

I was always one of the gifted kids in primary school. The whole “1% inspiration, 99% perspiration” thing was bullshit to me; I breezed through school getting straight-As without thinking and being incredibly bored most of the time because school was too easy for me. I got into the Top 180 when I took the 11+ and I got in the low 120s on a professional IQ test. 

I was incredibly smart and incredibly arrogant. I was deeply interested in science and history, and I just knew that when I reached Secondary and started learning it in school, people would finally see my true potential. I’d be a teenage prodigy, get straight-9s on my GCSEs, get into Oxford 

And then I reached Secondary and it all came tumbling down. 

It’s not that the work was particularly difficult; I mean it was much harder than primary but then I’d always found primary much too easy. The real problem was my mental health took a nosedive. 

I have PTSD. The funny thing is that my trauma took place when I was a kid, but I was okay then. Well, it was the worst time of my life when I was experiencing the trauma, but the rest of the time I was happy. Truly happy. My PTSD symptoms only started around the last year of primary, and got a lot worse once I started Secondary, due to some failed amateur exposure therapy. 

I’m also severely depressed, and I  SH and am severely suicidal. I’ve never attempted, due to a mix of not wanting to upset my friends and family (funny thing is that while I’m self-sacrificing on the big decisions, I’m very selfish with day to day things), lack of access to an acceptable method, and cowardice. 

Sprinkle in the fact that I’m trans with transphobic parents, and that I probably have ADHD.

I’m smart, but I’m so far below my potential, because it’s hard to do well in school when all you can think about in class is how badly you want to go home and drink and cut, and how many you wish you lived in a country with worse gun control, and by time you get home you don’t have the emotional energy to do anything other than get drunk and watch YT.