salutations! from a formerly gifted person

I recently saw a post on r/xennials that asked previously gifted students: What did you do when they pulled you out of class? A huge majority of the answers said what I remember most as well, we did puzzles and played Oregon Trail. 

Years ago I decided that the 'gifted' program was a guise to search out particular types of children. Children that could potentially be molded and groomed to become certain types of citizens that were influential on humanity. I recognized a lot of patterns between me and my peers who were also in this program. I started thinking about the tiny few that had actually been "successful" in life, where as the rest of us were left somehow feeling we didn't measure up as adults. 

As children we were separated and told we were different. All our classmates watched as we left once a week, so we were also a little alien to them as well. Now as adults we haven't accomplished anything extraordinary and it has left most of us scratching our heads. I also felt like the odd one out, even in the gifted class. I was aware that I was the only one who didn't make straight As, and I didn't seem to excel in anything other than reading or language, which at the time didn't seem that big of a deal to me. To be able to master the language you speak? Wow, so impressive. As I've gotten older I have learned this doesn't come naturally to everyone. I felt like a fraud. I felt like maybe they had mixed up my scores with someone else. But I loved my gifted class friends because we were all awkward in our own ways. We were a geeky tribe, so weird in many different ways, but also so accepting of each other. 

The best thing about the program were the field trips. I know bigger city schools have funding for overnight trips and things like that, but our local schools didn't....although the gifted program did. And we often went out of state and occasionally on weekend trips. The band did go to Disney a few times, but the gifted program went out of state to see plays, we went to the Biltmore, we went on factory tours and to aquariums. (Like I said, probably things regular schools occasionally did, but not tiny rural, country ones.) I remember how exciting it was when we went on a field trip to see Tom and Huck because it had been filmed locally and one of our classmates was an extra in the movie. I also remember seeing Jumangi, but I'm not so sure about the reasoning behind that one.

The worst part was being eleven years old and having to ride the school bus to the tech school with juniors and seniors you didn't know. That alone felt like psychological trauma to someone like me. The first year no one else from the elementary school was going to the gifted program the same day as me, and every Tuesday the same creepy senior sat behind me on the bus. I don't remember what he said, just that I knew he was a creep. Years later someone I knew married (and divorced) him and I learned that my intuition was 110% correct with this person.

I remember taking the test for the gifted program in the fourth grade. I was so excited, because I was tested before my older brother, and Jonathan was a genius at practically everything. I couldn't believe that I would ever be picked out for anything before him. They brought me into one of the band practice rooms with someone I'd never met. I had to do so many inkblot tests. It was puzzles and mind games instead of logic and book intelligence. I don't remember if it was a man or a woman, but I do remember how embarrassed I felt when I put a puzzle together incorrectly or when I answered a question about the differences between a hardback and a paperback book. My answer: You can roll up the paperback book up and wad up it somewhere to take less space. 

Yes, that's really what I said. And I can remember thinking, "Deanna! That is so stupid. You could have said one is hard, or the hardback will cost more money." But now I know they were looking for the kids with the answers that could also be considered correct, but not what the collective whole of other children their age would think. 

Why am I not surprised at all to learn that the gifted program has ties with the Tavistock institute and this satanic freak. 

As many people who commented on that reddit post saying they did puzzles, you had just as many people claiming they just had empty space in their minds when they tried to pull up the time they spent in the gifted class. 

I'm not saying I believe I was mind controlled via the gifted program or anything, because I am more of a disagreeable type (and those are the ones who grew up and didn't do anything with their lives), but I do believe they were looking for emotional, sensitive, intelligent loners that they could groom into whatever they chose. (Although, would I even know if I were being mind controlled? I would certainly like to blame some of my past autistic-type meltdowns on being distance controlled.) Fortunately for me, I don't care what anyone has ever thought about me, so I didn't thrive off of compliments or attention from adults. In fact, I hated it. I was never going to be picked first for anything. In fact, most adults seemed a little put off by me because I was often talking about morbid things or asking them questions they didn't know the answer to.  

This program still exists, so they are still searching out those particular types of children. This is a super long read about the GATE and TAG programs but if you scroll past the numbered bullet points and begin at Tannenbaum's Theory of Giftedness it is really interesting. There's absolutely no doubt that all these distractions and chemicals/poisons being rained down on us are meant to quell any special abilities anyone might have. Everything is meant to quench the spiritual and feed the material. 

We be gifted! (That was actually our class motto. Like I said, we be geeks.)

A couple weeks ago the Pope said that all religions lead to God. It reminded me of the parable of the guy that somehow made it into the wedding feast without a garment. (Matthew 22) You might try to come in through another door, or a window, but Christ is the only way to the Father. 

Speaking of, the Vatican just released its cartoon mascot for Jubilee 2025, Luce.

Eh, why? Wouldn't Christ technically be the mascot? Now with every purchase of a rosary in the churches' giftshop you'll get a 5" Luce and Friends plushie! They are all wearing hoods so you can't see their horns.