School too easy?

Yes, I also have a chronic health condition which I think has been very much exacerbated by work-related stress, particularly as a result of powering through. 

In the same spirit as my various attempts to desensitise myself by forcing myself to keep facing situations I wasn't coping with very well, I also kept looking for ways of overcoming what I saw as temporary issues (largely to do with nerves and anxiety around performing in front of others).  None of it could actually be overcome, at least not as I'd hoped, but I expended a lot of energy that way.  

The corporate world is not for me.  But I had to find out the hard way.   

Jenny Butterfly said:

So the old joke about what you say to the school geek 20 years later isn't, in my case, "Yes boss!"  It's more like, "Oh!  I'm so sorry!  Whaton earth happened to you?" 

I'm the same - but I stupidly 'powered through' all of the stress until my body decided to take control and put the brakes on for me.    I became seriously ill about 20 years ago and it stopped me going any further.    

Unfortunately, it left me so ill that I wouldn't be able to change jobs because I couldn't guarantee 2 years of good health at the new company - and the old company paid me too much money to walk away - so I was stuck in the high stress situation with no possible escape route.

This has dogged me throughout life too.  And so it's perfeectly possible to have a couple of degrees, a professional qualification, loads of experience but still be terrified of other people so that it becomes very draining to deal with office politics, group meetings, socialising etc. 

The "normal" lessons were usually easy.  The format was:-  Here's the information, here are some examples of how to do this, here are some similar examples for you to work through.  To me this almost followed the formula of, "Here's the answer.  Now here's the question."  Unlike real life which throws random events at you for which you are often completely unprepared.  

My accountancy "career" is a good example.  All of the exams drew from the same course materials and, if scenarios were involved, all of the information was provided.   Cool!  10/10 every time!  But the typical real life example would be, say, assigning me to implement a new financial system involving co-ordination between several departments and staff plus liaising with external consultant and having a clear idea of the end results required by each user - i.e. lots of communication involved, plus deadlines and others observing my progress.  And....   she seemed to be in good form at interview, she knew her stuff, she has the qualifications but, oh, she's in trouble, she's faltering, she looks unsteady and... she's down at the first hurdle!         

So the old joke about what you say to the school geek 20 years later isn't, in my case, "Yes boss!"  It's more like, "Oh!  I'm so sorry!  Whaton earth happened to you?" 

Hi yes I agree with you the work was easy, but the things the other children found easy, I struggled with such as interacting and playing. I needed lessons in this rather than normal lessons. 

Academically easy for me, but socially a nightmare.  The things I really needed to know weren't taught, it seems you were just expected to know how to do them.  :(

Easy?

It was a nightmare that I thought would never end.  I was suicidal almost every day for years.

I was in a similar boat - I was one of those super-bright kids at infant school and my teacher's husband ran a school for gifted kids - there was a place waiting for me.

Unfortunately, my twin brother was sickly and we lived Oop North and he was permanently ill (it was freezing up there) so we moved Darn Sarf.        We were put into the local school which was staffed with young, clueless teachers and I was so far ahead that they had nothing for me to do.       I spent a year being left to my own devices and playing with Lego and Meccano and drawing before moving up to juniors.        It taught me that I didn't need to bother at school - a very bad habit to teach kids.          I 'winged-it' from there onwards.

I ended up as a Chartered Engineer / rocket scientist / nuclear physicist..     Who knows where I would have ended up if I'd actually tried hard. 

It's ok some teachers knew I was smart but I was and still am very good at masking even though I can't always help it and they didn't think anything was up with me in terms of autism  I'm looking into doing a coding course in order to become a web developer, done a few free lessons it seems quite fun and interesting and easy too. seems like good career from all that I've researched there's always work and money in that field seems quite plentiful 

That's is terrible that the teachers didn't see how brilliant you were. I was very lucky, I had parents who helped me every step and I had brilliant teachers. I hope you can reach your potential. 

Had a terrible time in school personally I wasn't bullied but I didn't have friends and I struggled a lot with school work. I am very clever and knowledgeable about a lot of things that are my special interests. But in school the way things were taught and the rules we had to follow... None of it made sense to me as to why I was being forced to do things I didn't want to do and because of that I just couldn't make my self learn what I had to learn and now as an adult I'm suffering the consequences of it.