gifted kid burnout things that no one seems to talk about:
- the raw panic of hearing about your potential, positive or negative
- a weird brand of imposter syndrome where you genuinely think you’ve fluked your way through every success and you’re gonna be Exposed as a Fraud
- never having learned how to study and having no idea where to start now that you need to
- reading college level books as a kid but being basically illiterate now
- dismissing your struggles as irrelevant because other people have it harder and i should be smart enough to handle this
- feeling like you’ve lost all control over your life (maybe manifesting into depression, anxiety and disordered eating in a grasp for control over something)
- being unable to decide on a career path because you could have had everything, only to watch those opportunities disappear as you fail to commit
- Peaking early and feeling like an eternal failure ever since
- Remembering what it felt like to be motivated and at the top of your game and you could do ten things at once and cared so much, but now it’s a struggle to keep up with anything
- ~depression~
- ~functional depression~ so you feel like you are faking it
- Holding a mediocre job and feeling unfulfilled but feeling like you aren’t good enough to do anything else
- Being book smart but struggles with social skills and communication with others.
- Feeling like you are the worst person on earth for making a mistake or not knowing something


