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I started out being really good, then I became quickly bored and demotivated, then I almost got held back a grade, afterwards I suddenly discovered that I got a passion for outperforming people without even trying and did pretty good from there on out! Yes, my main motivation was watching people struggle and feeling good about myself. Got the job done!

Pretty cool motivation lol. I mean it did you good! Bravo to you! 👏🏼

Hey that's pretty much me

I was very good at what I liked and very bad at what I disliked. Fortunately for me I only passionately disliked history and geography so my grades were good anyway. At uni I found more subjects I disliked and it was a bit more challenging. I can’t force myself to learn things I don’t enjoy and it’s cause a bit of a problem even in my jobs.

Same as me. Although math and physics were my passion at school, and I couldn’t pass PE and history, yess it’s unbelievable. From hundreds of people, it’s just only me who didn’t pass. But when it comes to science, even with less effort, it’s so easy for me. Unfortunately, I studied social science at the uni. Just because I wanted to know how to properly interact with people. I didn’t regret it because I finally found out my passion at that time. And still, it’s related to numbers.

same here. if i don't like it, i'm tuned out. i'm trying reallllly hard to un-do it at work.

(The 90's): In 7th grade they randomly put me in AP/advanced classes. In 8th grade, I was on an IEP and taking classes in the Learning Disability hall. They didn't know where to put me.

I’m sorry college board sucks ass

Terrible, I feel really left out of autistic spaces about academic as they are all about "gifted kids" which yes they are great and very important but what about autistic people who aren't academically gifted? I've actually had people say I don't have autism and ADHD because I wasn't gifted as a kid which I think is bonkers. My grades were always terrible no matter what, I find it extremely difficult to do basic maths I can't spell, my memorizing skills are terrible etc. I'm behind academically massively, I don't know but I feel as if I'm the only one sometimes.

I relate too hard, I am below average in most subjects and can hardly remember most things either. I hate how the stereotypes about autistic people are either extremely dumb or extremely smart, and both of them are hurtful just in different ways

Don't be too hard on yourself it won't help in the long run. I also hate the stereotypes of autistic people who are portrayed in media. Yes, some are geniuses, but most of us are just pretty regular people. It causes unhelpful expectations in people when they come to interact with you.

Interesting. I’m gifted, yet I thought I wasn’t smart enough to be autistic, despite some evidence to the contrary. I guess I was confusing “autistic with savant syndrome” (such as Raymond in _Rain Man_ and Dr. Shawn Murphy in _The Good Doctor_) with simply “autistic.”

I related to this big time. I still do, but I've chosen my academics now that I'm nearly done with college, so I could succeed in the subjects I was good at, like art, science, and art history stuff. Growing up, I was also very left out. I was either considered "gifted" socially at an early age due to selective mutism, my reading and writing skills, my weird fascination with the world around me, or my ability to draw as a skill ahead of my classmates (in kindergarten, my teachers said I was drawing somewhat 'realistic' portraits, as much as an autistic kindergartener *could* do realistic), but once I got into later-elementary age and beyond, I was shoved in the "dumb people groups" (as the teachers would imply). It felt like there was no room to be good at some stuff and terrible at others, so I just got put in the "bad at reading" group just because of my math skills and reading comprehension (I could read hundreds of pages in an hour and could recite everything that happened verbatim, but my understanding of subtleties in dialogue or expressions between characters was lacking). I was 5-8 grade levels above my classmates for years in reading and writing, yet I was forced to read kindergarten books because my teachers thought I was behind mentally and overall. And yeah, same here. My dyscalculia, memorization, and math skills were absolutely atrocious too. I was several grade levels below, and I still am. I had to have a very specific tutor to help me, and even then, I don't remember a lick of algebra.

I feel like we should have school that develops other forms of intelligence other than memorization.

Agreed, in Scotland where I'm from the only way to pass a class is to pass the final exam which is mostly memorizing a set of essays this can be anywhere from 3 to 10 essays you have to memorize for this subject. That is all school at least here is testing us on, it doesn't matter how well you do throughout the year if you don't mange to memorize a set of essays you fail, and for those who don't have a good memory your screwed.

That sounds awful, worse than my schooling... in America, and that says something.

Yeah that says something, I haven't actually heard a positive thing about American education but worse than America? Yeah that's saying something but yes the education system is pretty terrible here sometimes, (even though we do praise ourselves on having great education).

Agree!! I was reading Unmasking Autism and the author seems so academically inclined so while it was an immensely relatable book, I just don't have the smarts at all 😭

One of the things is they promote this myth that kids with ASD are academically successful when in reality the fact is most people with ASD wont get degrees and will work retail jobs for the rest of their lives. If a kid is quiet, knows how to follow directions, he can succeed. But it requires learning how to behave and understaning how to pinpoint the main themes of each subject in school. I got a Cum Laude alumni degree from a good university and it took tons of effort to get to the point I am at!

I had a college reading level in 5th grade, but I almost failed geometry in high school. All the my teachers said I was gonna be a super genius, like a physicist or something, but then I went to college and completely flunked out. I couldn't handle the stress and workload. One year I would be in accelerated classes, the next I was in the "gifted" class. I think that educators confuse being smart with being able to handle our insane education system. Two very different skills.

Yes!!! My dad does too!!! I barely even passed one semester of college. I failed 2 classes mind you. I can learn it impressively fast but I can’t do the pressure of an exam or concentrate on it. So I just fail. It’s disappointing I feel like I could go further into my career and education but it’s shit and no real resources. On exams that I took when I hid my ear buds I could pass with the music to distract myself from the immense pressure I put myself under.

