Gingerpithicus Frisii

I grew up thinking I was stupid. 

Though my dad never actually said it out loud, my stupidity was definitely confirmed regularly. It was the message I received. He tried to teach me math, but it just didn’t take, and the frustration he showed told me everything I needed to know about math. It was dangerous. It confirmed that I was stupid. It was shame-loaded to the hilt. He tried to teach me budgeting in my teens, but the result was the same, only with even more shame. 

My mom, on the other hand, said “you stupid kids” all the time, and that message was absorbed in the same way. I can’t believe, to this day, that she would say such a thing out loud. I actually remember pushing back once, saying something like “it hurt to hear you say that.” I don’t remember what she said in response, if anything.

Even though I pointed it out, it didn’t stop. Which taught me a second lesson, maybe worse than the first: you can see the truth clearly, name it out loud, and nothing changes. You have no say in what happens to you. You are ineffectual. You don’t matter. 

The other source of the “stupid” message was from school itself. I was placed in the “resource room” in elementary school, I had undiagnosed ADHD, and I graduated (barely) from high school with a 1.95 GPA. There was only one teacher I remember who was genuinely invested in my ability to learn- Mrs. DeRuiter (who gave me my first kiwi, by the way). To this day, I remember her for having patience with my limits and my differences. I remember that she sat me down in a back room during recess, sharing her kiwi with me (my first- it tasted like bananas) and helped me through some schoolwork. She showed me, when I had a hard time believing it, that I mattered and that I might not be as stupid as I was led to believe. She might have been the only teacher in my childhood who seemed to be genuinely invested. The one who showed me that I mattered, when the system, my parents, and the “resource room” were all telling me the opposite. One teacher, one simple moment that she probably doesn’t even remember. That’s all it took to plant a different seed.

When the ADHD was eventually diagnosed, it was left untreated. I think my parents might’ve thought they didn’t want me to feel different, but hell, that message was firmly entrenched already. 

If only I could’ve communicated what I really needed when it came to my ability (or inability) to learn: that it needed to be personal. Interesting to me in some way. Take a math problem, make it about Star Wars, and there you go. If someone could’ve related long division to Chewbacca, I would’ve been set. If only someone had told me that Han and Leia struggled with grammar, too. 

So much was communicated, in so many ways, is what I’m saying. I was stupid, and there was nothing I could do about it. Full stop. It never occurred to me to challenge that message. The end, right?

I didn’t start to read for enjoyment until my first go at college. I found a lot of entertainment and escapism in Star Trek novels- it was like watching a really long movie, and I loved those cheap-ass things. I devoured them. I became a regular at the library. I started to read in order to fall asleep- my issues with insomnia having started in my junior year of high school. 

The first time I went to college in 1995, it was because it was expected of me. I expected it of me. I thought I could start over and maybe finally become successful at something. But I was a music major who couldn’t pass music theory- there was too much math involved. It wasn’t a complete loss, though- I got to take part in a high-level choir and an honors choir. I came into my own singing voice more deeply, more personally. I did succeed at some things, after all, I suppose. I made a lot of friends, too, and that wasn’t nothing- especially for someone who never really had had friends. Part of the problem, though, was that I was a little too social. I started hanging out with my friends instead of studying, which I had almost completely ignored. I failed that semester. 

So I worked for a while. No, it was more like drifting in quiet failure. woodworking, a mall Santa gig, a skate guard, a lifeguard- I did a variety of things, just kind of floating from one thing to the next. 

The next time I tried college, I decided to do something practical. So I became a communications major. Though I was in choir again and I had discovered a small talent for grammar, I failed that semester, too. 

After that, I basically gave up. 

At Christmas of 2005, at my parents’ house in Iowa, my dad brought out what he had of the family history. It was a scrap of paper with maybe twelve names on it. I was both fascinated by and unsatisfied with those twelve names- that wasn’t nearly good enough for me. The advent of online genealogy had arrived recently, so I went at it- hard. By the end of a couple of years, I had added nearly 1700 names to the family history. After learning about my own family, I researched Dutch history. After history came archaeology and anthropology. Then genetics, biology, and chemistry. After that, physics, astronomy, and cosmology. I went all the way back to the Big Bang.

To be clear, I wasn’t an expert in these fields at that time; they were more of a curiosity, and only as they related to my own origins. But my point is this: I began to really learn. To have some confidence in my own intelligence. I was learning that I wasn’t stupid after all. 

So I decided to dip my toes in the water at my local community college, majoring in history. As part of the admissions process, I had to take some placement tests. The test in English composition was a miserable failure because the rudimentary AI at the time was unable to recognize my paper’s structure as “viable”. So I had to take remedial English. English 97, I think it was called. And, no surprises, I also had to take remedial math before I could even take algebra.

I deeply enjoyed my history class, which was no real surprise. My English class, however, was a very welcome surprise. I entered the class thinking I had a lot to learn about composition. My professor, Mrs. Darland, seemed floored that I was placed in her class. She read my writing and told me in no uncertain terms that I didn’t belong there- the first time it was nice to hear that I didn’t belong. It was so nice to be recognized. She wasn’t offering encouragement. She was genuinely confused by the gap between where I’d been put and what I was producing. That confusion was the first honest signal from an educational system that had spent decades sending me the wrong one. It felt gratifying. Surprising. Validating. I also passed my math classes, with some pretty heavy-duty help.
The biggest surprise, however, was my getting on the dean’s list. In my first semester. When I was just dipping my toes in the water. 

My confidence started to rise. 

After a few years of part-time schooling, I graduated with my first degree- an AA. With that AA, I was able to transfer to Grand Valley State University, where I continued to major in history, minor in anthropology and succeed. After a frustrating experience with a history professor, I went to one of my anthropology professors, who looked at my transcript and told me I could switch majors with almost no additional effort. So I became an anthropology major and dropped history altogether. And I continued to succeed again. No, not succeed. Thrive. 

I loved my classes. All of them. I won the Walton Boston Koch Scholarship. I was inducted into the Lambda Alpha National Anthropology Honor Society. I went on a bioarchaeological dig in a cave in Ukraine. And I graduated with a 3.5 GPA. Just…wow.

This next part is going to seem like a brag, and to be honest, it kind of is. I’m not going to humblebrag, I’m not going to hedge. I’m just going to tell you what it’s like now, and honestly, to celebrate my brain a little. Sue me, I’m proud of myself. 

I’m starting grad school for a master’s in marriage and family therapy- today. 

I’ve got the evidence now. I’m pretty sure I’m smart enough. I’ve noticed that when something makes me feel stupid now – taxes, say – I can catch it: “This is my dad’s voice, not reality. This isn’t hard because I’m not smart. It’s hard because nobody taught me, and I can learn it.”

That’s where the healing is now- on the shelves of my library. I read voraciously on so many subjects, and I sometimes can’t believe I have an honest-to-god library. I’ve read twenty-eight books in three months. If you were to look at my shelves, you’d see subjects like bible history, attachment theory, the psychology and science of fear, sexuality and gender, anxiety and depression, and platonic and romantic relationships. Simon Sinek sits next to Najwa Zebian. Winston Churchill lies atop Julia Child. I love my library. So much. When I see my favorite books (Project Hail Mary, Devil in the White City), I want to fall into them all over again. When I look at those shelves, I think about how much I love learning and reading now. The learning I do is deeply personal. It feeds my soul (if I have one, that is- reading about that, too). 

Dusty smart.