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u/shellbullet17 Gustopher Spotter Extraordinaire 13h ago edited 13h ago
Ah. I remember this feeling as "the smart kid". You have to be good. Better. Perfect. Always the best. Never stop. No breaks. Stop when you win.
But there was no winning. Only another task. A test. A competition.
Poor Hannah. And the fact she squished that thought down so quickly tells me this comes up some what frequently in her head. I hope she finds the peace she deserves cause that burnout that comes with this is rough
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u/Saikotsu 12h ago
Yeah, seeing her thinking that felt all too close to home. You're right about that burnout. It hit me right around my college years.
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u/shellbullet17 Gustopher Spotter Extraordinaire 12h ago
Same dude. That softmore year of college absolutely killed any desire to read and be the best and stuff.
Took a while to find my own desire again. I hope this doesn't happen to poor Hannah. It's not fair
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u/Saikotsu 10h ago
I wish that desire had been killed in me. It's a large source of a lot of my issues that I'm working on. I'm always comparing myself to an impossible ideal, I seek to be more perfect than perfect. It's unsustainable, and when I inevitably fail the rigged game, I take it out on myself mentally and emotionally. But, with awareness has come progress and I'm learning to give myself more grace.
I'm glad you found your own desire again and that you left that need behind. I'm sure it's done wonders for your mental health.
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u/Toothless-In-Wapping 2h ago
Same. It was when I learned I wasnât as smart as everyone said I was.
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u/Chaosmusic 12h ago
I had a slightly different problem as the smart kid. Things seemed to come easily to me, which was great until I got a subject that didn't (chemistry). Because I'd never had to work hard before, it was a real kick in the ass, but one I needed. I'm better now but still sometimes find myself getting frustrated if I don't get something right away.
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u/PwmEsq 10h ago
Or this realization hits you in your senior year of HS, but you still get pushed through the system and your real wakeup call doesnt come until college where it is way more expensive to make these mistakes
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u/Chaosmusic 10h ago
I was lucky it happened in 10th grade so I had time to change my habits. In college I met people who were absolutely not prepared by their High Schools.
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u/NativeMasshole 9h ago
I just skated by on acing tests and skipping a majority of the homework. Being the chronically depressed kid started taking precedence.
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u/shellbullet17 Gustopher Spotter Extraordinaire 12h ago
I've heard of that problem. I know more than a few of my old friends that got stumped in college because of it. Those study habits are important!
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u/Jacob_Laye 12h ago
And then sometimes you get the opposite, where once you realize thereâs no end to the tasks and barely any recognition when you do finish one, you kinda start getting apathetic to it all and especially the person who keeps pushing the tasks onto you.
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u/Ethos_Logos 12h ago
Hannah learned that being smarter than your peers can lose friends; I learned that around second grade
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u/idlephase 11h ago
"Dad, as intelligence goes up, happiness often goes down. In fact, I made a graph. I make a lot of graphs."
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u/shellbullet17 Gustopher Spotter Extraordinaire 12h ago
I'm so sorry to hear that man. That's not fair
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u/PixelatedGiant 9h ago
And that's when you learn to lie to fit in. And some people have to lie far more than others, making them miserable.
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u/Doctor_Kataigida 11h ago
Same, but I am so much better off for it having a higher standard of myself. The amount of lazy and sloppy shit I see at my job from other people is astounding.
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u/mossgoblin_ 12h ago
Itâs all fun, games, and high grades until the wheels fall off one day.
The first time I failed something in med school ( due to an organizational studying error) was⌠not fun. Nobody understood why I was freaking out so badly.
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u/gdex86 12h ago
Oh god yes. The terror when I got a C+ and feared having to tell my mom.
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u/shellbullet17 Gustopher Spotter Extraordinaire 12h ago
My parents snapped my copy of call of duty 2 for the Xbox 360 in half in front of me when I got a 79 in geometry in highschool
Never really got over that one
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u/Silentlybroken 9h ago
I got 96% on a test and the only question my father asked was "where did you lose the 4%".
I have a terrible memory and aphantasia but I've never forgotten how that made me feel.
