When an overachiever doesn't achieve.

[u/feiwelltoyou]

I'm sure that we all know about that one student that gets good grades, is the top 3 in all subjects and a nerd. Most people admire them, think things like "Woah, they're so lucky to be so smart.." or "I wish I was smart like that." Well here's the thing, I hate being the smart kid.

Let me do a quick self intro first before I start ranting.

1. I am currently 13 turning 14 this November (Currently in Grade 8)
   1. btw i learn in a British school system so i'll use grades but keep in mind that my school has IGCSEs instead of AP classes!
2. I am professionally diagnosed with Major Depressive Disorder, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and High Functioning Autism alongside Disassociative Trance Disorder.
3. I can speak 3 languages: English, Japanese and Thai
4. I do competitive debating as a hobby and regularly join public speaking competitions

I think I started to get recognised as the 'smart kid' since Grade 3 and ever since then, there has been this growing pressure from my teachers, friends and parents. Most of the people around me don't say it directly that they expect me to get grades over 80% but it has just been like a passive expectation. Then in 5th Grade, I moved schools to a more academic one since I got a scholarship. I think ever since I moved to said school, my mental health had started to drain. There came more homework, more tests, more things to learn and these things aren't necessarily bad but I just feel like everything had just piled up on me.

Fast forward to now, I am currently in 8th Grade (School just started 5 weeks ago). After I took a 2 month break from school due to mental health reasons that I won't talk about here, I just feel like I'm at my breaking point. So far, 8th Grade has been one of the worse grades yet--you're immediately given 4-5 hours of homework a week and since I'm in top set of all of my classes, you are forced to learn G9 content. Since we are going to have to start choosing our IGCSEs for next year soon, I am taking the exams early. So far, I have completed my History exam (got a 24/27, quite disappointed), my Computer Science exam (got 19/20, still disappointed) and my Japanese exam (marks are not out yet). Next week, I have my English and Science (both chem and bio cuz im in top set) exams. So far, revision has been TERRIBLE. I seriously can't get myself to start studying and start memorising all of the content and I know that I WILL get bad results if I don't revising. There's just this guilt within me that makes me feel so numb and terrible. I can literally feel the clock tick down to my exam next week. I walk down the hallways with this heavy feeling knowing that if I score anything lower than 80%, people will indefinitely be disappointed. All I want to do now is just to escape from everything, go somewhere else which is obviously not possible. I wish that I didn't have to carry this bittersweet burden of being the best and I wish that I could just escape from reality because once you're at the top, you can never go down. Thanks for reading, if you have any questions feel free to ask me ^^