Originally posted by jenni4476
I had tears in my eyes reading this thread. So many of you are joking about this poor kid. Yes-he has a gift, but you may not realize the full extent to which this gift hinders him in terms of functioning in the "average" world. Since none of you know me in person, and at the risk of sounding like a braggart, I will now tell you something that only my parents, husband, best friend, and my old teachers and administrators know. Then maybe you'll realize just how difficult life is for us rare animals known as child prodigies. People like to poke fun at us because they can't understand us, and most never realize that we're people with feelings too. While you sneer at his parents for doing this for him, here's a picture of what it's like the other route. It's a no-win situation because we simply don't fit anywhere!
According to my mom, I learned how to read on my own at age 18 months. Being an only child, my mother encouraged me and did things for me. She had taught me my basic math facts by the time I was 2, and bought me a complete set of encyclopedias, which I read voraciously. By the time I'd spent one week in kindergarten, my teacher sent me home saying she couldn't handle me. Not to mention I couldn't relate AT ALL to other kids. Playing in the sandbox? Yeah right, I'd rather be reading about carbon-dating of Egyptian mummies.
Anyway, my parents took me for a battery of testing at age 5. They could not measure my IQ because their tests only went up to 195. All of my basic skills and knowledge were at or above an eighth grade level and my reading/verbal reasoning skills were at a college level. They didn't know what to do with me, so for lack of other options they took me to a private school where I got stuck in third grade because the administrators were concerned about my social skills.
All through school, EVERYONE hated me, kids and teachers. I got laughed at, teased, ignored, etc. My teacher in third grade assigned a book report, so I did one on the novel Watership Down (it's a reflection on things in society told as a story involving a colony of rabbits who act and think like humans). She gave me an F, called my parents in for a conference since she didn't believe I could even read the book, let alone understand and digest the themes for a book report. Once she realized that it was true, she then said that she couldn't have me operating at that level and disrupting the class, then insisted I do things at grade level. It was then that I realized this was something I had to "hide" if I wanted to avoid being yelled at. I didn't realize until much later that people yelled at me because they were threatened by my gift.
For the rest of my school career, I progressed "normally", although my grades sucked. I was one of those kids who slept or daydreamed through class, never did their homework, yet aced all the tests. Not to mention it took me until high school to learn basic social skills and finally make some friends. But even then, most of the gossip and things that are the lifeblood of high school bored me, but I had to pretend to be interested to fit in. So I continued through life denying my gift, simply existing and trying to act like a normal person, and became unhappier and unhappier and taking no interest in my life or its direction, since I couldn't operate at the level I needed in order to feel like an integrated, whole person.
I graduated high school at 16 and promptly became a teenage mother and got married to an abusive alcoholic. Years later, when I finally got a divorce and decided to go to college, the same thing happened. I decided, OK, college is the place where I can be myself and shine, so I did what comes naturally again. I got a perfect score on the ACT without studying and with a hangover the morning of the test. College classes were easy for me. Apart from writing papers and doing required homework, I didn't have to study at all. Life intervened and I had to drop out and work, and I'll be returning in January with a whole new outlook. I've learned much in the interim, but the fact remains I still have to hide it sometimes. Statistically, they estimate that there is only one person with mine or Sho's IQ level for every 3.4 million people. Try being the odd one out there.
I know this is really long, but the point of it is that we are as far above the average as a completely dependent mentally ******ed person is below. I don't think of myself as superior in any way to others or more deserving of anything, because I'm not. I'm simply different in a way which ensures my isolation because so very few have this difference in common and can think and talk about it in a way that we will both understand. Like the article said, most minds cannot even begin to comprehend what is going on in ours.
Flame me, dismiss me as the "genius", start acting strange towards me for this all you want, I'm used to it. That is the very reason I don't tell people, although quite a bit after a short time they say "there's something weird about her" anyway. And then I go home and say to myself "well, I just don't fit in, I never will and I can't expect to, but I will keep trying". I've learned a lot about interpersonal relations, and I've gotten very good at learning what level I need to "lower" myself to in order to relate to and communicate with other people-I'm an extremely good actress. And I always try and gently guide people to the next level, if possible.
But in the end, my mind is mine alone-no one can join me there except my one friend who is also at the same level. A lot of these musings are the product of long talks we've had about what it's like, although we can't spend too much time together because both of us are so used to being alone in our minds that we get kind of freaked out by each other since we've lived our whole lives inside our heads, basically, and can only come out of the shell for short periods at a time.
So either way, whether you hide it or let it hang out for all to see, it's a no-win situation. We just aren't normal and that's all there is to it.
)
