test results: i've been a rabbit all along 🐇

turns out i scored as having adhd four years ago but my psychologist didn't feel it was worth investigating further

I was assigned female at birth. People mostly perceive me as a Black woman.

I’m not supposed to say I’m smart. I’m not supposed to know I’m smart. I’m supposed to pretend I’m stupid, so that the cis men around me don’t feel intimidated and whatever intelligence I show is of course not comparable to the cis men in the room.

My whole childhood I felt very alienated from my peers because of my good grades. People assume that it’s amazing to be born with academic intelligence. To me, it felt more like a curse. I remember vividly hiding my school report in my backpack. Quick. Quick. Before they find out. Please, teacher, don’t say mine out aloud. I didn’t want others to compare themselves to me. I didn’t want anyone to feel bad about themselves. I made it my mission to become encouraging. To become the biggest cheerleader of anyone who has ever been called stupid. I was too smart to believe that stupidity is a thing. I was smart enough to know that people come with their very own intelligence.

On my very first day of school, I begged for homework. I was such a nerd. I still am. The more I lean into my nerdiness, the happier I tend to be. Homework to me was fun, until it wasn’t. I envied my brother in kindergarten for having homework, while I was supposed to play with dolls and fill out coloring books. Numbers and letters fascinated me. I wanted to calculate and read. I wanted to do what the adults did.

I was a weird teen. I didn’t want to play that much. I just wanted to debate philosphy, history, politics and economics with the mostly male friends of my father who came to visit us, but I was banned to the kitchen were I was told to cook and clean.

My favorite friends at school were usually my teachers. I almost always had a teacher who mentored me. My maths teacher Mr. Einstein, who wasn’t actually called Einstein, but just looked like Einstein according to my peers, was like an anchor to me. I had just come back from spending a year in Nigeria where I had skipped a class to be in the same school as my brother and ended up still being the best at the final exams. Arrogant. Arrogant. Arrogant. I know. It sounds so arrogant to write about.

Einstein had a daugther who was a nurse in Nigeria, so we bonded. I would spend my breaks in the libary. I wanted to go deeper on what we discussed in class. I had so many questions. I always had so many questions. I would have to control myself in class not to ask all of them and annoy my classmates with raising my hand so fast.

The thing I would tell my younger siblings the most when I would mentor them is that good grades don’t actually matter for success and fufillment in life. Grades are not about what we value, but what others do. It’s an outside metrics. A good grade with one teacher could be a bad one with the next. Grades are never objective. I still live by that. When I have the choice between addititional free time with my loved ones and for my creativity vs. getting a higher grade, I choose time consistently.

I once met a classmate again in the metro (we used to be friends, but grew apart after our graduation from highschool) and she said to me: “You were always the star of our class. No one could outshine you.” Oh, how embarrassing. Shame. Shame. Shame. To this day, I struggle to feel proud of my intelligence and perceived excellence. All I wanted to say (and did say to her) was: “You were all so amazing too. In your own ways. You all have skills I admire about you too.” Yes, it’s very difficult for me to receive any compliments, but I really mean it. I love people and non-people so deeply. I even love those I hate. I cannot help but love everyone. It’s slightly annoying.

There’s a test for ADHD in adults that’s called HASE in German, which is an abbreviation of the full name, but it also means rabbit. I tested positive for ADHD four years ago and back then I didn’t even really know much about ADHD. I didn’t suspect it. Maybe that’s why I didn’t really pay attention. Ahhhh, so ADHD of me. But the psychologist also didn’t mention ADHD in the summary and also didn’t discuss the result of ADHD with me!!! At least, as far as I can remember. Ahhhhh!!! Do I not look ADHD enough? All that we focused on was Emotional Instability Personality “Disorder” (aka. Borderline), which is more often diagnosed in women than men, and reactive depression. I scored 100% on empathy back then. I’m honestly a bit shocked. Who scores 100% on empathy? Who, me? Wow. That’s so accurate though. I have so much empathy. I definitely have hyperempathy. The reason I went to pick up these test results and have a closer look at them again after four years is because I’m in the process of getting an autism diagnosis. My emotional control and extraversion were really low, which to me point towards my autistic tendencies. Also, that I have a high IQ score are signs to me of my neurodivergent brain, but 92% in social competence, really? My high empathy and social skills were also the reason my mom used to dismiss me when I suggested that I could be autistic. Does it really matter what these test results say anyways? I kind of have accepted that I am autistic already, with some ADHD tendencies, but only in the last two years. Mostly since October 7, 2023. That’s when it became more evident to me than ever that my brain is wired differently than most people. What do you mean, you can still go on about your life while there are genocides that are being denied and people mass murdered before our eyes? WHAT DO YOU MEAN??? I’ve set a lot of boundaries around activism for my immune system to recover from the shock. To me, it was/is disabling to witness, hard to leave my bed, work or study. For almost a year, I barely did. Without the support of my family and autistic friends, I don’t think I could have made it to where I am now. Still hurting, but healing too. 🐇

I struggle in life because I’m smart. I carry a lot of shame because I’m smart. I feel automatically like an arrogant person because I’m smart. As if that’s just part of my DNA. As if that comes with the package. I struggle in relationships because I’m smart. People will compliment and then backstab me. They will tell others that I’m a horrible person, while telling me: “I envy you so much.” It’s always greener on the other side, but trust me, academic intelligence comes with its own burdens. It sucks to have been called a genius from a young age and then not live up to the expectations people have of me. It sucks that people always expected me to be successful in an academic way and that the creative pursuits that actually interested me were not the path anyone truly envisioned for me. I had to fight for them and fail my way forward. I’m still failing. I still don’t know what I’m doing, but at least, I try.

To my younger self, I would love to say:

You’re smart. It’s just a fact. Do whatever you want with that. Be lazy in your smartness. Be unemployed in your smartness. Be broke in your smartness. Be heartbroken in your smartness. Be silly in your smartness. Write essays with grammatical errors and spelling mistakes in your smartness. Don’t feel pressured to use the most fancy words in your smartness. Don’t feel pressured to be school-smart in your smartness. Be street-smart, if you want to. You already are anyways. You’re body-smart, rebellious-smart, kind-smart, empathy-smart and social justice-smart. You’re not a monster for knowing you’re smart. It’s just a fact. Say it. Dare yourself to say it aloud. You’re not inherently arrogant. Quite the opposite. I have yet to meet a more humble person than you. You’re highly compassionate. You’re a gift. Gift means poison in German, so yes, you’re poisonous to German systems of oppression with all your queer excellence. I love you the way you are. I love you even more, when you try at something you’re not excellent at. The smartest thing about you is your willingness to make mistakes. Don’t change, just to be loved. Don’t try to fit in. Your best friends are the ones that see you in your pain and brilliance. That see you as a whole and complex person. Multidimensional.

I love you.

Mo nife re.

Ich hab dich lieb.

Je t’aime.

Te quiero.

я тебя люблю.

Ik hou van jou.

Eu te amo.

You actually speak all of the above languages. How cool of you. Don’t hide what you love most. Be proud that you’re a little bit extra. Which language code are you breaking next?

What would you like to say to your younger selves? Feel free to leave comments. ❤

Love,

Imọlẹ

PS: Please do consider becoming a paid subscriber. It means a lot. 🐇

PPS: If you can, use Ecosia, instead of Google. I do too. For the Congo! ❣