Was anyone really bright at school but ended up in low paid jobs / no career?

[Hillsdale]

I was really bright at school. Got A* and Bs in GCSEs and a level then went onto do a vocational degree in a healthcare profession ( think pharmacist but not).

I didn't know what to do and my older siblings and parents chose my degree for me.

To cut a long story short, I suffered from social anxiety and severe confidence and esteem issues. I hated every minute of uni and at the end of my degree i couldn't even find a work training placement which I needed in order to become fully qualified after having attended so many interviews. My mental health was really bad and I felt like and was told I was a failure.

I gave up and have just done low paid nmw admin jobs. ( Not that there is anything wrong with those jobs).

But I just can't shake the feeling off of being a failure and not being able to fulfill my potential and used my head in something that I could have been good at.

I don't know what I'm saying really but just wondered if anyone else has been in a similar situation.

I crashed early. People were talking about accelerating me when I was in year 8. It never happened (I said I didn’t want it because I didn’t want to look arrogant by expressing the fact I really really wanted it). I did mediocre in both GCSEs and A Levels. For GCSEs I had the excuse of doing them through the medium of Welsh despite not speaking the language. By a levels I was at an English language sixth form and had no such excuse... only excuse I can really give is that Cs and Ds aren’t that bad for someone who hardly ever slept and spent most lessons smoking weed in the woods rather than turning up to class. But yeah... lol, want to talk about failure. I can talk about failure. I went to study medicinal and biological chemistry at an ex-poly with a view to manufacturing drugs for the illegal market (I was a total loser as a teenager, truly). I dropped out after two terms due to homesickness (was doing fine academically). Spent a bit of time working and doing vocational training then back to uni in my home town to study history. Switched to computer science after 2 years and got a measly 2.2 because I fear-procrastinated doing my dissertation and turns out you can’t do a whole dissertation in one panic fuelled all nighter after not sleeping and procrastinating the whole previous two weeks.

Then I self sabotaged and/or made a principled stand and resigned my only job since uni and am now a SAHM.

So lol yeah... whatever you’re doing in life I’m sure you’re less of a failure than me. And I’m actually pretty happy.

Me. I did really well at O level, poorly at A level, went to uni but crashed out at the end of the first year due to MH, and an undiagnosed disability which I battled with for another 30 years. I have support with it now but I am so so sad for the lovely young woman I was, so badly let down by parents, education system, and several employers. If it hadn't been for my current employers who I've been with for 15 years, I truly think I would be dead. As it is I quietly get on with a pretty mundane job and count my blessings.

Me too, very bright, sexually assaulted by my friend's dad when I was a teenager, went off the rails, no confidence. Always got by on being very pretty and dumbed down. Now in my 40s, I can barely understand most job descriptions let alone get up the courage to apply.

MrsMarigold for you.

I'm finding this thread fascinating and also quite sad. I didn't mention it in my post upthread but I also had serious MH issues from 14 to around 21, if not older, which probably didn't help my prospects. Of course much of that was my personality but having a father who I see now was very EA probably didn't help and I am incredibly indecisive and have low self esteem now. Sigh, I bet we'd all rule the world if the world had different rules.

Me.
A pretty toxic combination of very low self esteem, undiagnosed autism, parents with serious mh issues who weren't as supportive as they should have been. Bullied throughout school and work life. Abusive relationships.

Did the wrong degree at uni and nearly had a breakdown. I still love learning but don't have the money and am now too ill.
It makes me very sad when people say 'What are you doing here?' - but at least now I have friends, a house, a stable job and cats! But I can't deny I really hate myself sometimes and berate myself for a wasted life

I've been thinking about this again. I had a very clever father, who was very successful in his field. Out of the 2 siblings, I was the 'bright' one. While I did study A levels and go on to do a degree, my only good grades were at O level. The rest of my exams were very mediocre, at best.

After my father died, I did a lot of soul searching over this issue. Even now, my mother and my sister tell me I should do something else. I think they mean well and are trying to encourage me but I am not my father. I am nowhere near as clever as he was and don't thrive on stress and being busy or public speaking.

I still would like to do something and use what's left of my brain but on my own terms with zero stress and those sorts of jobs don't exist outside of the minimum wage sector so I guess that is the compromise.

A lot of people who do have great careers and good incomes are totally stressed. My job isn't easy. It's tough physically, the hours are unsociable and the public and management combined can sometimes treat you like dirt. The advantage, though, is that you get to leave it at the office and I always said throughout my childhood that that was the kind of job I wanted and I never really wanted to study just so I could have a super stressful job.

I am glad I did get an education because it did give me a level of confidence I otherwise wouldn't have had, though.

My son is showing signs of being bright and the rest of the family are pointing to him being like my father. I want him to do better than me and reach his potential but I don't want him to feel the pressure to succeed in the way I did, only to burn out. A levels nearly broke me. We had a suicide in our year group and it's only now that I have a teenager that I realise how much that affected me and hearing the teachers at the time saying 'exams are important but they are not that important. Life is more important.'

