I think you're right, but here are the parts that haunt me the most.
**Aside from getting excessive unsolicited help, being told what I already know, or not being allowed to make mistakes, what causes me to question myself a lot is the fact that relatives so often compared me to my aunt, and she actually was mentally retarded."**
**My mother got angry with me on one occasion because I couldn't understand what she was telling me to do. That happens sometimes, when one person is an adult and the other is only seven years old. And, knowing what I was going through in school--and remember, this is the one with the retarded sister--she yelled in frustration, "Sometimes I think you might actually BE retarded!" Just moments later she apologized and told me it had been a very unkind thing to say. Yet even then I noticed, and thought to myself but didn't say out loud, "But you didn't say it wasn't true."**
Not being stupid is one thing. My aunt wasn't stupid either. And like me (see, I just compared the two of us myself) she hated to be over-helped. Step in too fast, and she'd snap, "I'll do it myself!" And she would, too--it just took her longer.
So, "stupid" aside, the real root of what I wonder about myself is--am I retarded? How irrational is that, when I have an above average IQ? But I think there might be other ways to be retarded besides in intelligence. My family never did bother trying to teach me to drive a car. When I asked, I got "Sure, I'll teach you," but no one ever actually did. Even those who had taught my siblings wouldn't teach me. Nowadays I can't see well enough, and I am not medically cleared, but I could have learned, if I had been given a chance at the time.
They assumed I couldn't learn, and they never even tried to teach me. Meanwhile, the only other person in the family who was old enough to drive but didn't, was--you guessed it--my aunt Barbie.
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