Insecure - Tom Hiddleston Imagines Geared Towards Battling Insecurities

Personal Thoughts for: "You're Such a Nerd," "You're So Stupid"

I apologize in advances for the rants that I've been holding onto for my entire life.

"You're Such a Nerd"

Education has been so important on my mom's side of the family due to my great-great-grandmother being kicked out when she was about to go to fifth grade. (That's segregation for you.) Because of that, she got married at 13 and started popping out kids and never got to go back to school and watched as her kids got similar treatment. All this trickles down to me, where my mom has put pressure on me to not only learn but to get ahead of others. Because of that, I was going long division in kindergarten, doing workbooks instead of having an actual summer vacation; even then, she wanted me to read more than just two of the required readings, and for the most part, she would choose which book without consulting what I wanted or had interest in.

I stood out as someone too smart for her age. Because of this, I got bullied...big time. Preschool to kindergarten, I had four friends and 1 acquaintance. (It didn't help that my mom would commute us from the city to upstate each day for that purpose; she worked upstate, and she didn't want me to get an education in the city, so I went to private school.) I can still single them all out by first name to this day because I felt so lonely. And the worse part was they were hardly ever there (they got sick all the time), so I had to hope for an hour's drive that they were there that day. If not, it was harsher ridicule from the other students, one of whom always (ALWAYS!) picked on me, tried to get me in trouble, and tried to steal my gold bracelet my grandmother gave me; I still remember her name, first and last, and even my grandmother had to get in her face because of how she treated me.

First grade and second grade, I started going to public school, so I never got to see my previous friends again. In those grades, I had literally two friends, one in my class, and one that was always in a different class; I ended up reconnecting with her in high school as stand partners for orchestra and we became best friends. I was always teacher's pet because if the students can't be your friend, then the teacher's the only other person you have left so you don't feel so alone. Because of that, I learned so much more because by having that relationship, the teachers would focus on making sure I did reach my fullest potential, and this led to more bullying.

They redistricted the schools, so for third grade, I was transferred over to a different elementary school. Third grade, there was a deaf student/student who was deaf (I'll explain why I do this in later experiences) in my class, so along with him came his signer, person who does sign language in translation of what the teacher was saying. Me and a small group of girls would spend our Wednesday recess learning sign language with her, the signer, so, seeing our interest, our teacher recommended us to the MORE program our school had for fourth and fifth grade. But before I get to that, during fourth grade, our math classes were tracked, separated by who was getting better grades in that area and who was getting worse. I was put in the high level of math, and I did so well, my teacher used my work as the answer keys. The same happened with reading, but that was within the class, and there were different colors for different reading levels. I was in the highest and bored within two days.

Anyway, back to the MORE program: it was a program that was before school that taught three courses: Spanish, creative writing, and science. I knew Spanish growing up with my oldest sister, who's fluent, and my fourth grade teacher would talk to use in Spanish from time to time, so I learned even more then. Creative writing was mainly with looking at fairy tales and rewriting them, so it's kind of what I do here on Wattpad. (Thank the MORE program for getting me started, although in second grade we had to write our own books to share during Parent's Day, so I guess there's also that.) Science, we learned about chemical reactions and stuff. But this is all to say it was a selective group that got to do this, and our teachers used us at the model students, which was a lot of pressure and made the others hate us. (I remember I botched a test and...wait, I'll get to this later.)