I just wanted to say that as a neurodivergent person myself, I really relate to your struggles with regards to managing personal expectations and burnout. I experienced a pretty significant burnout myself a couple of years ago as a result of failing to live up to my own unrealistic expectations (partly reinforced by the expectations of others), and I'm just slowly beginning to recover.Perceptions of autism in school are painfully warped, though, at least in my experience. I was put under the whole "gifted and talented" umbrella, which is another reason why I ended up pushing myself too hard and burning myself out. There's a lot of toxic positivity involved; you end up having too high an opinion of yourself, but then you face the expectations that are frankly crushing. You're showered with promises of getting a premier education and becoming some great mind, yet after all you've been through, you never truly get to see that bear fruit. I'm content with how I am now, though. I don't really want to go out and make big changes in the world, it sounds like a recipe for getting wrapped up in trouble. I feel like I was just used to advance someone's teaching career with some success story.
I kind of crashed in the other way in the late years of my undergrad. I was well aware that I had flaws, but I believed that they wouldn't be relevant once I got far enough that I could specialize. Unfortunately, it seems that while you can minmax in society, Charisma doesn't make a good dump stat (I'm autistic/Asperger's). There was, and still is, the sentiment that society is at fault for "messing up the stat balance" and my dislike of resumes and job interviews seems to have permanently moved from "annoyance" to "existential dread." On the upside, I got through a major writing hurdle earlier this month without breaking down once, which manages to constitute a marked improvement compared to the rest of my adult life (Writing has been my primary bane since elementary school).I just wanted to say that as a neurodivergent person myself, I really relate to your struggles with regards to managing personal expectations and burnout. I experienced a pretty significant burnout myself a couple of years ago as a result of failing to live up to my own unrealistic expectations (partly reinforced by the expectations of others), and I'm just slowly beginning to recover.
To keep it short, I was terrible at recognising my own thresholds, and paid the price for it. I had my sights set on a career in academia pretty much ever since I was a teenager, and to have that utopian fantasy turn to dust upon me eventually landing an academic career - only to unfortunately realise that the reality was so utterly inhospitable for me due to a plethora of factors - basically made me feel like I was set adrift, and I ended up having to re-assess my entire identity. I didn't know how to be anything other than the "gifted child", and I felt like a complete failure for not being able to cope with the demands of the career path that everyone, including myself, had always assumed was the natural fit for me.
In hindsight, I'm kind of glad I did go through that, because although I'm still kind of shaken from that experience, it has meant that I'm now more aware of my own personal boundaries, and as a result I feel like I can live better within my limits, while still doing what brings me fulfillment. I'm still in the process of figuring out how to let go of my previous identity as the "gifted child", but at least during the pandemic, I've had the chance to hit the brakes and reflect on what sort of life would actually bring me happiness, free of the societal expectations imposed by others.
I think I've heard this story before...I was put under the whole "gifted and talented" umbrella, which is another reason why I ended up pushing myself too hard and burning myself out. There's a lot of toxic positivity involved; you end up having too high an opinion of yourself, but then you face the expectations that are frankly crushing. You're showered with promises of getting a premier education and becoming some great mind, yet after all you've been through, you never truly get to see that bear fruit. I'm content with how I am now, though. I don't really want to go out and make big changes in the world, it sounds like a recipe for getting wrapped up in trouble.
I still have higher expectations for myself, but I've slowly been (re)learning to accept that much of life is not within one's own control and a lack of results is not necessarily indicative of one's intelligence, abilities, nor effort. Success in life seems to be largely pure dumb luck, being your best self and putting in the effort merely incrementally improves your odds. Still, I can't say I don't resent the fact that I consider myself smarter and harder working than the vast majority of people yet I'm well on the road to never retiring just like every other basic schmuck out there.I had my sights set on a career in academia pretty much ever since I was a teenager, and to have that utopian fantasy turn to dust upon me eventually landing an academic career - only to unfortunately realise that the reality was so utterly inhospitable for me due to a plethora of factors - basically made me feel like I was set adrift, and I ended up having to re-assess my entire identity. I didn't know how to be anything other than the "gifted child", and I felt like a complete failure for not being able to cope with the demands of the career path that everyone, including myself, had always assumed was the natural fit for me.
In hindsight, I'm kind of glad I did go through that, because although I'm still kind of shaken from that experience, it has meant that I'm now more aware of my own personal boundaries, and as a result I feel like I can live better within my limits, while still doing what brings me fulfillment. I'm still in the process of figuring out how to let go of my previous identity as the "gifted child", but at least during the pandemic, I've had the chance to hit the brakes and reflect on what sort of life would actually bring me happiness, free of the societal expectations imposed by others.
Indeed, the thing that gives me anxiety like nothing else is the feeling that certain key aspects of my life are almost completely out of my direct control. When applying for jobs for example, I can put in as much effort as I want towards perfecting my application and interview techniques, but ultimately I can't control whether or not the employer will actually like me as a person, and thus want to hire me. Job hunting is all just a numbers game, as they say - I just need to cast a wide enough net, and probability would suggest that I'd more likely land something than not eventually. Also the cliché saying "it's not what you know, it's who you know" rings absolutely true.I still have higher expectations for myself, but I've slowly been (re)learning to accept that much of life is not within one's own control and a lack of results is not necessarily indicative of one's intelligence, abilities, nor effort. Success in life seems to be largely pure dumb luck, being your best self and putting in the effort merely incrementally improves your odds.
They wanted me to skip 1st grade when I was a kid and I said no precisely because I was afraid of being younger than everyone else already being plenty socially anxious/awkward. Was also in a gifted ("enrichment") program for a couple years, of which the only thing I remember from at this point is playing an educational computer game about electrical wiring and counting to 10 in French during 4th grade.gifted programs are dogshite
was in one for 4(?) years, ended up getting pushed up a grade solely because i was good at math (note that i did *not* receive nearly as much in writing/science/basic social skills/etc while i was in it) and it, ofc, later resulted in gifted kid burnout. oh and being a year younger than every single fucking one of my classmates and obviously socially stunted didn't help either. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
but hey i can do numbers really quickly thats pretty neat
True. I was pushed up a grade back in middle school. It used to be the coolest thing ever until I burned out.gifted programs are dogshite
was in one for 4(?) years, ended up getting pushed up a grade solely because i was good at math (note that i did *not* receive nearly as much in writing/science/basic social skills/etc while i was in it) and it, ofc, later resulted in gifted kid burnout. oh and being a year younger than every single fucking one of my classmates and obviously socially stunted didn't help either. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
but hey i can do numbers really quickly thats pretty neat
BONUS!: undiagnosed at the time. (fucking hell it's like pulling teeth trying to get a diagnosis when you're not 8 years old or cis)
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fun discussion topic: how has your neurodivergency affected your identity/your perception of it? could be a general "sense of self" thing, a lgbtq+ identity, etc etc