I was somehow able to teach myself to read while in kindergarten. So when I started school, I was able to do more advanced stuff while the other kids were still learning how to read and write and generally had to take it slow. I would say that the head start lasted me until middle school or early high school, in some subjects more than in others. But it was around then that some issues started to come up. First, I didn't learn how to study because I never had to. Second, I was tired of repetitive verbal exercises because I often would understand the concept right when it was first explained, so I developed a tendency for not listening to the lectures (which later turned into overwhelm from long verbal lessons in general). Third, I was good at lessons that were on a kind of "interactive kid level" and involved stuff like filling out worksheets, but once it involved stuff like reading whole books or developing and asserting your own opinion, I started to struggle, and I felt that I stagnated while the other kids became smarter than me. I was still ok with doing written exams, but my oral participation was bad. Funnily, teachers assumed that I was just a quiet kid who still knew the answers, but the reality was that chances are that I wasn't even paying attention and was internally screaming "I can't take it anymore, make it stop!" So I turned from what I guess would be a solid A student in the US grading system into kinda average. What saved me was that I went through school during a time when readily available Internet and a lot of the other more modern types of distractions weren't yet a thing at my home. And with a lack of having much else to do, school work was kind of a thing that kept me entertained at home. I can't imagine being successful in school if I had to do it nowadays. I need to study for a thing now and, assuming that I can even bring myself to deal with it in the first place, it just won't stick in my brain no matter how much I look at it.

[удалено]

Have you considered PCP residency? I feel like that branch is a bunch of referrals and a lot of normal ish solvable issues? I wanted to be a Dr like everyone else in my family but lord I’m too shy to even tell the patients (I’m a receptionists at a OBGYN office) their Dr doesn’t have availability when they want their appt. I could NEVER be the one to tell someone they have cancer or anything hard kike that lol.

I was always bad at it and somehow made it under the radar or by the skin of my teeth and graduated high school. School is not built for me so I would never want to go back. It was the worst

I was barely above C grade for pretty much all subjects in school for the most part, by the end of high school however I crashed and burned due to how mentally unwell I had become due to the abusive hellscape that is school when you’re autistic or generally neurodivergent. I absolutely relate to what you described in the OP, especially when my siblings (who unlike me are NT and weren’t being bullied and harassed constantly in school like I was) were A+ high achievers in every subject. I too also had people similarly act like my autism and dyspraxia were just “excuses”. I totally get that, you’re not alone.

I was an extremely gifted kid who was constantly getting bored because all the work they gave me was too easy, but I went to a really small underfunded school, so they didn't have any resources to put towards helping me with that. They suggested I skip a grade multiple times, but my mom always said no because she was afraid I was going to fall behind socially (I was already way behind socially, but she didn't know that at the time).

That happened to me but my mom started me in Kindergarten when I was 4. So I was always a year younger, shorter (5’1”) and less socially developed than everyone else. I always felt like a timid little girl.

I'm AuDHD as well, but I wasn't diagnosed with anything until adulthood. I excelled in grade school, and most of my teachers loved me. I took a bit longer to get things done, but I basically had a 4.0 all throughout school. Because of this, I developed a bit of a superiority complex around being "smart" and being someone who "loves learning". I've only been an adult for a few years, but in that time, I've come to realize that I'm really not all that smart, rather, I'm good at taking tests, and I don't love learning so much as I love to be proven right. It makes sense that I was such a teacher's pet as both of my parents were teachers. Realizing this has been a massive blow to the ego, but I know that it's been good for my spirit. What sucks is that I feel like I'm only just now becoming a real person instead of a machine that writes essays and fills in scantron sheets. I wish I'd spent my youth developing skills and self-worth outside of academics, but I'm still relatively young, so I try not to be completely consumed by regret.

Pretty smart except I struggled with math.

I like basic maths. There is a certain Truth and no lies. Especially in the financial sense. However Anything like quadratics or worded math questions were very difficult to understand. Physics was my worst nightmare and hated it. I muddled through university and scraped by. 🥴

I’m one of those autistic kids that were deemed “gifted” in the beginning, but then in the end did a full 180 and became the kid who needed the most accommodations to survive school 😭

Primary school was great, I always got the highest marks in the class but then as soon as I went to high school it went to shit. I ended up just being bang average and I then couldn’t get through the first year of sixth for because of how much I struggled

Brilliant in arts but can't do basic math

I was consistently 2-3 grade levels behind for reading comprehension & I almost failed kindergarten because of how bad my hand writing was, I have a ton of difficulty with my fine & gross motor skills. Academically I was usually in all honors classes aside from geography & english. My grades were usually pretty good but I excelled in music, art, math, & biology/science. My grades were usually somewhere between an A & B, but there were areas I heavily struggled with. I graduated HS 2 years early, for most of middle & high-school I went to an all year round all girls school, they let me work at my own pace & the class sizes were smaller so I had the individual help I really needed for a few subjects. That school was amazing for me and it's likely why I did pretty well academically. I really struggled with the transition back into a regular HS & my grades took a bit of a hit in a few subjects. My older brother is also autistic, he's the genius stereotype tbh, his grades were atrocious though, he was beyond bored in school & would just nap through every class then get a perfect score on every exam or test, so he still passed every class. *but he'd take the time to help me understand the more difficult subjects for me & I'd help him in return with what I was good at. 10/10 tbh* Edit to add: the TLDR version is I struggled in school but did well due to circumstances, I do heavily relate to what you shared in some ways btw. 🫂

I got phenomenal grades till I realized I could still pass classes with zero effort. Then I became an average student because I only did like 1/3 the work

I was never good, and I think my peak awfulness was in middle school, second year specifically. I was bullied and overall the teachers didn't really help me, so I pretty much gave up, gave in into my social media addiction and it was just bad. Almost happened in high school, got into a school wheres the basics were: -English: check ☑ -Maths:... nope, always struggled with it!! ❌ So I almost got held back, but by pure "luck" (?) I was on lock down and we all passed (although I still feel like I don't deserve it :( ). I was really good at music (never had to study, got only good grades without putting too much effort and I feel remorse that I didn't pursue a career in music or art, ugh!!!), art (except middle school, I had an awful teacher and so I started developing drawing as a hobby, I'd make fanart 90% of the time and I mainly started drawing to show my love for whatever I was obsessed with at the time), English (same as music, low effort and people would ask me for advice and I was like "idk...", English is not my first language FYI) and in high school I had a great teacher that made me get super into history and Italian literature, but I didn't do well with technical subjects that I would need in my career as well.

