(17, CA, USA) Carly - They Promised I Was Gifted

In 3rd grade, they told me I was gifted. They said my brain worked differently than the other kids, that I learned and comprehended information at an accelerated rate. They promised I was gifted. They swore I was talented, blessed with an innate superiority in the hierarchy of academics. In a class of thirty, I was special. Yet once I reached high school, I could sense that things had changed. I was no longer one in thirty, I was one of thirty. I was surrounded by kids who had been promised their whole lives that they were gifted. They were promised that they were the best of the best, exhibiting a level of academic prowess that none of their peers could reach. I watched as kids who were promised they were special realize that they were now surrounded by a group of equals. With a brain fueled by academic validation, this shift slowly but surely began to break me down. I spent hours over assignments, rereading, re-editing, and revising invisible mistakes in search of perfection. I was drowning in work, and school began to creep its way into every corner of my life. I learned to fear the “submit” button, hovering over it but refusing to click it due to an overwhelming dread that I might have forgotten something. Once the assignment was turned in, that dread was nowhere near alleviated; I spent countless hours ruminating on each and every detail of every assignment wondering what I could have done wrong. I had lost my confidence. I was determined to be gifted. They promised I was gifted. The expectations were overbearingly high, yet I continued to place them on myself. I decided that I must bear the weight of the world on my shoulders and that I was not allowed to crumble. Yet, I did. I lost the enjoyment of learning, turned away from the things I truly took pleasure in. My self-worth was defined by letters and numbers, and my self-confidence did not exist. The craving for academic validation had corrupted me. It was the devil on my shoulder, promising me that the unbearable pressure was well worth it for the prize of validation. Misguided by the devil’s red pen, I lamented each mistake I made and fueled my obsession with perfection. I succumbed to my own ambition; I had become my own worst enemy. With this realization, I pushed the devil off my shoulder. I learned to separate perfection and success. I realized that I could admire my peers rather than envy them. I began to understand that academic validation was an addiction, a debilitating curse that had woven itself into every thread of my life. To be gifted is not to be perfect. To be gifted is to work hard, to make mistakes and learn from them, to be confident in oneself. I am gifted.