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am reminded that my teachers explicitly tried to scare me into thinking that if I didn't meet some arbitrary test criteria at 13, I might have to not only drop out of the gifted program in SG, but that i might have to drop out of school entirely, which would be a great shame
my parents were roped in on this, and this horrified them, and so at 13 i felt like I was a tarnished trophy child and i was going to be thrown into the dump. I was actively suicidal during this time but I was determined to take revenge instead by living my best life
they made it seem like even repeating a year would be a great shame, which, in retrospect, who gives a shit???? absolutely bonkers. it was psychological and emotional abuse, like ~8 adults acted in concert to make this happen and there wasn't a single dissenting voice among them
fuck every single one of them, I love my life and I continue to care more about my education than any of them did. i'm sure they had their own personal demons and pressures and whatever but I would never allow a group of adults to psychologically torment a child like that
my parents who are now gentle and mild-mannered frail old sweethearts actually physically beat me about this several times, (thinking it would help?? idk) but honestly the physical pain was trivial compared to the psychological terror