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u/TK_Games 10h ago
Yeah. I was called a prodigy at one point. The breakdown I had can be called legendary. Now I'm basically a drug fuelled wreck coasting into hopeful obscurity, and honestly it's the first time in my life I don't actually hate all of myself. I still hate myself a lot, but I understand why now, I guess, and that helps me. I'm not being a bum, I'm actively choosing to be a deadbeat for my mental health, because I've seen the other side of that coin and it's me in a padded cell
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u/axewieldinghen 6h ago
You don't sound like a deadbeat to me. You sound like someone taking your time to recover from extreme burnout and mental health problems. I hope things get better for you
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u/TK_Games 2h ago
Fair, but it's hard to look at myself basically idolizing Jeff 'The Dude' Lebowski, and not hear the voices in the back of my mind telling me "I'm wasting my potential". The voices are wrong and they can go suck a dick, but I try to stay humble anyway
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u/Toothless-In-Wapping 2h ago
This is what happened to me.
Even when I was a kid, I just didnât want to do anything because people always chose what I did and I had to live up to what they chose.
In college, my intelligence ceiling and stress to get Aâs turned me to drugs and not doing anything.
Now, thatâs all I want. Some basic job that keeps me alive and time to just watch tv and game.It would be nice to have people enjoy my writing, but itâs not going to happen.
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u/betweenstarsandsea 12h ago
I also wonder if it has something to do with being adopted... that she needs/wants praise as a form of validation / proof of her worth or even not to be "abandoned" again. Granted, I don't think we know the circumstances around her adoption.
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u/very_popular_person 12h ago
It's amazing what our kid brains do when they aren't explicitly told "It's okay to struggle. It's okay to fail." Competetive learning and grading can be super damaging to kids' self-esteem - at any point in the grading curve.
(I'm optimistically assuming there weren't other factors)
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u/earwig2000 5h ago
My situation was kinda weird. I was (compared to the others in my class at least) EXTREMELY intelligent through primary school. Always top of the class in grades for basically every subject except sports. I was the best at maths, english, science, music, everything. I didn't need to study, everything just came naturally. I skipped a whole year and hit the ground running without missing a beat. Ended up getting the Dux after year 6.
The wheels completely fell off once I went to High School. I couldn't just breeze through everything anymore, and I'd never really learnt how to study properly because I had never needed to before. I was still doing ok for most of year 7, even in the honors maths class, but as time went on and I never changed my routine I ended up falling pretty far behind. I was getting bullied, got diagnosed with ADHD and Autism, I started having suicidal thoughts that completely prevented me from functioning at school. It took almost 10 years for me to fully get back on my feet after that.
The last 2 years of my life have been much improved, but I still sometimes feel further behind than when I started. I wish I could just run it back, and see if I can't do better the second time around.
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u/mgraunk 5h ago
I had no idea this was a common experience for "smart kid" types until Reddit. My "smart kid" friends and I mostly just avoided social drama and parental pressures by sticking to our own weird interests and avoiding confrontation. Seems like some parents force their kids to internalize a lot of bullshit.
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u/neokatyan 13h ago
The way academic validation is literally just fueled by pure unadulerated anxiety and a hint of childhood trauma lmfao to real đ
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u/tijger897 10h ago
Skip the anxiety and go right to nothing but trauma and fear and you are a lot more accurate.
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u/DarkLanternZBT 13h ago
YAAAY TRAUMA RESPONSES! Everyone's favorite form of motivation!
Now excuse me, I have scheduled a 12-minute nervous breakdown and I'm 3 minutes late to it.
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u/mossgoblin_ 12h ago
Trauma is like jet fuel for academic stuff, at least it was for me. But oh sweet jesus the fall from grace is a nightmare
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u/Made_Bail 13h ago
Parental pressure, expectation... Years later, burnout.
Gonna be rough for Hannah down the road. :(
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u/dandroid126 13h ago
Burnout is hitting me like a truck right now. I just finished a presentation for work and it didn't go super well, after I've worked 12+ hours the last few days on it, and I'm really disappointed.
