My mother was a teacher. She was also highly invested in other people’s perceptions of her through their experiences of her children. This is pretty common among parents of people who grow up with CPTSD.
Since she was so heavily invested in other people’s perceptions of her through their experiences of her children, she had us, or at least me, tested for intelligence. I think, if I remember correctly, she administered an intelligence test to me as part of some educational thing she was participating in, and then she also had me independently tested, perhaps to validate the results she got with the test she administered.
None of that is really important, except as it relates to how I was treated afterward.
As I recall, my score was above average. Average is ok. Average is average. Average means you’re most like every white, middle-class kid with good educational opportunities (because it’s important to acknowledge that intelligence tests are pretty fucking racist). Average doesn’t mean you’re a good or bad person, and below average or average doesn’t mean you objectively are unworthy.
Average was not ok with my mother, so she was thrilled that I was above average. How much above average, I don’t remember, and it doesn’t really matter, but I was constantly told from that day forward how smart I was and how much I was not living up to my potential.
I don’t remember how old I was when all this testing took place, but I think it was somewhere between 3rd and 5th grades. This was after our father had taken off and we had been living with our mother alone for some time.
It has been shown by at least one study (I don’t have the citation at hand, right now, but if I ever remember to look it up, I’ll update this post) that it is harmful to tell kids they’re smart (or stupid), especially on an ongoing basis. Apparently, my mother never heard this. I was told repeatedly how smart I was and that I was a disappointment because my grades did not reflect my supposed intelligence.
The short-term effect of this was, of course, that I felt guilty about not doing well enough.
Was I told how I could improve? Sure, in vague terms.
“Work harder.”
“Don’t be an embarrassment.”
“Get better grades.”
Was I ever given any functional advice on how to achieve this? Excuse me while I roll on the floor, laughing my ass off, and then catch my breath.
So, what was the long-term effect of this? Well, I never learned how to study or how to break things down into smaller components. I never learned real time management skills. Instead, my life consisted of procrastination followed by sprints to finish before a deadline.
Now, I realize that this is the way many, many people in the world manage their time and projects, but I hate that this is what I do with a passion. I now know that a lot of my procrastination was probably not, in fact, procrastination, but rather a stress response, but I was raised to think procrastination was a sin and that I was a bad person because I procrastinated.
Perhaps not all of my procrastination was a stress response induced by living with a psychological terrorist, but a large portion of it probably was, and I learned very well how to cope by procrastinating. I also was never really given the tools to avoid procrastination.
I did take part in an awesome MOOC several years ago, called Learning How to Learn. It’s available for free on Coursera (I have no affiliation, other than as a satisfied consumer of that course material). In that course, I learned all sorts of time- and study-management tools, and learned for the first time that it ain’t talent what makes us smart, but our ability to consistently practice.
I took that course what seems like (and may be) years ago, but I have never had much of an opportunity to put it into practice. Now, however, I am going to try to apply what I learned in that course to my everyday work. With those tools, and with the knowledge about my CPTSD, and with the knowledge that I need to learn to take breaks, especially when I’m extremely stressed, anxious, and dysregulated, maybe I can eventually be that organized person who doesn’t have to wait until the deadline is nigh to begin working on a project.
The sad thing about this, though, is that although I have several degrees and have worked in several different fields, I still feel like a failure because I can’t seem to find a way to financially support myself, I’m overweight, and I procrastinate a lot, even on things I want to do, and I have what seems to be an insurmountable problem with clutter and not being able to get my brain to cooperate with putting shit away after I use it.
Wish me luck.