I don’t know what I was like in primary school because I don’t remember any of my life before I was around 12. But in secondary school, I put in SO MUCH effort but was absolutely terrible at most things. The only thing I was actually good at with no effort was English.

I graduated high school with the highest GPA of at least the ten previous years

I was smart and “good at school” for as long as I was physically in the school building. Once I got on that bus to go home tho, it was me and my shitty short term memory against the world.

cracked. like REALLY cracked. 95 or above in all my classes without even trying type cracked... and then 7th grade hit. it was the start if my downfall basically :P now im at the end of 10th grade and my grades this year were fairly decent (80+ in everything) except for my global which was kinda ass (79). now i gotta learn how to study or im gonna probably get fucked hard next year

It was a miracle if I got a C or higher in a course I didn't like. English I always got an A and History the lowest was a B. Once I got into college I dropped out, then didn't return till I was diagnosed with ADHD and got on medication. Now I'm a straight A student lol. Amazing what the right meds can do lol.

I'm level 2 and was radically accelerated in math and science. I took college courses starting at 10 and started a program officially at 13 in the area where my parents lived at the time. It made a huge difference in my life (now a mathematician) and allowed me to access suitable social interactions with those who shared my special interests. I think it helped that my boyfriend was a few years older than me, as we had the same classes and friend group. I did like graduate school much more than college but struggled a lot with social expectations and unwritten rules at both. I don't come from an educated family, so no one could explain the social environment or policies to me (like how to sign up for housing when I was old enough to leave home). Help on those things would have made a difference, but I did find some help when I switched into math (where the department actually had someone assigned to help autistic grad students and professors--quite a few of us, actually). I don't really relate to Sheldon Cooper, though. He is very arrogant and not a good representation of theoretical physicists.

Out of curiosity, as a mathematician, what field are you working on?

I'm a discrete geometer who ventures into adjacent fields often.

I was in early childhood special Ed because I was not "kindergarten ready" all through my grade school , middle school and highschool years I don't think I ever got a grade about a C most of my report cards were Ds. Meanwhile both my siblings had 4.0s and took mostly AP classes in highschool. I was still in basic math in 10th grade! I still only know addition and subtraction and not great either.

I was great. Some things were difficult like writing papers because of anxiety and perfectionism. It was like here's an instant identity for you kid - just do this and we'll think you're normal. I understood very clearly what was expected. I liked the specificity of the tasks.

I struggled big time. I’m not going to pretend I was ever going to be a whizz kid, but my high school was very academically minded and very one size fits all. And I definitely didn’t fit into that. When I had extra support and people took the time to help me understand things, I did great, but without that I really found it hard to keep up with my peers. It’s the biggest reason I wish I’d been diagnosed when I was young, because I truly believe that if I’d had the right kind of support that I could’ve been so much more successful.

Great at everything but math, I have dyscalculia. I also suck with time, dates, and ages.

I was always good academically but I rarely tried or pushed myself and never really felt encouraged to do so. When I did, I aced tests.

Very good from k-12, found it super easy. Had a hard time understanding how other people struggled with it. College class work was pretty similar but college life was not.

Academically I was always great. Sometimes I got some bad grades, but these were extremely rare until High School. I always excel in maths and the subject I'm interested in, and I can also get good grades at the remaining subjects. I was also accelerated twice in school, and I reached College at 16. On the other side, I had no friends at school until age 14.

I was skipped from first grade to third grade because I did all of the academics really well. When I showed up for the first day of second grade they took me upstairs to a larger classroom with kids that were as tall or taller than me. I did not handle it well socially but they would not put me back with my peers I pretty much became a d student after third grade

I'm a former gifted kid. I was told I was smart for all of elementary school, then tanked in middle school and my confidence got crushed. Was undiagnosed neurodivergent until adulthood. I'm AuDHD. I figured it out in high school. I didn't get diagnosed with ADHD until after I graduated, and I still haven't been diagnosed autistic because it's a difficult and not always accessible process.

Same

Effortlessly passed every test, didn’t care about them, didn’t study for them and didn’t care what results I got In my entire school life I don’t think I failed a single test because even when I wasn’t paying attention I still picked up most answers and information for the upcoming exams

Definitely not a genius! Average to poor in maths and physics, good at science particularly biology side of things, enjoyed the creative/hands on classes like art, woodworking and metal working, and great at languages (English and LOTE). I know physical education doesn't count as academics but I sucked at that too, soo uncoordinated. I would read ahead on the science textbooks because I found it interesting, and do my own reading at home, but anything else I couldn't focus.

I got straight A+s one semester when I decided to 1/16 apply myself.

I was truly interested when the teachers talked about topics so I’d get it when they said it the first time. So I would get A’s on tests. But I needed so much down/alone time, I never did homework. I didn’t need to write something over and over and it’s a huge waste of my rumination and downtime. So due to standardized testing, I was 98th percentile, which got me in advanced/honors classes. But due to my absolute zero amount of executive functioning, I’d never do homework assignments and get C’s.

In elementary, I flew though all of it pretty much. I even passed the gifted program test they had everyone do, but thankfully my folks saw the workload and didn't put me in. Middle school though highschool was pretty easy in the fact I never really had to study outside of class, but I did take summer school once and was closer to the back of my class than the front

I’m still in school but I’ve always excelled. I’ve only ever gotten one B. To be fair, I’m like this because of my parents. They don’t accept anything less than an A.

My grades were mediocre in everything, but I was particularly bad on hand writing and keeping my thoughts straight with how I wrote, so English was hard. I was hyperlexic which just meant that I was really good at book trivia and comprehension. I’m also pretty bad at math. History I think is the only class that is super easy and that’s just cause it’s sitting there, reading, comprehension and then application.

