Science always felt like the foreignest out of place artifact to me. It wasn’t that I didn’t try—oh, I tried. I would spend hours hunched over textbooks, painstakingly copying notes, and re-watching lectures, hoping that something would click. But no matter how much effort I put in, the concepts just seemed to slip through my fingers like water. In chemistry, equations felt more like riddles than answers. Balancing formulas was an exercise in frustration, with my numbers never quite adding up. Physics, though—that was the breaking point. No matter how many times the teacher explained it, I couldn’t see the connection between those abstract formulas on the board and the real world they supposedly described. Still, even when I struggled with understanding, I wanted to do better.
But home didn’t exactly make that easy. I grew up in a house where risk wasn’t just discouraged—it was punished. My family didn’t have room for mistakes, literally or figuratively. The four of us were crammed into a tiny two-bedroom apartment, where space and patience were always in short supply. I didn’t even have a room of my own to study in. We didn’t even have our own rooms to sleep in. Every night, we laid our sleeping mats on the living room floor. I had a spot next to the door, an area that felt more like a corner of confinement than a place of rest. Meanwhile, my classmates had rooms of their own—walls to paste their notes on, elevated beds to sleep in, and the peace to study without constant interruption. The dinner table was my makeshift desk, and every evening I had to clear away my books and notes to make room for dinner. Even then, studying was a battle. The kitchen was always alive with noise—the clatter of dishes, the sizzle of hot oil, and my parents yelling at each other or at us. The acrid smoke from the stove would fill the room, making my eyes sting and my body feel heavy with fatigue. Concentration felt impossible with all the chaos swirling around me.
And the worst part? The fear. The constant fear of being in the wrong place at the wrong time or doing something to upset my father. When my father was angry, he didn’t just yell—he tore us apart with his words. He didn’t call us careless or clumsy; he hurled the worst insults imaginable. We were “pieces of sh*t,” “f***ing c***s,” and worse. His words hit harder than his fists sometimes, stripping away any shred of confidence we had. I’ll never forget the day I stored a piece of fruit in the refrigerator. We were out of space, and my father noticed. He threw the fruit away without a word, but when I asked why, he snapped. His face twisted with rage as he screamed at me, calling me a “stupid f***ing c***” and a “useless piece of sh*t.” Before I could process his words, his fist slammed into my nose. I stumbled back, blood running down my face, while he continued to rage, his words cutting deeper than the pain in my nose.
That kind of tension followed me into school, especially the science lab. Everything in those rooms felt fragile, like the smallest mistake would lead to disaster. The glass beakers, the burners, the chemicals—they all felt like hazards waiting to explode if I so much as touched them wrong. I’d stand at my workstation, paralyzed, imagining my father’s voice in my head: *You’re going to f*** this up, you stupid piece of sh*t.* What's worse the public school teachers weren’t encouraging, not at all. They favored students who were well-off, the ones who could afford the extra tuition and had the resources to excel. If you didn’t fit that mold, you were just another face in the crowd, overlooked and dismissed. No matter how hard you worked, if you didn’t have the money to back it up, they didn’t have the time for you.
While my classmates came to class prepared, confident, and able to ask the right questions, I felt like I was playing catch-up every single day. It wasn’t that I couldn’t memorize facts—I was great at that. I could recite the periodic table, list scientific processes, and commit every formula to memory. But science wasn’t about memorization. It was about taking risks, experimenting, and trusting yourself to try something new. Growing up as an aspie in a poor household, I faced difficulties in making friends. My social challenges were amplified by our circumstances—our house was so small that even if I did manage to form a friendship, I wouldn't have been able to invite anyone over. There simply wasn't enough space for visitors. On top of that, the fear and anxiety I often felt would prevent me from reaching out. I couldn’t gather the courage to go to their houses either, even if they invited me, because my overthinking would take over. I'd endlessly worry about how I might be perceived, whether I’d say the wrong thing, or whether my presence would make others uncomfortable. This fear kept me isolated and deepened my sense of loneliness.
Back to science, risks weren’t a gateway to discovery—they were a gateway to pain. At home, there was no room for trial and error. There was no room for failure or accidents or anything less than perfection. My father made sure of that. And because of that, I carried the weight of that fear with me everywhere I went. I think that’s why science never stuck. It wasn’t just the complexity of the subjects or my lack of passion for them—it was the trauma I carried, the voice in my head always telling me to play it safe. And maybe, in some strange way, that’s okay. Failure isn’t always a dead end. Sometimes, it’s just a sign pointing you toward the path where you truly belong.
No comments:
Post a Comment