I couldn’t resist sharing my elementary school reading stories. I have 2 main ones I like to tell, but first- IMPORTANT CONTEXT (in case u didn’t know): I'm a 2e HSP with ADHD. As it turns out, mysterious happenings in the universe made it so that my reading speed (at peak efficiency, aka when I am in my flow state) is above 1200 words per minute. My baseline seems to be at least 1000 words per minute, unless I’m leisurely reading with subvocalization (which means reading while hearing the words in my head with my inner narrator), but even then it’s still not much lower…? Well, anyway, as you can imagine, this resulted in some interesting situations for me in elementary school. ~ STORY #1: In 5th grade, my class was reading a book on kindles. I received my kindle, and found that the kid before me had left it open at the end of the book. Unfamiliar with the interface, I devised that the most efficient method for getting to the beginning of the book was using the scroll bar at the bottom of the screen. Dozens of pages flashed by in seconds, but I happen to glance down in the direction of my kindle while I'm waiting for the bar to drag all of the way and I accidentally read "two weeks after *name* dies." And bam - just like that, I was internally screaming: 'WHAT ARE THE CHANCES??! It was like 0.05 seconds!!!' xD qvq But apparently, that was enough. I have considered that event tragically but hilariously ironic to this day. I comfort myself by remembering that kids were already giving spoilers by the first week in, so... X') STORY : Back in elementary school, I used to finish reading my assigned reading sections at least 15 whole minutes before anybody else. I used to mask my efficiency because I thought if I got up to get the worksheet at the time I truly finished, I'd be doubted for actually having read the stuff. I knew that, in the case I was called out and expected to prove myself, it would not only be inconvenient for the resulting emotional stress I’d feel from the callout but also for the attention I might get from my classmates. On the topic of my concern about the emotional stress, the prospect of potentially being misunderstood/put under pressure to (or demanded to) express or defend myself on the spot in a moment of emotional stress (which destabilized my thoughts and made it even more difficult for me to communicate my thoughts and my needs effectively) was extremely unappealing to me at the time. So a lot of times, I would try to avoid doing things like that which could result in painful misunderstandings/conflicts that could disrupt my ability to function (for various reasons, misunderstandings were a trauma trigger for me, though I didn’t have the words to describe that then), even though I needed to be able to function under conditions like that in life. I didn't know how at the time or how to get help. On the topic of my concern about getting attention from my classmates - I was concerned that if my capacities were exposed to them, I’d have a reputation of being “accelerated” or “smart,” and I didn’t want the social repercussions and social pressure and expectations of that at the time (for context, I had an extremely unhealthy inner critic at the time and had already internalized very high standards and would experience intense anxiety under that kind of stress. Oh, reminds me. Wait, I’ll put the tangent at the bottom so it doesn’t interrupt the flow of the story. You can check it out if you’re interested. Anyway, back to the story…). I was also pretty reserved at the time, and though I could navigate social scenarios rather easily, I was a social floater who was already having a difficult enough time connecting with people in the group settings we had at school. I preferred staying under the radar and masking to make social navigation easier for me (at least on the surface level). So every class, I used to wait until right before my classmate consistently finished their chapters to get up and grab the classwork paper before they did. I was able to predict exactly when they’d finish and would get up just a minute before they did. I eventually stopped masking in that class, though. It got too boring waiting around for people to finish, so I just started doing my own thing. Nobody seemed to notice, but at that point, many of us were reading on our own time outside of the classroom. Though I knew I could (and very much wanted to) probably read and dissect the whole book within the time frame they expected us to use to read not even a fourth of it in a class or two, I held myself back because I figured I'd be bored out of my mind and have nothing to do in class if I let myself keep getting ahead. Somehow, it didn't occur to me or seem possible to me that they might offer me some extra work or let me learn at a more accelerated pace. The thing that makes me a little sad in retrospect is that I feel I missed a lot of opportunities to learn at a pace more tailored for me personally.
TANGENT TIME: If you struggle with unhealthy self-criticism and/or have a strained relationship with yourself, this might be of particular interest to you, but anyone can look into this if they want to. To anyone curious how I self-reprogrammed my toxic inner critic to be healthier in a single one hour sitting, here’s the link to the 4 stream-of-consciousness journals I did which show my raw thoughts, how I identified where and how my critic was behaving toxically, and how I first implemented a pattern of correcting its bs in a way that drastically shifted the way I think about myself and helped me replace the self-hate I used to experience with self-compassion: (Before clicking this, the process for how I did it is explained below, if you're interested) https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/1273802146/ ~ NOTE: I am no professional, and my approach is not necessarily a cure-for-all, but it worked for me and - who knows - you might find something helpful in it. But remember - progress isn’t linear, and the pacing/trajectory of your growth might not look the same for you. The methods I use might not work as well for you, depending on how you operate individually. But, contrary to what I once believed, that doesn’t mean you can’t still find your own ways and resources to help you heal and experience healthy growth. ~ Here’s the context for the reprogramming, if you’re curious: (NOTE: The content in the link above is NOT very linguistically dense - aka it doesn't have as many big complicated words and things - and only has the stream of consciousness exercises and their time frames. But the segment below, which describes the approach I took IN the link above, IS pretty linguistically dense (it might have vocab u are unfamiliar with), I’ll warn you. If you are just here for the stories, you can just skip it if you’re not interested). Here's the context for my approach and how I did it: Last September, fueled by my own desire and interest in reprogramming my mind and improving my mental health, I effectively reprogrammed my inner critic to stop giving me toxic/unconstructive commentary over the course of 4 consecutive self-directed stream of consciousness exercises in 1 hour (1st one was to identify where and how the critic manifested; 2nd was to question it as it manifested and drop self-imposed constraints; 3rd was to bypass it by accepting the unfiltered and shifting my focus intentionally; 4th was to lean into my flow state and let myself experience imagination and joy while reframing/redirecting my critic to give myself room for cognitive growth and exploration). My brain subconsciously implemented the approaches I took in those exercises immediately after that one sitting and has been - to my awareness - free of the most prominent counterproductive inner critic-related issues I had been having ever since. Alright, tangent over! Oh, hi. ^^ Do you like mozzarella sticks? 'o' That was the first spontaneous question to pop into my mind. I can usually trace the most likely sources of my lines of thinking, but this one has me stumped, lol. okay peace out peeps x > I do like mozzarella sticks btw lol