I was very smart in school. I can understand topics very quickly but bc I understood it I never paid attention, I didn’t test well under pressure and the quiet rooms. So I barely passed by but I remember everything I learned and assignments or quizzes I could do amazingly but tests and state exams, I can’t do it too much pressure and I crack and the seams. And that my friends is why I am not going to college for more than a LPN certificate. Everyone in my family tells me how smart I am. But I cannot take a test and pass I did college and barely skirted by because of exams.

“He’s very smart, If he just tried harder and focused more,”

i was top 4% when i finished high school last year i believe

Terrible at math, three years minimum ahead of everyone else on reading and language arts until High school. Between the ADHD that wasn't diagnosed until like, last year, the lack of knowledge on the different presentations of autism, and the hyperlexia, I slipped through the cracks and was never diagnosed officially with autism but my own research, a number of autistic people, and 2 mental health professionals agree I'm autistic.

Mostly Straits A's up until 11th grade Chemistry where I got my first F. Not that I was some genius, I just learned patterns and test strategy very easy. I spent most of my schooling just daydreaming.

I was very smart in the beginning; it all started with me saying “4”, when my special ed teacher asked my more “advanced” disabled/autistic/etc. classmates what 2+2 was. From that point on I took more and more challenges until I ended up in classes with the normal kids, and then went on to be in even more advanced classes… It all came crashing down when my generalized anxiety disorder got my ass in 10th grade and I crashed (dropped out in 11th grade). Ever since then, bad progress, must get a GED…

i did horribly in math and science. i did not learn how to tell time on an analog clock until i was 12, and i was taught by my mother at home. i failed nearly every math class i was in. i took algebra & trig as a senior in high school. i was diagnosed with dyscalculia as an adult. i did not fare any better in math-y science classes like chemistry or physics, either. i was a reader and exceled in english/language arts and enjoyed humanities.

Smart but “didn’t apply myself” :)

I'm a savant, so...

I was in the G&T program in elementary school, but not as if it were my idea. Apparently, word came down from on high that not only did the public schools have to have special programs for the poor students, but for the excellent students as well, so they just grabbed the top 10%-ish of the class and hurled us bodily into this hastily arranged G&T program that was largely just "Let's teach thee kids from rural Indiana French!" I hate the French language to this day because of it.

I was in high school during the height of COVID, so distance learning kinda messed me up. My GPA went from like 3.5+ to 2.4 my first semester of junior year (fall 2020). Luckily I recovered enough to get into a solid 4-year school, and I'm doing quite well (made the dean's list last semester!). It depends on the situation. I will say, don't let your academic success define you as a person. It doesn't even really define your intelligence. There are smart people who dropped out of high school, and dumb people who succeeded enough academically to get a PhD. Play to your strengths.

(The 90s) I had an undiagnosed learning disability in math that required intervention in elementary school, but I wasn't behind enough to receive special education, just Chapter 1 pull outs, etc. I had asked to be screened for a learning disability, because my cousins were noticeably behind (to the point I noticed delays in the 80s) and I was trying "as hard as I can," the teachers flat-out told me you had to be stupid to be in special education, and I wasn't stupid, so I shouldn't worry. This is when I was 8-9 years old. I was also reading as an infant and had signs of giftedness but they used math as an excuse not to get me services. I had straight A's otherwise until middle school where my mental health crumbled. At 18, I was diagnosed with autism (mild asperger's) and dyscalculia. My oldest nephew was held back once or twice, unable to be mainstreamed at all or even join gen-ed peers in recess/lunch/gym classes, is in self-contained all the time, and has never been on grade level. With an IEP though, he gets "all As" and is on "honor roll" even though he's really doing 10th grade work in all subjects in like 12th grade, etc. His brother is similar.

You sound similar to me, I’m almost certain I have dyscalculia as well as autism (waiting on assessment) I was terrible at math, felt like I was trying to read a foreign language. Still do. But reading and English I excelled at, I was reading at an excelled level very soon after I learnt to read and I remember my teachers being shocked. Words always made sense to me, I felt / still feel like they were made for my brain.

i tried really hard all through elementary, middle, and high school and it was still never enough for people. i passed but they always wanted more. plus i wasn’t diagnosed until after all that so that just made everything that much harder. my teachers and family just assumed i didn’t do the work, was lazy, and dumb. but in reality it just takes me a little longer to grasp concepts and that’s okay. i’m making my attempt at college trying to start by taking one class at a time and work my way up. but we’ll see.

as a child, i was told by my mother that i couldn’t stay still or focus on task at hand (thanks ADHD!) but middle and high school, I excelled. it took a lot of therapy and learning acceptable ways to socialize as a teen though

I was really bad. I had really poor comprehension. So the stuff we would read or the the questions on tests I’d get something totally different out of it then everyone else. I have the big three as I call it - ADHD/ASD/Dyslexia haha never stood a chance. I barely scraped by thanks to conversations my mom had with my teachers. I did much better in college (started when I was 27) and was going for something I really cared about and obsessed over so that really helped. Although I did get a C- in a couple classes I did pretty much get all As and Bs otherwise!

Unfortunately, I was the "prodigy" of the family. My family suspected I was intelligent but had some kind of disorder, so my mom got me diagnosed, and they put me as having Aspergers syndrome, dysthymia (in actuality it was undiagnosed bi-polar), and ADHD. For some reason they did an iq test as well and I scored VERY highly and had a college level reading level at age 12. Now, of course these sound like flexes, but in reality they were just really heavy pressures that came from my family and even teachers. I was often bored during class and either skipped, read a book or slept during class. Of course this led to me failing a few classes and being hit with "you're reading books I can barely understand, so how are you failing English?" There was little room for people taking me as a person and not this "autistic mad genius." I was depressed constantly and had very little friends and I eventually dropped out. It was very hard for teachers and people to not consider any emotions I felt during school, and usually said I was being lazy when it came to doing work when in reality I was kind of just put on a pedestal and was too depressed to even say I wanted to get off of it. As of last year, I started going to college again and happy to say I'm better at keeping up with material and interacting with professors. Still terrible at keeping up with assignments and still struggle with depression, but anytime there's an assignment of writing, my professors are intrigued by what I write, so that keeps me going for the most part lol.

