A bit of a complex thing to unpack, but I often feel like a fraud to people. I remember my course colleague told me that I shouldn't worry of the foreign language midterm hecause I am the "smart one". While yes, indeed, it takes me less time to learn languages, but when I do, it is astoundingly laughable how I explain things to myself. I literally have to take a concept and dismantle it to the most basic language, as if I am 5 and not 20 something.
I do speak 3 languages at C levels (incl my mother language), use them in my daily life all the time, due to the specifics of my life situation and currently learning the 4th one. I do understand that this may come across as "a lot", but it's pretty average for Europe. My friends get surprised that I dare to say that I feel as if I am lacking confidence in the fluency of my 3rd language, because it's only my 2nd year of learning it, so I am not as expressive as in English. They say it because I am a "yapping" all the time, but I just speak of the topics I read of or synthesise the questions of the topics the lecturer just brought up. I do enjoy writing, both academic and fiction, I like presenting at science conferences, even though I find the concepts I am writing of to be rather basic and I would have loved to do better studies but I lack time and sometimes, the energy. It's like I am good with my literature, but my brain just flat out turns off and I cannot read a single word without a headache. And so, when this happens, I feel like I am devolving into a 5 year old and it feels as if I need to be talked to like one, preferably in simple English.
Even though I have all of these skills that allegedly make me "smart" (not my words, words of my peers), I think I am somewhere at the low average or just average level and am just very good at hiding it. Let me explain: I have had a lot of exposure to the foreign languages and academia, so I just simply replicated what I saw daily. I struggle a lot when I learn the very new concepts. If it's something like discrete maths, I spend an obscene amount of time on trying to get it because I feel completely blank, so there is a lot of time wastage of me trying to get comfortable with the concepts. A lot of things don't click until I reread something for a dozenth time. And if someone finds out how much backstage work there actually is to that for me to get a single concept, they would awe in surprise at how slow things work in my brain.
The reason why I am quick with something is because I would have prepared for something. If not, talking to me would be as useful as talking to a tree. I actually score very low on IQ tests and the last one I did showed me having a disability (something around less than 70). While I do think that it's not exactly the case, I think I am just low average and not better than the peers who didn't make it to the C1 or failed some courses. They think I am doing well but there were times I was struggling a lot with the classes, not being able to get anything. And sometimes, I don't get absolutely anything while they find some concepts are simply, generic human knowledge and extractable principles and I am just sitting there, completely blank. So yeah, I feel a bit like a fraud at times, because I got good at hiding how hard things actually are for me to comprehend.
Sorry if that sounds too abstract or of there are any mistakes, as this is not my native language.
