You Think I’m Stupid
You’ve made up your mind about me, and there’s nothing I can do to change that. It makes me crazy sometimes. You were right about my resentment towards you, I forgot it was even there.
I know you love me, and I know how much you do, but I still feel like I’ll never be good enough. I don’t know if maybe you love be because you felt sorry for me, maybe you felt the need to "rescue" me. That and you thought I was pretty.
Now I’m the mother of your son, surely that’s more reason to love me…
But you think I’m stupid. I wish you know how much that eats me every day. I don’t know how to talk to you about it. You’ll tell me it’s in the past. I suppose it is. But the past can certainly follow you around.
What kills me is… what makes you think you’re an expert? And the more time passes, the more I realize just how little of an expert you really are. How can you judge someone else’s intelligence? I don’t care how smart you know you are, it doesn’t matter. And I know you said that you know you’re not educated on the subject. But you also said that you worked with lots of ADD kids, you yourself have ADD, and the way I act is way worse than all the kids you worked with, so that can’t be the only thing wrong with me.
You’re right, a lot of things line up with FAE. But isn’t it possible that I have other things that could just coincide with it? You read, just the same as I did, that you can have FAE and still have a normal, possibly even a high, IQ score. But that doesn’t seem to make a difference. You still think I’m below average intelligence.
All my life, people have been telling me they think I’m smart. No one has ever said otherwise. Maybe a couple jerks in grade 7/8. But that’s all. Teachers are almost always impressed with me, and always seem confused when I score poorly on tests, and my grades were always low.
My mom had to fight for me to get extra help. Outwardly, I don’t appear to need extra help. None of the teachers seemed to think I needed it. It was only after the help was gone that I would struggle. I never really used the extra help. Just the extra time. For tests… and I enjoyed the quiet rooms with no distractions, pressure from other kids, or stress. Some time to re-group, think, and focus on what was important.
Because, I know it’s hard for you to believe, but there are kids in the special education system that are smart. Maybe I’m not good at math… maybe I do have a learning disability – one that’s a little more than ADD. But that doesn’t make me not smart. How dare you tell me otherwise?
And – my last job. You’re convinced I got the position because of my physical appearance. That, and the fact that I perhaps reminded my boss of an employee he had for 20 years.
Well, let me tell you something. I got help from my boss because I was thrown into the department completely blind. Literally. You know that already. I had a friend to remind me of things I would forget, yes that is also true. But I was doing it. I ran that department.
Now you will ask, as you have before, "then why was I fired?". I’ll tell you why! There are two reasons. Maybe three.
1) I got cocky. I felt that I was untouchable, I gave attitude. I stormed out.
2) I let myself get swept away in drama. I slept with someone at work, and was careless with the people that knew about it.
3) I let my self-esteem get in the way of what I knew I could accomplish. I was a good manager, a damn fucking good one. But I questioned my own abilities and often sought help where I really didn’t need it, instead of trusting my own abilities.
These three things extend into more than just my last job. These three things, haunt me continuously. Mostly, the last. I’m frozen when I don’t believe in myself. The reason I excelled, was because I had someone (my boss) who believed in me, more than I could believe in myself. The fact that I had someone who knew I could do it, pushed me to try it, and led me straight into success. I wasn’t ready to be without him backing me up.
You think this was all because of him, and yes, it was. But not in the way that you think! You said once that you thought I was promoted beyond anything I ever should have been. You have no idea how wrong you are! And you don’t know how much that hurts! The only time in my life I ever felt successful at anything… and you destroyed me with your words!
If I hadn’t been pregnant, if we hadn’t been isolated in the middle of the arctic together, I would have left you. There I said it. I don’t know if you’ll ever read this, but I said it anyway.
I NEED, not just want, but NEED the person who means most in my life to believe in me. I need to feel like the person who backs me up in all things, believes that I can accomplish anything I set my mind to.
Perhaps it’s just my self-esteem. Perhaps it’s just me that needs to believe in myself more. But the fact of the matter is, if I truly believed in myself, I wouldn’t stay with someone who thinks I just accomplished things by appearances alone. We need to sort this out… I don’t know how to say anything about this without causing conflict, but I suppose that’s unavoidable.
Maybe we’ll get married, maybe I’ll never tell you how I truly feel. Maybe I’ll sit with this forever.
Does our son need to grow up thinking his mom is stupid, if she’s not? I can’t change your mind… there’s nothing that can be said. It remains unchanged. You can’t change someone else’s mind about you. That’s why I don’t discuss it with you. That’s why you may never read this. But at least I got it out.