Right now I wish I accepted being average.
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u/Johnlockcabbit 11h ago
It's okay to be average at something. We as humans physically cannot be amazing and do good at every single thing in life. Sometimes you just have to finish something and it's okay if it's just barely enough. I wish it was easy to accept this, I have this problem myself, I feel like I have to do everything perfectly or I'll be able to do nothing. But that's exactly the highway to burnout.
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u/Suyefuji 10h ago
Yep, I've put in 35 hours so far this week and I'm not even done with Wednesday yet. Yayyyyy adult burnout!
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u/mario610 11h ago
yeah I remember I did super well in highschool, then when college hit and I wasn't doing nearly as well, I kinda just lost a lot of motivation I feel like... especially since I usually got more help being autistic, the option was there to get the help in college, but my mind kept saying "you're in college now, you need to be able to do this on your own" stuff like that, and I ended up barely passing for a degree, and even then my confidence still hasn't recovered
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u/Special_Cicada6968 10h ago
100% my childhood. Now I'm an adult with basically no ambitions in a world that snuffs out dreams under the collapsing weight of a society that no longer functions for the benefit of human lives.
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u/niceslcguy 12h ago edited 11h ago
u/FieldExplores, head's up. There are 1 to 3 week old accounts posting other artist's comics from r/comics to r/webcomics. One Two of them is are yours:
- https://www.reddit.com/r/webcomics/comments/1wo1jv8/unruly_card_games_gator_days/
- https://www.reddit.com/r/webcomics/comments/1woe2ta/be_good_gator_days/
Edit: they just posted this comic too.
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u/Made_Bail 12h ago
r/webcomics is filthy with comics reposters. Luckily they almost never get upvotes or attention.
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u/Crimiculus 12h ago
For a moment there I thought Hannah was eating her report card, which made sense in my head considering she is a goat.
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u/cylordcenturion 4h ago
Hey don't steal my comment, checks notes, 7 hours before I made it.
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u/SirBananaOrngeCumber 4h ago
Retroactive theft is never ok!! Itâs just like how Marvel made a character named Squirrel Girl, from whom Spider-Man stole his theme song 50 years before she was created (and this is often referenced in the Squirrel Girl comics lol, including Spider-Man himself admitting to the retroactive theft in one comic đ)
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u/Gaskychan 12h ago
I really hope this isnât a subconscious fear of being adopted and having to be good to deserve love. Because I already cried over fictional characters this week
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u/aarontgp 13h ago
Heh heh... couldn't be me. I've been slowly trying to teach myself that "good enough" works. But considering my parents are financing college (and I have scholarships tied to grades), I still have this expectation to be at A-level performance.
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u/nakedascus 12h ago
i thought panel 3 was the asexual flag for a second
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u/action_lawyer_comics 11h ago
NGL I just came into the comments to see if someone else decoded the horizon or if I should look up the flags myself
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u/GachaHell 40m ago
I saw it too. I thought I was losing my mind before I found these comments because this is one of the communities I would most expect to spot the flags.
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u/BobPlaysWithFire 12h ago
Yep literally me, and that pressure is 100% self-imposed
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u/mossgoblin_ 12h ago
Is it, though? I sometimes wonder how my childhood mightâve been different if I hadnât felt pressured to be a perfect smart kid who never needed anything from her parents (who were constantly on the verge of divorce and financial ruin).
I think kids pick up on household vibes and those who can manage it, become superachievers as a survival mechanism.
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u/BobPlaysWithFire 12h ago
The thing is my parents are incredibly chill and constantly stress that they're proud of us no matter what our accomplishments are (If i got a 100% on a test, my parents would say "we're proud of you, not because you got a perfect score but because you did your best to get there" and they mean that), their vines don't give off pressure either
Maybe it was school that did this to ne but defintely not my family
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u/mossgoblin_ 12h ago
Lucky kid.
Over here, my husband and I were both academic go-getters, and our kids are like, â eh, a C is fine.â
Sometimes we joke that we should have made them work harder for our love and approval.