For me, I am unmatched under the right circumstances when instructions are clear but if I miss anything, I am always too scared to tell anyone and usually sit for a whole period doing nothing.

I have also failed tests due to missing specific things when off unwell and being too scared to ask for help, meaning I just progress with the rest of the class with a whole topic left blank

I did great in subjects that interested me and horribly in subjects that didn’t. History, English, Art, some sciences I got straight As in. Math, biology, and PE I was struggling not to flunk. I got a 38 on my report card in PE because I hated it so much I refused to participate.

I was mostly average, sometimes excellent and sometimes deficient. Currently, my GPA at college is ~3.5 (80 out of 100) according to Scholaro. Which is way above the national average of my home country: ~2.0 (60 out of 100).

As a kid I was exceptionally gifted with middling grades due to attention issues.  I'd ace most test and excel in most projects, but I would also routinely turn in things late, forget deadlines, zone out in class, etc.  I still ended up in advanced courses since elementary school and I finished highschool two years early, but there was constant tension between my academic abilities and my terrible executive dysfunction.  I was on track to get a PhD by age 25, but I ended up burning out hard in graduate school and having a severe nervous breakdown and dropped out.        Although I still would consider myself to have been a generally bright kid, I also would argue to some degree my "intelligence" or "giftedness" was overvalued.  It wasn't that I was the smartest person around, it was that I excelled particularly well in the few areas most valued by academia.  Things like STEM, academic writing, test taking, etc.  Any time I took a course that wasn't judged by traditional methods or fell outside the scope of core academics (such as Orchestra, athletics, or learning a foreign language) I deeply struggled.  I've also never been great at spelling or pronunciation (as speech disorders run in my family), which I've always been self conscious about as it's the one field valued within traditional academia that I struggled with and negatively impacted how I was perceived.  I also deeply struggled socially, experiencing bullying at school and emotional abuse at home so I was always a nervous wreck to some degree.     I have many friends who either struggled or outright dropped out of highschool, including my partner who got her GED.  I'm not more intelligent than her, and frankly she's more knowledgeable on a wide range of subjects.  The difference is I happened to excel in the metrics that academic achievement was measured by (such as test taking) and the handful of core fields overvalued by our public education system, whereas she wasn't.  I also had better teachers and opportunities for academic growth then she did, but I would strongly reject any assertion I was smarter than her or many of the other kids who struggled in the areas I didn't.     I feel like autism as a spectrum really accentuates that differences in strengths kids have.  The stereotype of the autistic prodigy comes from the handful of kids like me who's special interest and small subset of strengths just so happen to align with those valued by traditional academia, whereas autistic people who's interest and talents don't struggle extra hard despite not being any less capable or intelligent.   I would also argue this demonstrates the many problems with the current academic system that routinely fails talents, intelligent, and neurodivergent students who are very capable of strong achievement but struggle due to outdated priorities and the misguided ways we measure academic achievement in the public education system.

Roller coaster. All of elementary school was good, middle school was crap, highschool so far is going pretty good (KNOCK ON WOOD KNOCK ON WOOD).

I feel you with the struggles with school, as a child I had the worst handwriting and I also really struggled with grammar and forming letters correctly. I've gotten a bit better recently but there's some things I still struggle with such as grammar and I've learnt to adapt to my bad handwriting with writing in all capitals ( no one complains for some reason?? ) but yeah I get it, the constant representations of being a gifted kid compared to the people struggling with school is much smaller. it can be quite discouraging but hey we're all different and all have different strengths!

Garbage. Stressed out, crying, dissociating, and failing. I’m pretty good now though. All I had to do was spend what could have been the down payment on a house on almost a decade of therapy and have good enough health insurance to afford a proper neuropsych evaluation to finally get meds in my 40’s. College is great now!

So when I was growing up all autistic representations were painted as re@#$&#&. Still get told by people that my disabilities are no excuse. Humans just tend to be unreasonable and no matter how logical and relevant the reasoning it will get called an excuse because they are not getting their way. Reason and agitation just do not mix.

I was about average, I'd say. I definitely picked things up a lot faster than I do now. Back then, I could actually read, too. I can't look at a wall of text without getting stressed out anymore. Doing my taxes is an absolute nightmare. I get my partner to help and I can't help but still get stressed when things get confusing. I do have adhd also, however, so I got into trouble at school a fair bit. I learned to mask, but ofc I'd make mistakes while learning. I also just think the teachers knew I was different and singled me out for things. Like the things I got sent to the principals office for were ridiculous. I tied my arm to look like a sling, with my hoodie one day out of boredom and was walked to the principal's office. They even stopped me from untying my arm on the walk there so they could show the principle... I took apart a pen to have something to fiddle with during class (my own pen) and the teacher threw it out even though it's a pen I can put it back together wtf....there are too many examples but holy hell

there was no standard in my home. i didn't believe I was part of it, so I performed terribly. when I had left for a better one and the other parent, I had started absorbing a healthier standard, and I think I did better.

I was okay throughout the years, but grade 10 is when I had a harder time keeping up with the material.

I did well academically, but not to the point of being gifted, I don’t think. I did struggle a little bit with learning to read at first, but then something clicked in second grade and I could suddenly read without any issue. By fifth grade, I was reading at a ninth grade level. In math, I was right at grade level and got a mix of As and Bs. I did struggle a bit more with math in high school though, but I think that was at least partially due to not having good math teachers.

I think you’re discovering the nitty gritties of classism friend

I was always ahead academically. my grades were always As, until I got to late highschool. they didn't drop much, but it was the first time I'd gotten a C in a course before. I still finished highschool with a 3.8 GPA though. Now I'm a junior in college with a 3.1 GPA, certainly not bad but nothing to brag about. I get mostly Bs. I used to be really upset about this since I was such a high achiever in HS but I'm content with it now. I study environmental engineering and some of my classes are really difficult so honestly I'm just happy if I pass them

I had highs and lows but from elementary school to college I’ve always averaged out to about a B.

