Do people generally expect too much or too little of you?

With me, people generally waver back and forth, and that can really spin me in circles. Ask any member of my family, and they'll probably tell you I'm a genius. I mean Mensa-level. I assure you I'm not. I'm no brighter than most of my family is, but somehow I'm the one who ended up with that "smart kid" label, and it's not always a good thing. The trouble with having that label is, a lot of times people don't give you basic information you need. Then when things go wrong because you didn't have that information, they say they didn't tell you because they thought you knew it already, or they thought you'd be smart enough to figure it out without being told. Without that label, they would have just told you what you needed to know, and that would have been that.

On the other hand, it grrrrs me very much when people act surprised that I can do something most people my age can do, such as drive a car. It's a long, complicated story why I came into that later in life than most people do. For reasons I still haven't quite sorted out in my head yet, people in my life didn't expect me to be able to learn to drive, so they didn't bother trying to teach me. It wasn't until I married my husband, ten years ago, that things started to change. Now I have a car and a license, and if I need to go somewhere, I can take myself. Yet it continues to surprise people that I can drive, and I'm not talking about people who have known me all my life. I'm talking about people who only know me from church, for example. That happened just this morning. Because my husband had to work today, I drove myself to church, and it's not the first time I've done that. But at least two people were surprised that I had the ability.

What about me causes people to just assume I probably can't?

Situation about driving is rather weird. My daughter doesn’t drive, she has grad degree and professional career and is independent yet never learned or wanted to learn to drive. She lived in the city where one doesn’t need to drive, she now moved to the area where she will need to drive and she is planning on learning. People act funny about it. Like she is weird or something. She isn’t weird at all. She still has no desire to drive but simply has to. She is 30. People always expect something of others.

People I know now in my life (left my marriage 11 years ago after 33 years of marriage & moved 2100 miles from anyone I knew) are amazed that I have my own farm, repair my own equipment & actually take care of my farm on my own & drive a HUGE truck & haul a horse trailer. I am 5'1" & basically small. They seem to think that smaller people don't have the strength. What blows their minds even more was that I had a very technical career as a computer design engineer after graduating with a degree in accounting & computer science.

As people get to know me they get glimpses of my past & what my previoys life before where I am now consisted of.....then throw in the fact that I have an AA degree in music. Mostly I am just quiet about what I know I it inly comes to light when it is needed for some reason.

My parents had no idea how to deal with such an independent kid nor one who excelled in everything I sat my mind to.

Driving was the most important thing to me. My mom didn't drive till I was 16 & my dad worked nights so it totally limited my activities because my parents had no socual connections to arrange for anyone else to drive me nor could they trade with anyone so it severily limited my social activities to what I could walk to or arrange something myself....& honestly I resented what it did to my life so I actually started learning tovdrive a car oyt in the Calif desert where there was no traffic when I was 13. My parents loved to take drives out to the desert where my dad was sure he would find his gold mine. I hated going anywhere with them so only agreed if I would get a chance to drive out on the desert roads.

Actually I am the one who expects myself to be able to do anything I really want to. I have learned over the years I do have some limitations & even limitations on talent level which is why I didn't continue with the music major & my flute performance though I played in chamber groups up until 11 years ago.

I have to always chuckle when men think I know nothing more than most women about certain topics until we start talking & they realize just how much I do know through conversation...lol, It is kinda entertaining. When I was buying my laen tractor & chain saw from the equipment company we were discussing something & they commented that I knew more about it than most if their customers. Probably because when I come across a problem I research it thoroughly & learn from it & it just all gets filed away in my brain for when I need it in the future.

I remember my mom saying that when people get older they quit learning. I swore that would never happen to me & it doesn't happen with any if my friends either. We enjoy sharing what we have learned when it might help. I feel like avday isn't complete If I haven't learned something new.....but that is the high expectations I hold for myself & really have no concern what anyone else expects

On a more general note, rather than the specific example of driving, I do tend to get offered more help than I need. Sometimes people withhold information, but then sometimes they overload me with it when I've already got things covered. They'll tell me something basic that any five-year-old knows, such as that milk goes bad when it's left out of the refrigerator, which leaves me wondering why they didn't think I'd know that.

If I'm slow and hesitant because I'm trying to learn something new, or if I make the slightest mistake, I've actually had people grab it out of my hands and do it for me. They don't allow me to make mistakes and learn from them as most people do. Instead, they assume I'm going to keep making that same mistake again and again. If I'm supposed to be so smart, don't they think I'm capable of learning? And how am I going to learn if they don't let me struggle with it?

Or they'll do something for me before I've had a chance to do it myself, just assuming I can't. This has come up when dealing with social workers. They'll give me some bit of information, such as where some office is located. First, they repeat themselves half a dozen times. Then they write it down for me. By this they are insinuating that not only can I not remember what they told me, but I'm not even capable of writing it down for myself if I need to.

Does anyone else get this kind of treatment? Do you think it has anything to do with the fact that I walk with a cane? There are people in the world who think having any mobility limitation at all means you can't drive. That might explain that part. And some people also have a tendency to equate physical with mental, that is if something is wrong with your body that makes you move slowly, then something must be slow about your brain too.