Lately I’ve felt very bad… Cause I’m intelligent (IQ within the highly gifted range), but bad at everything else…
It’s not a new issue – for the last almost six years I’ve always been wondering why I was so bad at many things, while I “should” be good at them. From the time I was a little kid on I’ve always been said to have social and emotional problems and some behaviour issues (eg. get frustrated and angry very easily). And I don’t consider anything wrong with all those years I’ve wondered why I behave the way I do – including the meanwhile 1.5 years I’ve thought I’m on the autistic spectrum. I’ve never considered that a “problem” – it was an issue in 10th grade, but so was the whole social skills stuff and I didn’t feel bad about that being an issue (well… I of course wanted to get better at it, but the fact people addressed it didn’t make me sad).
What I mean is the issue of how can an intellignet girl like me be sooo behind in evertyhing else? My Dad will say that “I’m not less clever than him” if I don’t understand a social situation. My Mum will shout at me that it seems as if I’m mentally retarded. My teacher will use my intelligence as a positive way of starting to say that it’s not the only thing that’s important. And the Dutch tutors on ICC obviously found me to be the complete opposite of the ideal blind teen: good with the computer and at English, but I seemed to have very poor O&M (Orientation & Mobility) skills, couldn’t even tie my own bowling shoes (that’s why I have shoes with zippers, not lace-ups) and appearantly was always curt.
As I started reading articles from the Texas School for the Blind and Visually Impaired, the National Federation of the Blind and other organisations for the blind, that dealt with blind-child development and intervention, I felt increasingly depressed: they all listed problems applicable to a 17-year-old me, but solutions that were good for preschoolers. And yeah, there were articles that acknowladged that there are teens out there with the same issues, but either they told about multi-handicapped people, or they blamed the parents for being over-protective. As far as I know, my parents have never been over-protective (I can remember myself not wanting or being able to learn the things I should, such as practical or daily living skills) and I’m AFAIK not multi-handicapped either.
What makes me feel bad, is that my learning abilities make me get an image of the “superkid”, which carries expectations with it… expectations I’ve no idea of how to meet… So I feel I can either use my learning abilities to compensate for my other difficulties (which I feel is useless), or my learning abilities will make me be viewed as a kid who should be a superkid at evertyhing. I like neither… and it makes me wonder why I should have my learning abilities, if they only lead to expectations in other areas I can’t meet…
Astrid
