma experiences and adverse childhood experiences limit their development and access to their native abiliites, from those who transform pain into compassion, persistence and resilience.

On a concrete note, there is much to be said for obtaining your 2-year degree as a dual enrolllment student. (National Merit Scholarships don't typically pay for a 4-year full ride anyway.) You may wish to consult with your school counselor about options (scholarships, discounts, direct admission, etc.) at public universities for 4-year degree completion after an associate's degree, as many states have some subset of these. A nice compendium of state policies in the USA is here: https://reports.ecs.org/comparisons/dual-concurrent-enrollment-2022
Check your state info for current policies and opportunities. There are 4-year state universities with automatic admission policies for those coming from an in-state 2-year community college, and some with automatic scholarships based on GPA, with amounts tiered by weighted GPA.

If you've ever been in foster care, some states will pay for your university education, typically at a state university. Sometimes simply having had a DCF/CPS open case will make you eligible.

With a 2-year degree, you become significantly more employable. Make yourself indispensable at your job, and many employers will pay for you to complete your 4-year degree, and possibly more.

And finally, you are not alone. There are far more people out there with whom you can (and will) connect and find community than you currently have opportunity to encounter in a small town. As you move into settings with increasingly complex cognitive demands, you will likely begin to meet some of these peers in person or virtually. (Dual enrollment might be the first taste of this.) For the moment, know that, while the next two to five years may feel insupportably long, each day really will bring you closer to more and more open doors, interesting and positive challenges, and possible engaging relationships. If you have a special interest, search for someone doing research on it, and send them a respectful and professional email with a thoughtful question about their area of expertise, and see if they respond. Even better if it's a professor at a research university in your state. Those kinds of contacts can turn into professional and educational mentorship relationships, and can be a huge help when it comes to college applications and recommendations. In addition, of course, to their primary benefit as intellectually stimulating communications.