Sailed through education - A*s, As, First degree, but by 24 was so exhausted from years of depression (bad family situation growing up, bullying at school) that I had nothing left inside. Have never known what I want to do because I have been so numb and disconnected from the age of 14. Was lucky enough to find an amazing therapist while at uni who explained it all - I wasn't lazy (or crazy!), I was traumatized and my repressed feelings needed to come out. Still suffering from numbness and depression now at 31 and no career/job/direction, but know I can do whatever I want to do when I finally discover it and start to feel again. Have accepted that until then I just need to find a low stress job and it doesn't matter what it looks like from the outside. Getting this far is my biggest achievement. Took me a LONG time to get to this acceptance though and still have moments of grief/sadness about it. I also avoid certain social situations and people from the past because I don't know how to answer their questions about what I'm doing.

That was very deep for a Tuesday morning :)

Oh gosh. We've all just received one of those emails at work, welcoming a new starter. It's a new graduate and they've listed all his achievements and courses he's done, memberships of professional organisations etc. It sounds like it's his first "big proper job" and he's doing it alongside his final year at uni. I'm sure he's great and all but I felt so depressed reading it. I'm not good enough to get one of those jobs. Nobody would ever choose me. I've finally got my first class degree after all these years but it's still not enough for anyone. A lot of mature students say that it's made them more confident at work, but I just don't feel that at all. It's made me feel like a more valued member of society, but not at work

Also, thinking more about this stuff, when I finished my degree I was originally looking for masters courses, but I never found one that worked for me in the end so I never did one, and then I lost interest anyway. Now I'm wondering how I'd feel about all the things being discussed here if I'd done a masters course. Would employers really have taken more of an interest in me, as people say, or would I have felt even more that it was a waste because I'd never be taken seriously at work?

to so many people on this thread.

I'm fairly typical of the classic middle class "failure". Very bright, very lazy, never entirely sure how people worked. Dropped out of uni and did dead end jobs until I took an HGV licence. I'm good at it, it earns the national average, and the arseholes are in the rear view mirror. I have no desire to earn more, or to dominate colleagues, or to drive the latest car. DW loves me, DD thinks I'm a good father, and after a fairly miserable childhood (bullying, homesickness, depression) I've reached calm waters.

Me.

Looking back it is a miracle I didn't kill myself with a drug overdose at 21. I did half heartedly try but felt guilty for whoever would have to find me.

I was devastated that no matter how awful I felt inside or what awful shit was going on around me, somehow my academic work was always perfect. No one gave a flying fuck so long as the grades were there. Drugs, sexual abuse, horrible horrible memories.

Anyway I got a first class degree. Actually cried. I wanted a 2:1 so I could pretend to be a real person not an academic robot.

Could not get a grad job for the life of me.

Tried academia. Fucking hated it. Lasted a few years then crashed spectacularly. Diagnosed with CFS.

Admin work in the end. Currently a sort of project manager in an IT dept. I don't have the job title or the pay grade to match what I do or am capable of. My ideas are taken by other people and to be honest I don't even care much anymore. I just want to be paid more money so I can get out of debt and have the lifestyle I want. But how the fuck do I do that when my job title is "assistant" and I'm 32 fucking years old.

I also think I'm undiagnosed Aspergic.

To be honest my life now is pretty damn good. I have worked (and not been fired or had a breakdown!) For about 5 years now. That's pretty amazing, for me. If you had told past me about future me, I would have thought it sounded amazing. It's all good so long as I don't fall into the trap of comparing myself to others with more money and "proper" career paths.

So many similar stories on this thread.

I got all A* and As at GCSE and As at A level. I had a very bad home life though thanks to an abusive father and what I realise now to be a mother that was just the same only in a different way. Although I appeared confident, I was the total opposite. I had spent my childhood being physically and emotionally abused to the point where I felt worthless. I left home as soon as I could, rented at first and then bought my first house at 21/22. University didn't feel like an option financially and I then had my first child at almost 24. I had an ok job but nothing amazing. My partner has had a highly successful career so although we are financially comfortable, I wish I had had the chance to get a degree and have a similar career. I don't have any contact with my parents now but still feel alot of resentment towards them for causing me such huge problems that are still an issue for me at nearly 40.

I have 2 lovely children now though and I enjoy being a mum. I will definitly encourage them to take every opportunity with their education and try to build their confidence to be high so that hopefully nothing stops them feeling like they can do anything they want to.

Everyone says it's not too late to go to uni etc but it feels impossible.

@VladmirsPoutine

Yes.

Plus:
It's exhausting!

Not to derail the thread but the below might be helpful to others.

