I began reading at 2; at 5, when I entered kindergarten, the school called in someone to test me. According to the paperwork I received later, I was tested at every grade level until Grade 12, when I failed. My parents were advised to skip me ahead until at least fifth grade, but they refused because of my sister’s animosity toward me; she was in the first grade and having her younger sister be years ahead would be a catastrophe, in their opinion. So I remained in kindergarten.
The school didn’t have a gifted program, but they bought some materials, flash cards and the like, and I spent a few hours a day working alone with them while the rest of the class did their work. In first through third grades, the classes were divided into reading groups at their levels, the “slow” group needed a lot of help; the average group and the advanced group. In first grade I was put in charge of the average group. I certainly was not mature enough to supervise eight or ten of my fellow 6-year-olds, and I grew frustrated and snappy at them, which didn’t make me any friends. I didn’t realize at the time how unfair it was; I just wanted to read my own books, not help other kids sound out words.
I also didn’t realize that my parents had been told not to make me finish anything I didn’t feel like finishing. It’s hard to believe, but I have it in writing, and it started me on a lack of initiative that I feel to this day. My mother died when I was in second grade, and my sister and I fought constantly. All I wanted was to be left alone to read, my sister wanted attention, and my father wanted to be somewhere else without two demanding little girls. He was so profoundly depressed that he literally couldn’t make decisions about what to buy at the grocery store, so I started doing that.
When I got to fourth grade they had added a G&T program, so I had some “competition,” and some peers. But I never had anyone to inquire if I’d done my homework, what time I’d gone to bed, how my classes were, if I liked my teachers. I got straight A’s with little effort and no interest in anything at all. Go to school, come home, cook dinner, do laundry, watch TV, read, fight with sister, listen to sister fight with father, go to bed.
When I found out my fellow graduates had actually gone to look at colleges they were thinking about attending, I was astonished. You mean their families had gone with them to visit various colleges to help them decide which one was the best fit for them? And that they cared enough to ask the student’s opinion? My father told me where I was going based on location. The next-nearest college was too far away; “something might happen.” Never mind that I was accepted at Brown and Smith and Penn. I’m living at home and commuting, because paranoia trumps all.
When I was 21 I got a letter from the Board of Education telling me I needed to pick up my records or they would be destroyed. It was the results of my testing.
I can’t blame my mother for dying, but I’ve tried. I can’t blame my father for being depressed, but I can be angry that he didn’t get help. I can be glad I’m recovering from PTSD from living with a sister who had both borderline personality disorder (see current threads) AND bipolar disorder AND was an alcoholic, and glad that though I am not rich and famous and successful, and don’t live up to my fabulous potential, I am ALL RIGHT and my husband thinks so too.
But WHAT THE FUCK was that about, “Don’t make her finish anything she doesn’t feel like finishing?” THAT woman I want to go back in time and kick in the ass. And I have her name, too.
