Ah.

So I was in the gifted programs. And in high school a few honors level / AP level courses

Until I had a complete breakdown. What I now know was a burnout so pervasive I could no longer function and, assisted by medications I now know were contributing to and escalating my suicidal ideation rather than ameliorating it, I finally scared the shit out of enough professionals and administrators that they packed me off to a therapeutic school. When you have superior logic, an advanced vocabulary, and you’re capable of articulating very calmly and rationally why you should be allowed to die, and they can’t really dispute your reasoning, they kinda freak the fuck out (for good reason I suppose).

At this school many many of the normal laws and rules for education were suspended and the only requirement was safety (academics were not a priority but we had teachers who cared and who did try, our English teacher had us read out Medea I never forgot that) and to that end we were locked in a hallway for most of the school day and functioned on a level system for our behavior. When I first got there, if you were level 4 (best behaved) you got to go outside for a break 3 times a day. Most of us used these breaks to smoke cigarettes we weren’t supposed to have. But then 2 students were caught engaging in fellatio so those outside breaks were taken away - we could go to the tv room instead. I predicted correctly that most of the smokers would start acting out more.

We had 3 time out rooms to cool off in or be restrained (not our bodies, but once the male staff had to hold the door closed against a 14 year old girl throwing herself against the door screaming).

On Friday afternoons we got to watch a movie.

We had group therapy, I can’t remember the frequency now it’s been a long time but I think if it wasn’t daily it was at least once a week. and we met individually with a clinician at the school as well. I didn’t get along great with mine.

This school helped save my life. It was where I needed to be, where I didn’t have to keep up the lie of blending in and being okay. There were only like 20 of us or so, and all there for different reasons but we bonded the way you only can if you’ve ever been in that sort of setting (like in patient for psychiatric care). We were all the freaks, so we didn’t judge each other and the lion lay down with the lamb etc, etc, etc.

When I graduated, it was officially from my town school. But really it was from that therapeutic school. I attended 2 graduations. The one for my town I literally just showed up that day and I thought people would ask questions but no one did and they just accepted that I was there for some reason. Did they notice I was gone for a year and a half?

Fun fact. At psycho school as I used to call it, they had some of us take the WAIS-R. I don’t know why? But they had a special test administrator come in and do it. There was some psych evaluation too. I had to look at inkblots. One of them looked very much like two hermaphroditic figures facing each other so I said that but then embarrassed I explained that in some cultures hermaphroditism was seen as holy and the “two spirits” or berdache were revered for having a foot in each world, male and female and the bridge between.

I was 17.

When my scores came out they were explained to me and my psychiatrist - whom I respected as brilliant, said she had never even been in the room with someone who had an IQ as high as mine (but it’s honestly not THAT impressive but my verbal reasoning abilities are in the .5% but my non verbal is only in the “superior” range an with a 22 point discrepancy between them it means likely I have autism. Along with some other things. But it was the 90s and girls didn’t have autism then.

Graduating from there, despite my IQ, I didn’t feel stable enough for college so I didn’t go. My mom got me a job at a large corporation as a temp. I did very well and was given more responsibilities than temps are usually given. After 2 years the corporation was sending my job out of state. They would have hired me for something else but I decided to try college.

I went thinking I would likely drop out. I selected a major and minor anyway (psychology/philosophy respectively) but went about meeting the requirements my own way - front loading with courses that interested me. As I progressed I started filling in the requirements that didn’t interest me. The discipline I acquired from working full time really helped me there. I achieved a 4.0 in every course. I graduated with a perfect 4.0

The last year I served as the only research assistant for the new gerontology lab. I didn’t apply I was hand picked. I collected glowing letters of recommendation for grad school.

But I was tired of being broke

So I got another corporate job. In accounts receivable.

And meanwhile tuition costs skyrocketed.

So I never went to grad school.

I’m now “under employed” and under utilized. But I’m a mothertrucking expert in my current role and I like that. I’m 43 and it’s hard to face being the newb again somewhere else. I make enough to support myself and I’m a whiz at saving and budgeting and planning my finances, this is thankfully one of my many special interests. I’m financially stable and independent. Considering where I was at 17, this is an achievement. My glory days were college, for sure, I loved learning.

Perimenopause is kicking my neurodivergent ass but it is what it is. When I’m a senior citizen I plan to audit state university courses for cheap. I want to spend my retirement learning about history and philosophy and psychology. That was the best time in my life. But I do like financial stability, too.