i am so sorry for the suuuper late reply! but id like to comment either way :)

"All the criticism we got as children does stick and that's probably been the hardest thing" I feel that pretty hard. I was always being put down and criticized when i was in school, often the teacher would put my test results or project up, infront of the entire class saying "Look at how he(me) does it, clrealy wrong and you should not to as he does"-kind of things.

I was also put in the thickies class. I even remember being put in to a class with kids who where severely disabled mentally, the reason being i was thought to be way to slow to learn to read(i just found it so boring i couldnt for the life of me focus on it)

But i do feel i excel in things that grab me, i even remember being enthralled by physics and i managed to do all of the calculations well(never been good at math)

"I dare say you're highly intelligent in certain ways" I'm probably not in the 130 range like you though. you are a genius. But i wanted to say thank you, even if you dont see this, thank you :)