{an 18 year old’s experience with “gifted kid burnout.”}
The term “gifted kid burnout” has been trending on TikTok for a while now, and I, like many high school and early-college-age students, can relate. The story is the same for all of us: we grow up in a public school that notices what appear to be easily-achieved A’s and high standardized test scores. Once a teacher or two picks up on our academic excellence on paper, we are sent to the guidance office to “just talk to” a specialist that will take us through IQ tests, ranging anywhere from simply reading an article as if we are reading it to a large crowd of people or arranging blocks in as many formations as we can in sixty seconds. After a few weeks, our parents receive a call. “We made it in!” Excitement explodes, I’m special, I’m intelligent, I’m going places in life. We hang out in a different classroom a few times a week. We create projects based around our interests. We read articles again, this time actually in front of an audience. We spend junior high in our own world of field trips and excused absences.
And then high school hits, and ohmygodicantdothis ohmygodididnttakenotes ohmygodihavenoideawhatweredoinginclassanymore.
Oh my god, I don’t know how to study.
Freshman year was a wake up call for the majority of us. While our peers were developing their routines and using the same practiced study habits from middle school, we were finding out that high school classes weren’t a joke. That we actually had to put effort in to learn now. That our field trip days were over, and now we had to study or else we’d very likely fail.
And we did fail. The first few tests that year were AWFUL.
Failure was something I had no experience with up until high school. And when I got a taste of it, I was appalled. Because I wasn’t the kind of kid that should be failing; I was told this for years of my life. I was ahead. I was just smarter. I picked up on things easier.
Failure isn’t an easy lesson to learn at fifteen. Most of my peers had mastered it and learned from it. And I was just introduced to it.
My grades eventually got back on track. I learned to study. I learned to ask for extensions and help even, when needed (though this did hurt my ego a little). I learned a lot of life lessons through high school that were needed, even though they were a little painful.
And though I did grow out of the feeling of being completely untouchable, a new feeling took its spot almost immediately: fear.
I became terrified of that helpless feeling again. Terrified of failure.
I’m still working through feeling, and that is why I wanted to share it with you guys. Because it’s directly affecting my audience – on here, on TikTok, on instagram. Because I have such an abundance of ideas that I am dying to pursue, yet am terrified to complete. Because completing these projects means releasing them to the world. And with that comes judgemental eyes. And with that comes failure. Failure to achieve what I’ve been dying to achieve since I was a little girl. Failure to influence, failure to create likable, “acceptable” art.
So while people on TikTok make fun of us – believe me, we’re making fun of ourselves too – we need to be working through this fear of failure. The fear of not living up to standards that were placed on us by a system that is flawed and exclusive. Because it’s especially hard on artists; my creativity drains as soon as the idea of a disappointed audience creeps its way into my mind. And that’s the exact opposite of what our creative outlets should look like. Instead, we need to continue to create positive outlets and platforms, where artists can create freely, because that’s exactly how art should be. There are no restraints to where this world can take those who were once considered “gifted.” You still totally are, even if it doesn’t feel like it anymore.
This experience is just one of the many reasons why I focus so heavily on identity. When it’s not firmly rooted in what is important, it is easily uprooted by the perceptions of those around you – even if they are the “important people,” the ones at school and work. Don’t let the fear of failure hold you back from what you were put on this earth to do – I surprise myself every single time, and I promise you will too.