@alice @actuallyautistic

I recognize myself so much in what you write, and that's exactly what I was afraid of... I do not want him to fall in the same trap...

@alice @axnxcamr @actuallyautistic Yup, that's me. Even though I found everything interesting in principle, learning was *hard* and boring. Even in my "best" courses I barely passed the exams.

Ended up getting after school classes and there was one (after 4 we tried) teacher who "got" me. He lead a small schooling business and always gave the first lesson before he assigned the pupil to some other teacher. He took me for himself since he immediately recognized he didn't need to teach me "maths", I excelled there. He needed to teach me structure, slowing down my thinking, calmness. He was really patient and while I still didn't get great grades (he was late in the game), I ended up passing and studying CS without problems.

@alice , this is my experience as well, and I've watched other "gifted" kids go through it. In one sense, it's as simple as this: If you graduate from high school at the top of your class without ever once having to study, you'll have no idea how to study effectively when you get to college.

So you're left struggling with the double burden of learning difficult material while at the same time learning how to study. Many, perhaps most people collapse under that load. I nearly did.

@alice @axnxcamr @actuallyautistic

The treatment I needed over 4 decades ago.

@alice

Yup. Describes me. Coasted just fine until university.

@alice @axnxcamr @actuallyautistic

This is exactly what happened to me. Coasted all the way, through highschool, and then all the extra executive functioning + self discipline needed for college hit me like a brick wall. Its 10 years on and I'm still rebuilding : /

@alice @axnxcamr @actuallyautistic

Okay but YES SO MUCH THIS.

I was a 'gifted' child. Blew through school for years. 0% effort 100% achievement. And then I hit Grade 9 and everything went to shit.

I didn't know how to study. I didn't know how to research. And because I was 'gifted', nobody ever thought to teach me. I somehow flailed my way through college and into University, where I completely crashed and burned. I've never really recovered from those failures.

Add to that a mother with a 'no child of mine is failing classes so do better' mentality and it was hell. (At least once I got older and we started realising there's genuinely some Shit Going On in my brain she apologised and said she should've realised sooner as a teacher and she fucked up as a parent. That helped.)

@alice @axnxcamr @actuallyautistic That's literaly my story.

Have been the 'best' in class for years ( only competition was with the girls, who work harder than boys) until I failed.

I wanted to be a 'forest guard' but was told it was too easy. When I selected english as first foreign language they told me I was lazy...

School was torture most of the time, esp junior high school where I got bullied because I was so 'weird'. IQ diagnosis at 13 did not really help, the 'psy' was an asshole and the results were expectations from family were raised instezd of adjusted.

Ended up jn the Navy ( try watching effing liners on a radar screen in the Middle of the night with ADHD. I was very good during rais but fell asleep otherwise). Then I moved to IT and got an OK career 'cause computers understand me better.

I realized I'm #actuallyautistic at about 50, learned about exécutive dysfunctioning some years later ( I thought I was lazy) and about ADHD at about the same age. In my family ADHD are expected to be physically hyper active, and the understanding of psychology is void.

Trying to work my way through this at 58 ain't easy everyday, and it took a burnout to learn this.

@alice @axnxcamr @actuallyautistic

I have never (not even now) felt "clever"

Other people have said it. They even used that word to deny me things I was interested in and used it to direct me towards more academic interests.

I was a shy, nervous kid with a stammer. Bookish and nerdy. I read A LOT, didn't think anything of that. I thought every body read loads. After all that's why we had a library!

Turns out reading dictionaries and encyclopaedias was seen as a bit "odd" in an 8/9 year old.

My stammer was seen as an embarrassment . My speech therapist enrolled me in the afterschool acting club without my permission.

I felt singled out. The teacher's pet who knew all the answers was also the swot who got beaten up every breaktime.

I became library monitor mainly to avoid the bullies but also to be close to the one authority figure who seemed to "get me".. the Librarian.

I went to Uni. Thought it would stop. Soon My professors were asking me to mentor others. To lead study sessions and help the weaker students with their work.

Then One suggested I join a club he was in. Mensa. I said I didn't think I qualified but he argued otherwise. he gave me a form. I filled it in. I got a form back I paid my fees and went for an exam, then was told I was a member of this club.

I hated everyone and everything associated with it.

I left quicker than I joined.

I may have sailed through school and university academically but it was never plain sailing. Many a times I was nearly swamped by waves of work, or left battered and broken by a storm of bullying and jealousy.

Many a time I nearly sunk. There were even times when I felt like abandoning ship but I sailed on.

I was in my mid 40s. My ship was patched up and creaking. It let in water occasionally and at times I spent more time bailing out than sailing when I got my diagnosis.

When I realised my little ship was a little autistic-schooner and not a neurotypical super yacht I realised that the high expectations set on me by teachers, parents and professors alike were not in my best interests.

I'd never sail round the world unaided but I could happily visit islands of interest and sail around then for weeks at a time exploring every little nook and cranny, every inlet and outcropping until I lost interest and found a new island of interest.

I hate the two letters I and Q in that order. It was even mentioned in my diagnosis report about how my "obviously high intellect gave him coping mechanisms"

No I didn't cope any better... they just blinded observers to my failings. All they could see were my bright highlights.. not the deep dark holes of my needs and issues.

@alice Very proud of my gifted daughter for learning to work hard now that she's in college and actually has to. Come to think of it, so did I. We both had to do everything a lot slower though.

@axnxcamr @actuallyautistic

@alice @axnxcamr @actuallyautistic 1st part I agree with. I was a horrible student in HS and in college I turned it around in part because I had no ego to lose. Many of the so-called top performers absolutely crisis-level crumbled when faced with a real challenge. I recall once walking to the front of the lecture hall just before class began and looking back at the students... a sea of dead eyes.

Concerning autism, it is very hard to generalize because there are a huge variety of autistic people because you know, people are that way. Some may have superficially similar characteristics but internally and what will work for one will not necessarily work for many others let alone all of them.

Best case the individual can work out for themselves their needs. That can take a long time and contain a lot of missteps. Sometimes outside guidance can be helpful but due to the uniqueness thing, not always and sometime counter-productive. As people I think this is part of our purpose in fact, autistic or not, to work out what we are and how we work.

@alice @axnxcamr @actuallyautistic

the "things are fine until they are not" hits me in the gut. I was doing "OK" all the way up until my life took a turn I was woefully unprepared for. All my life up until that point I had the security of my father being there for me when I fucked up. Then he lost everything in the 2008 crash, as did I around the same time, and... "Now what?" I'd never had to fully fend for myself until then, and it did not help that I also discovered I am autistic then. 1/2