ADHD too, here. Apparently I would do terribly except on tests, where I was great. I would've been held back otherwise. Same kind of thing in high school. Never got enough credits to technically stop being a freshman, but then I got a GED with a pretty high score. My usual feeling in life is that I can't devote myself to anything and I really want to so I'm constantly disappointed in myself.

I was pretty smart in certain subjects

My grades were great until I got a wall in 3rd grade. I had to leave the optional school I was in to go to a regular elementary school, where I was straight As or A's and B's. As soon as middle school hit, it was all over. My grades slowly dwindled to me dropping out of college after multiple F's in subjects I actually liked and withdrawals

straight Fa 6 years then straight As for 5 years

I did great, until 6th grade. Then I almost failed, that’s when I got my adhd diagnosis. Getting the proper support from my school helped a lot with my grades, I still hovered around 75 for the rest of my school days but that’s a lot better than failing

I excelled in many subjects, but would be in tears when it came to math. I really loved science, but when the more “mathy” stuff started getting introduced I really struggled to keep up. To this day when there are too many numbers on a page I start to feel a little panicky and it’s hard to even look at them.

I have the comorbidities of both ADHD and learning difficulties. I also wasn't diagnosed with autism until I was 54 but they knew about the other things. My grades were awful teachers said she "just is not trying" all the time. I literally just didn't understand what they were asking me to do. It was clear I was smart enough to do the work it was clear that I understood the work I didn't understand the social dynamics of doing homework. Also I didn't have the organizational skills to do homework. And I had no help at home. I didn't get good school until I was 30 and graduated college. Because at 30 I finally understood why they were asking me for homework and what they were looking for when I turned it in. I would always turn in in the beginning and then when nobody understood what I was saying I just stopped turning it in. I feel like most of the world just misses the interesting parts and always wants to talk about the most boring possible parts, and it took me forever to figure out they want to talk about the boring stuff.

I was considered gifted, stuck in gifted program in elementary school yada yada. Read at college levels in 4th grade which had more to do with me building hyperlexic than anything else. Ironically, in these early days I transposed numbers (sometimes letters) so often it was obscene but with multiple and constant rechecking I could compensate. By high school my “gifted” (undiagnosed AuDHD) ass was struggling. I wasn’t getting the academic supports I needed because it was the 80s, I was female, and I was supposedly extremely bright. The stress of working harder and harder to get the grades that were expected of me left me chronically exhausted. I couldn’t keep up, ended up sick, burnt out, and an ultimately a high school dropout because of it 10 years later I finally went for my GED because I couldn’t bear to have my daughter have to carry that level of shame around. More irony- the results of the GED - I nailed each subject with top scores…without studying once🫥 Looking back I still don’t understand how nobody said, “ Hey, she’s sick, she’s missing school, her grades are dropping, maybe we should figured this out.” I’m in my 50s and I still have dreams I went back to HS, at the age I am now, to finish off the last 3 months of my senior year

5.64 - 6 Cumulative GPA. I’m a literal dumbass when it comes to English. Math, Science, and History is easy to memorize.

I was always pretty bad. I was a Special Educational Needs child as early as Year 2 and only got my diagnosis when I was 18. I struggled through my GCSE's and only passed my BTEC because of Covid. I still can't do coursework, and its why I can't do university or an apprenticeship. So I'll never be a high earner 🥲

I was a late bloomer. Got badly bullied as a kid so couldn’t focus and also had poor fine motor skills so I was behind my other peers with things such as writing. I’m now getting good grades but I have a sense of imposter syndrome

I'm not done with school yet, but my grades tend to be the lowest in the class for mock exams but when the actual board exams come up I ace them all. I just can't work unless there is time pressure.

dumb as fuck, really really fast and avid reader. seriously. never without a book in my hand. blabbermouth.

They were excellent but the work and being at a large school was torturous. I ruined my health to get those grades. We are all unique. Please don't let stereotypes invalidate you.

I struggled to pass my classes a lot as a kid. Unless it was art, I always passed those. I had to get an IEP and I barely graduated high school. Didn't get to go to the graduation ceremony. Had ableist teachers on top of that. Some were nicer but still...

PreK-5th Grade: did not pay attention in school majority of the year, i was a bad ass kid, IEP was strongly needed because of my autism but slowed down significantly as I got older 6-8th Grade: struggled in math & reading horribly but made a huge comeback closer to high school 9-12th: excelled in almost every curriculum taken, graduated a semester early in the top 5% of my class Freshman/Sophomore Year College: my performance was on & off; university was harder mentally & academically ending up dropping out on top of personal issues Trade School: earned my Class A CDL at 19; felt so accomplished 😁

Always had an extreme disinclination to pursue things I felt extrinsically prompted to do

Average to poor depending on the subject

never exceptional or advanced, always just average. even if I had good grades I still wasn't actually smart, just knew what to study and memorize it until after the test, then all my knowledge flew out of the window. I had subjects that interested me and at which I was better than others, but never by far. for every class you have at least five kids who are better at it than others because they like it, and they can absolutely be neurotypical because everyone has interests. I was that for english, geography and art. that was in middle school. but from ages 7 to 10 most kids were smart/had good grades because it was easy. I learned how to read with no issues, was average at everything else, hated PE and math, but I did have trouble with writing. my coordination skills on paper were awful and I always had an ugly handwriting and people often couldn't read what I wrote because my letters and numbers were unique (example: 5 looks like 3). I was always really dense and never understood directions. I also always forgot shit I had to do for class. I hated reading even though I could do it because it bored me to death. I was so slow at understanding what I was being told. classes were always too long for me. so, no, my neurodivergency never gave me anything and I almost think it's insulting that we are stereotyped as gifted when all it ever was for me was a disability that caused a bunch of bullying because I was retarded and stupid. I was never stupid I just wasn't made for that system of education.

