Published on 12, July, 2020
Just curious about people who slipped through the net, so to speak. How did you cope with school? I developed quite good ways of hiding how much i struggled. It helped that i was in most of the bottom sets, as no one really cared back then. I was in the top set for biology, i excelled in that area. Nothing else part from sport. I hated going in every day, i was like a zombie....i literally cant remember my last year in school. Ive blanked it out completely.
primary school was ok to good for me, but secondary school was awful. subtle to outright bullying. i escaped the worst of it because i was good at some sports and that meant you were protected to some extent, but felt totally out of my depth in social understanding and communication as soon as moved to secondary school. things got slightly easier when was 17 or 18 because the worst of hormones were out and there was less bullying and people started to focus on university applications. by this point though my anxiety had built up over the years and i was on edge. did ok at gcse level, but tried to work hard for a levels. was good at maths (i did maths and further maths), and then tried a new subject for me, economcis, which i wasa natural at, and also history to balance things out. focused on studying and tried to forget everyone else and gradually retreated from normal school life, become obsessively focused on getting into my chosen university. think i got burnout at the end, but got the good grades i needed.
arrived at university already on edge with cumulative anxiety and absolutely hated it. felt like a fish out of water, cried myself to sleep, retreated to childhood comforts, went and bought my favourite childhood books, got my parents to post me my harry potter books. i got chummy with some mathematicians who were as awkward as me, and we bonded over computer games and drinking a horrendous amnoutn of terrible wine and then beer on friday evenings. that group got me through univeristy. looking back a couple of those are probably autistic which maybe helped things along.
i;ll stop now but work opened up yet more horrors and i think have only 'coped' by having some kind of iron rod of determination to keep going, and somehow 1 form of anxiety forces me to go through another kind of anxiety if you see what i mean - anxiety over standing out, 'failing', upsetting parents, anxiety over looking odd or different allowed me to deal with the anxiety of doing normal thingsfor NTs. i am rambling, but i wanted to write this down because it is helpful for me to get out of system. i'm still upset and angry at how much suffering i put myself through in the past. i have achieved some cool stuff in my life but i have really suffered to do that. not sure how i feel looking at the 'net position'. difficult. it's possible to do things, achieve cool things, but there is a price for us. i just feel weary now.