My Struggles

At my school, being smart isn’t special, but it’s expected. Words like “gifted” and “accelerated” get thrown around so often that they start to lose meaning. Someone is always getting into national competitions, winning math medals, or playing varsity sports while keeping straight A’s.

From the outside, it’s impressive. From the inside, it’s exhausting.

Here, greatness isn’t a dream since it’s a baseline. And sometimes, that expectation feels like a weight pressing down, even if no one’s technically telling you to feel it.

Then there was me.

I was “good.” Advanced math? Check. But it never felt like enough.

Around kids building robots and acing standardized tests, my top 10% percent score felt invisible. I wasn't the fastest runner or the highest scorer. I didn’t have the spotlight moment.

I had psychology books, annotated novels, and a Google Doc full of half-finished short stories. I got excited about how the human brain processes emotion. I reread fiction for fun and cried over characters no one else had heard of. And I knew the difference between a simile and a metaphor in second grade which was cool to me, but didn’t earn applause like coding in three languages did.

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Burnout Behind the Scenes

There were times I truly believed I was too little not literally, but emotionally, intellectually. I wasn’t doing enough. So I started chasing perfection.

That’s when burnout crept in.

I’d rewrite essays three times. Feel guilty for taking breaks. Obsess over grades.

Beat myself up for a 98. My brain never rested because I believed rest made me lazy. I thought if I just pushed a little harder, maybe then I’d finally stand out.

But perfection is a moving target and burnout is what happens when you try to hit it every single time.

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Math

In a school that celebrates mathletes and science fair winners, kids who think deeply, love quietly, and feel everything don’t always get noticed.

I wasn't underperforming but I was just underrecognized since I wasn't a math person.

And honestly? That hurts more than people realize.

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What I Learned

Eventually, something clicked. Maybe I wasn’t supposed to chase what everyone else was chasing.

Maybe the fact that I was quiet, thoughtful, and loved things that didn’t come with medals didn’t make me less. Maybe it just made me me.

So I started celebrating the wins no one else could see.

• When a book changed the way I looked at the world.
• When a teacher left a kind note on my essay.
• When I connected a psychological theory to a real feeling I had.

I started letting those moments matter.

The pressure hasn’t disappeared. I still feel it especially when someone casually says they’re taking high school classes and doing better than me. But I remind myself that worth isn’t a competition. Brilliance doesn’t only exist in numbers or trophies.

Sometimes, it lives in how you see the world. How you tell a story. How much you care.

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A Quiet Kind of Strength

I may not be the loudest in the room. Or the fastest. Or the most awarded.

But I’m proud of the way I’m learning to be proud of me. And I don’t need an award to prove it.