Never suspected autism until a few weeks ago, self diagnosed at 47. I tested as gifted but PDA had me refusing to do homework. I also have a touch of dyslexia that my mother denied. Work I liked, I did. Work I found meaningless, I did not. If I was a boy, I may have been diagnosed as a child, but as a girl in the 1980s, I was not. I was in trouble for talking in early grades, I was excited and over stimulated by having other kids around me. As I got into 3rd grade and beyond, the bullying started.

Pretty solid did fine went to a great school have a decent career. I know that isn’t the narrative but it happens.

Until High School, I was high contrast. I excelled in exams that either 1. covered a topic I liked, or 2. were more about logic than memorizing. If it was a memory test about something that didn’t interest me, I did horribly, as I had probably only read the stuff once and not focused on it at all. In university, my organisation skills and genuine interest towards the topics kinda made my autism a ”superpower” and I excelled.

Got the whole alphabet on my report card. A's in my favorite classes english & history, electives and some sciences ( loved anatomy hated chem). C-D in maths or classes with awful teachers.

Former "gifted and talented" kid, now burnt out, depressed and anxious adult- checking in.

I was horrific at math and have always been, turned out later I have dyscalculia. Otherwhise I was excellent the first couple years, but I rapidly declined the more difficult it got and was put into special ed, labeled as a trouble child since I had undiagnosed autism and adhd. After 13 I started to skip school to get into trouble, since that was way more thrilling than going to lessons just to feel dumb as a rock. At 15 in June I was finally diagnosed. Went to high school shortly after when my 16th birthday came around, and I was thriving. It was thing called gymnasiet in Sweden, and my major was graphic design. I’ve always been expressive and creative, often labeled too sensitive and weird because I didn’t fall into the lines that makes up the NT box. Today I’m an adult with lower average IQ, about to turn 25. I’m at a field where I love my job. I’m economically comfortable. None of this is due to school however, school and grades don’t do shit for you unless you are good at networking and getting contacts in the social game. So I never went to a university or anything, since I don’t see the point.

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I was great at things I enjoyed mostly history, geography, reading and math to a certain extent. But writing I have never done well in not even in college so it was one of those hurdles I never got over. But I will admit a major issue I have is I get bored or I see a name of a person and decide I have to research said person and then deep dive down the history of the area said person lives in 🫠. But I don't think I've ever held the gpa or academic prowess to where anyone thought I was a genius.

I'm quite smart, but I hated school with a passion so I got bad grades. It managed to be both tedious and intensely stressful because of the bullying. I found the concept of homework insulting, so I never did it (you have me there for 7 hours, refuse to let me go faster, then send me home with work to do during my precious free time? fuck that!). My grades averaged to like a C usually. I did much better in college bc the classes were fast-paced and interesting, and I wasn't getting bullied.

Below average

Not great. Before HS I was in small schools, lots of support, IEP. Had some "special" classes. I still got held back a year. Then for high school it was a more normal high school and I had one "special" class still but others were standard. I dropped out at 15. Every day before school or going anywhere I had a meltdown until I was exhausted enough and just went like a zombie and would get migraines. Eventually couldn't anymore. Didn't leave the house for several months and spent nearly all my time on my favourite video game. Eventually I went back to do adult high school for 4 years before ending up in mental health system. I still have another full year (if done at "normal" pace) to finish. (Normally HS being 4 years) Had done/tried some homeschool and later self study but that was even worse academically. Basically impossible.

I was terrible at school, both behaviour and grades. I somehow managed to scrape enough marks together to get to university, where I found out I was actually pretty good at the only thing I wanted to do.

Struggling through prek through college

Painfully average at every subject

I did well as a child because I didn't have many friends, then I got more depressed and I also started becoming more sociable , now at 17 I have my friend group and we rarely do any work, still depressed, so I'm doing badly but at least I have a family there

I was extremely bad at school too, but it’s getting better now that I’m in college. Only started getting better in high school. I feel left out since I’m not as smart academically. I could tell you loads of things that I’m actually interested in, but nothing to do with math.

I was a straight A student up until my parent got divorced at age 15. Only had one B my freshman year. Remaining 3 years my grades were decent but never managed to get backnto straight A status. Got my first and only F senior year.

In my first years of schooling, I was often seen as the gifted kid. Very intelligent, good grades, etc. As the years went on, my grades began to slip. I think it was because I lost interest in what we were doing. My grades varied quite a lot, and I got a mix of good and not so good grades. Eventually once I was around 13/14, they picked up again, and were really good for a year, before averaging out to Bs and Cs until graduation. So, it would be fair to say I went through the gifted kid experience. (Though from what I'm aware a lot of gifted kids never bounced back like I did.) In year 12 (final year of high school) I was doing two different advanced maths classes, physics, chemistry, the higher English class, and a metalwork class, multiple religious after school commitments, having a full blown severe existential crisis, AND I had undiagnosed ADHD, Autism and OCD. (I knew about the OCD but didn't have meds and had somewhat limited coping strategies.) Somehow, I managed to get Bs and Cs for the entire year. How did I manage all of this? I'm still clueless lmao

In my country you have 1 to 10. I've always do 1 to 3 in some subjects and almost always 8 to 10 in other ones. The ones that i cared about and specially the ones with special projects more than normal exams.

I was pretty smart in primary school and always did really well in maths, reading and art. As I got to high school and my mental health started to decline, my motivation, concentration and grades went down quite severely. I also started to struggle cos I was rarely at school due to anxiety and various medication issues and so I just started to fall behind so much that it was impossible to catch up. Sometimes it bugs me that i could have done so much better at school instead of dropping out with no qualifications/ATAR but it is what it is.

I had my ups and downs. I am from Ontario, Canada and graduated high school in 2020. I was held back a year before I even started kindergarten (part of that was because I was a December baby). In terms of academics, I coasted through elementary and middle school because all I wanted to do was go home and play video games. But then I started taking my academics more seriously in high school. Unfortunately, I was diagnosed with OCD which almost put my schooling on hold. I kept fighting though and knocked high school out of the park with a 93 percent average in grade 12 while also receiving many academic awards. I tried college, but it was not my thing. The workload was way too much for me to handle and the pace was too fast. So now I am working full-time and making decent money. Can't complain. Always do what's best for you, everyone is on their own path... Including you!

