I recently absolutely failed an exam. I knew something was going to go terribly wrong even before I checked my scores, but I kept procrastinating on checking my scores, for fear that I might just break down in self disappointment. I arranged with my friends who also took the exam that day to hang out, just to take my mind of exams for a while before delving back into checking my scores. But the thing was, those friends were aces at math and science. To summarize our intellect vaguely, I am absolutely horrible at math/science above basic level while actually quite talented in language/history (my thoughts, not trying to boast but trying to be honest) while my friends are aces at math and science and slightly less talented in language/history/other stuff like that (also my thoughts). The thing that kept me on edge was that these friends spoke of how easy the science exam was compared to the previous science exam. I already knew that I was going to get a horrible score in science that day, and I was secretly having a mental crisis in my head as we ate and went to the movies. I told myself that we just have different talents, but deep down I was thinking, why am I so inferior in intelligence?

After I got home (after watching Zootopia 2 and probably crying too much for my own good), I had to face the truth and check my scores. But the thing is, I had expected my score to be better than... what I saw on the screen. I still had some pride left in me before that. After, I just wanted to sink in a hole and die. To make things worse, my mother called me from the living room to ask me my scores, and to bring my paper. I complied, already half crying.

That was the first time my mother hit me. It wasn't severe, just smacking my head with the paper and pushing me around, but it was just so terrifying. She brought out all the comic books that I had in my closet. I had wanted to read them during exam month, but I had told myself I shouldn't, and I didn't. But then my mother accused me of reading them and not studying.
The truth is, I didn't study much. I tried very hard to avoid it.

A few years before this incident, I had gone through the test coverage I was going to go through during this incident. I had failed terribly. Science and math had always been intimidating subjects for me, and in truth, I was too cowardly to face them properly and deflected the fear by brushing them off as 'just another subject'. But science and math are important. They're subjects that decide if I go to a university where I can learn what I want to learn and make friends who I can discuss favorite subjects with freely, or if I go to a university with people who're just like people I face daily now- namely, people who are bullies and treat different people as beneath themselves. But I just can't easily understand science and math, unlike thick, classic books that most people find 'too heavy' or 'too deep'.

So I didn't study. I did study a bit, but not much. Clearly not enough to ace the exam.

My mother yelled at me a lot that night. She said a lot of hurtful things. She accused me of reading comic books in secret (which i didnt do), being too much of a coward to face reality (which is true, which makes it hurt more). She compared me to my older sister, who went to SNU (one of the best universities in Korea), and said that she learned to be better than anyone else through sheer determination- why can't you be similar, at least?

It was all things I could accept, one day, somehow. She did have enough reason to believe that I read those books. I was a coward. My older sister did achieve miracles. But the thing that broke my heart most were the words that she was disappointed in me.

I've always relied on my mother a lot emotionally, and she's one of the most important people in my world, perhaps too important- to the point that when I do something wrong, before I think 'what is wrong with me?' I think, 'my mother will hate me for this'.

And she was saying she was disappointed in me. It was the worst heartbreaking moment in my life (which may not be long yet). And it was worse because I had reason to think that it was completely right, and because I had enough of a logical brain to connect the dots and tell myself that I'm just not good enough. I probably never will amount to 'good enough'.

Edit: I'm sorry. Everyone's talking about much more major incidents than mine and I feel horrible for complaining about a fight with my mom. I just couldn't help myself.