The intensity and complexity of social interaction demanded by the work environment is far beyond any other type of environment e.g. the home, the roads or even a healthcare setting. Masking involves consciously identifying and responding to social cues. Remembering faces and names. Identifying colleagues characters, projecting their likely responses, modifying my own interactions accordingly. Decoding speech patterns ("sort of" can mean "yes" and "no" ! Wtf!). Identifying workplace norms and fulfilling them. Identifying complex political relationships which may impact on other relationships.. I cannot describe how utterly exhausting and thankless it is. Plus the constant fear of "getting it wrong". Plus the consequences of getting it wrong! The shame and fear can be overwhelming and lead to a physical and mental flight or freeze response, panic attacks.. Rumination and intrusive thoughts over mistakes or risks/uncertainty of what other people might do, leading to insomnia.

Physical stimuli. Noise and bright or unpleasant lighting, bad smells. Loud sudden noises, phones going off like bombs at random, background chit chat (should I be listening? See above!), traffic noise... No control over the environment. Unable to "turn down the volume" on my senses. On a bad day, feeling as if physically bruised and battered by stimuli. Again, so exhausting.

The more exhausted I am by the stimuli, the less able I am to mask/perform socially. It's cumulative. It can also result in insomnia. Which then makes the whole thing worse the next day.

Rinse and repeat. You can see why I have had temp jobs I've quit after 2 weeks or less. One was receptionist at a very busy car dealership. The other was cold calling. Environment, social set up, work itself, all utter torture.

Not to say NT people might not also find these environments difficult!

Me.

Did really well at school, went to a RG university but severe depression and anxiety meant I didn't get the degree classification I hoped for.

I've worked full-time ever since but only in low paid jobs. However I have a great work/life balance so I think I'm probably better off. Due to where we live we don't struggle at all financially either.

Lots of love and support to everyone on this thread . It's never too late.

As a result of my experiences I never judge anyone's success based on external factors like careers, jobs, money etc. Society attributes people's success to their talents rather than the luck of having good health/a stable upbringing/finding what they want to do in life etc etc

Just surviving, battling illness, getting up each day, having a job, changing the parenting cycle etc etc are huge, huge achievements for some. Sadly you can't put many of those on a CV

Forgot to add that I took a law degree in my early 50s. While I've not entered the profession, because firms don't like trainees they can't bully, it did wonders for my self esteem.

First class honors degree and 2 masters degrees with distinctions. I also have severe anxiety and depression, with a history of anorexia in my teens and early twenties... as a result, I struggle to cope in a work environment. I work in a low paid admin job, boss significantly less qualified and I do all the work while she gets the glory. And I stay because my mental health is too fragile to risk somewhere new and all the increased anxiety it would bring. I know I should be grateful to even have a job with my past, but I can’t help that little voice in my head saying that with those grades, it should be so much better than this

Sorry to hear this ravenia.

I also struggle to cope in the work environment. I'm so sensitive to other people's moods and aggression. I had a boss who re-triggered my depression in a bad way and she wasn't even a bully, just quite aggressive in manner and micro-manage-y. It really affected my confidence because I've always been a strong and determined person. But next to people with thick skins I just shrivel. In my exit interview with a different manager I mentioned I had depression and she said 'try to be less sensitive'.

I just have no time for this kind of ignorance and condescension any more. I felt like saying, 'you have no idea what I've been through or the kind of balls I have just being here'.

I feel like this too. All A's at O-level and A-level. Offered a place at Oxbridge, but i didn't take that up, my Mum put me off as I wouldn't fit in apparently, too working class! Anyway went to another univ, 1st class degree and univ prize too, had no idea what i wanted to do so fell into accountancy, and got professional qualification. But zero self esteem due to home life/ living with emotionally abusive father so fell into disastrous relationships. Now I'm a single mother with 3 kids, work in a finance dept in a company, have been there 15 years this year. So unfulfilled, hate the job, but salary is reasonable, flexible working so I can't leave. I have no aspirations, my only qualification is accountancy, I feel stuck until retirement. I have no idea what I'd like to do, I wish i had some idea, direction, ambition, but no, just keep churning along.

Oh my god I have found this thread so fascinating. I have always felt I have been an underachiever and not really understood why, but recently my DS was diagnosed with autism and it made me learn a lot about it and I think I have it too. It actually feels good to know that I coudn't have achieved in my work because of an actual health reason rather than cause I was just a pathetic fuckup as I have always assumed.

So it's really interesting to hear other people feel the same. I was bright at school but really struggled with the framework of it and the social side so I left early and worked in a shop, before bobbing about in various admin jobs. I was good at them but never could work out how to get to the next step without being a manager or networking cringe etc, and now it all makes sense and I'm much more content.

I have kind of cut a corner by being self employed now, my business partner does the bits I find tricky and vice versa and we have now become kind of successful and better paid. I can't imagine I'd get to be holding this position through the usual channels.

Late to the thread but I wanted to say thank you to everyone who contributed. I’ve just finished reading it all the way through and it’s been so helpful, in a number of ways

I got good grades at school, became a Staff Nurse but a bad breakdown & a diagnosis of Schizo Affective Disorder means I can only work as a part time HCA.

But I know I'm lucky as many people with my condition can't even work.