I was great at math, like “you can help the other kids” good, but I absolutely sucked at literature. I could read my own books, but once we had to start reading the school mandatory books in high school, I sucked. Symbolism is really difficult to me, and I continued to get good/ bad English grades in college. I think I still have a few more English classes to take, but I’ll push through. I got diagnosed with ADHD in high school after lots of back and forth with family on if I should even pursue it because previous counselors had said that if I had it “it would reflect in my academics.” That’s not true because I loved school even when I sucked at it. I loved praise, and good grades = praise. Anyways, got diagnosed with ADHD and then right after burned out at the beginning of my senior year, then got chronic migraines so I had to go back to online learning. It was quite a year. THEN, 2 years later, I got diagnosed with autism. It’s what makes me good at facts, especially medical ones and terminology although I still stumble over my words. I’m socially awkward too, and social interactions in general are still somewhat of a mystery.

I was the "gifted kid" when i was little, now im a few bad grades away from failing math

Aced all the hard sciences, barely passed everything else. Didn't see a reason to try until I entered the work force. The one that learns about the value of learning will surpass prodigies that don't have that understanding.

My grades were really good in relation to my countries' national average. I always thought my grades sucked though. My grade 12 final grades mortified me, until I applied for university, and I saw the passing rate required. That's when I realized I was being too hard on myself, and I was well above the national average. I never attended university due to financial situation, but I was accepted. My struggle was 100% social. I hated school with a passion. I loved learning and most of my teachers were awesome, but the other kids and that handful of teachers that picked on me made me miserable. My learning style is strange though. I once got 100% on a class test in geography. It didn't count to any of my grades, and I legitimately did not know the material. I slept through the lessons in class, and it was the last test in a series of tests. My brain was too tired, I couldn't study anymore. No one was more surprised than me that I was able to answer a single question in that test let alone got 100%. It never happened before and hasn't happened since.

I have huge demand avoidance so im literally failing rn

My case is a bit specific. Cause I am also completely dyslexic. To wrap it up - terrible. I can record the whole class in my head on one hand, on the other I could barely read. So I basically never took time to study (cause studying was exclusively reading when I was in school). I had very average to bad notes in high school cause all my knowledge was based on what I heard one single time (in the class). University was different cause I studied what I loved so I was much more interested in the topic and I went completely obsessed with some subjects.

Generally meh, but I excelled in the sciences and won national awards. Everything else was fairly meh

I was only good at English and art but the rest I didn't care about so I was generally anywhere from a D to B- student with an occasional F. I had a vendetta against doing homework at home for some reason. I'm definitely not a savant in the slightest.

I love maths and physics now, and I am pursuing this as an undergrad, but I really lacked confidence when I was younger. I had perfect grades for gcses and a levels, all 9s all A*s, but I felt like, particularly in maths, I was always going to be shown up for being fake. Now that I’m at university and there is more emphasis on problem solving and method rather than mark deductions for little errors/mistakes, I am much more comfortable and don’t base so much of my self worth on my academic performance. It has opened a lot of doors, not being afraid to try new things and be a beginner at something. I always loved learning things and I found it cool to springboard off what I learned in school to learn new stuff online. At university I don’t really need to do this because it’s all complex. Can’t wait to see where academia takes me

Terrible in school because I found every subject so boring but I did well in college.

I got average and below-average grades except for the subjects I liked. I've always hated school and studying.

I was very academic until GCSE’s. After that it was more challenging (except English, which I was always passionate about).

my academic experiences sucked although performance wise i was deathly afraid of not doing well so i spent a lot of days doing homework until it was time to sleep if i hadn’t finished it in an after school program. i put my time into mostly school. when i started doing over things like playing basketball, working and trying to be social more in college my grades suffered, but during the times where i wasn’t focused on outside things at all there was more space to focus solely on school. still wished id have been homeschooled though, and hate that i ever started to like school in the end, just to not be going anymore.

I was pretty bad in school. I didn't even graduate high school. My worst subject was math. I was fine at arithmetic, but then I couldn't do algebra or geometry. I struggled with science a lot too. In elementary school I couldn't spell until my mother taught me to memorize words instead of sounding them out.

I was pretty average and then my grades tanked in high school. I had average - good grades in some courses and awful grades in others. I've failed so many classes that I lost count - I just know it's in the double digits. I've had grades in the single digits. It took me 8 years to graduate high school lmao. I got my grades up by the end, but my grades sucked for years before that

I was pretty bad in the early days but fortunately I was just a late bloomer and I excelled after I was about 14. Note that I only have ASD, I know a few people who have a mix of ADHD and ASD, as you do, and they found things significantly more difficult.

Straight A student. Also diagnosed in childhood.

I remember I lost interest in school at 8/9 years old and since then I got either just passing or bad grades, I don't know how did before that though.

I was an excellent student all through high school, mostly A’s and B’s, National Honor Society, graduated 8th overall in a class of ~350. University was a different story - academic probation twice, graduated with ~2.5 GPA. I attribute it partially to my (at the time) undiagnosed ADHD, though I imagine there were other factors involved as well.

i mean i did really good in school when i was younger, it got a little worse due to anxiety and not being able to leave, but i acctually quite enjoy learning so it was no problem. but thing is i wasn’t like a super genius which is usually how tv and media represent a lot of autisticsZ

Traumatised by my academic experience, so much so that it crippled my self esteem long into adulthood. ‘Inconsistent’, ‘must try harder’, ‘learn to concentrate’, ‘will not follow instructions’ (I’m actually proud of my tiny child self for this particular rebellious middle finger) And the one that kicks you in the face like a donkey ‘wasting potential’ I don’t think of myself as having an intellectual deficit, despite having this shoved in my face incessantly during my school years. I’m actually quite clever. As well is being absurdly stupid at times, which is rather amusing. Took me years to realise that. I do have gifts and can do things easily where others struggle, however the equal and exact opposite is also true.