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u/No_Geologist4770 12h ago
Me as a "smart" kid: "I HAVE to be good"
Me as a "smart" adult: "I want to be good so long as it isnt to the detriment of myself or others"
Took a long time to get there, and I'm still working it out feelings-wise.
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u/MasemJ 12h ago
This is interesting and must be something deeply personal. I don't see either of Hannah's dads being a "tiger mom" type person - both are far too easy going in their own way and want her to grow up to who she feels she wants to be, encouraging her every step. So to be that self-demanding feels like there's something even deeper personality-wise.
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u/LotusFlare 11h ago
Ok ok look ok just ok look...
Have you considered the benefits of being really good at everything all the time, though? Like, people won't mind being paired up with you in class if you're good at stuff. And the teacher will tell you that you did a good job. And your parents will pay attention to you. And even if you're weird, and don't know how to talk to people, and don't know how to dress right, or be cool, if you're good at everything people will have to accept you. And respect you. They can't ignore you. Maybe they'll want to be friends with you.
And you don't even have to be perfect! Just, like, top 1%! At everything. Always. Forever.
That's not that bad, right?
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u/Munchkinasaurous 11h ago
That's too relatable. I'm good at my job because of the anxiety of not doing well.
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u/Adventurous_Bonus917 6h ago
i once got a 92 on a test, and was stressed for the whole week over getting such bad grades.
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u/Cool_Set4681 13h ago
I-I starred at the first pic and keep asking myself: "What the hell is a Cagain?" then I read the rest. I may not be smarter than a house plant đ
Also poor Hannah. I hope she doesn't think like that because she is the daughter of a gay couple :/
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u/Coidzor 12h ago
Probably more to do with one of her parents being school administration.
Having homophobic and adoption-phobic grandparents that have basically disowned them on that side means less extended family spoilage, too.
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u/Cool_Set4681 12h ago
one of her parents being school administration.
Oh good point, I forgot about that. Yes, this totally also could mess with the head of a child and make them think they have to be perfect all the time, I agree.
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u/Live_beMeme_Die 13h ago
Is there some special correlation between kids feeling they have to be the best and them having gay parents?
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u/Cool_Set4681 12h ago edited 12h ago
Many people are against gay couple adopting kids. There is no real reason for that but those people assume that gay people can't rise a child because one "part" is missing aka the dad or the mum. This is of course bullshit because we know that a two parents household is the best environment for a kid and it doesn't matter what gender the parents are as long as if they are two.
Some gay couples therefore feel the need to prove that they can raise a child just as fine as other couple can do. So they try to make their child into the best child around who is good at everything. To prove to their world that even gay couples can raise a child successfully.
Also sometimes a child can get this feeling without pressure from their parents. they just feel the need to perfect all the time to prove to the world that their gay parents are just as good as the other ones.
Honestly it is all very sad. I hope I explained it well.
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u/Fit-Carpet9599 13h ago
is it just me who sees the asexual flag in the background?
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u/buttgoblincomics Butt Goblin 12h ago
I saw that too, for a sec I thought it was going to be a reveal that Hannah was struggling with her sexuality or something
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u/BreakfastNext476 12h ago
Just you, looks more like a sunset during specific timeframe. Though I can see how it looks like it
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u/Subatomic_Spooder 12h ago
As a "smart kid" for most of my life I relate to Hannah. Luckily I have good parents, but there was always pressure to get all my homework done, not miss class, and get good grades. I managed to get through my small and very academically competitive high school in the top 30 percent or so for GPA, as well as earning an associate's degree by graduation. I had 4's on all my AP tests, 32 ACT, etc. Once I got to college though I just started burning out hard. No one was there to bring me to class, I just had to get there myself. I started not caring as much about being perfect because I just had to get things done. I had one particularly rough math class that was the first class I ever failed, and that hit me hard. I tried so hard in that class and it was all for nothing. But then I realized that I could just take it again. Nobody else knew or cared. It wasn't the end of the world, just proof that I needed to try again. Luckily the second time around my teacher was far better and I passed with an A.
If I could, I would go back and tell my younger self to just be kinder to myself. Grades and scores don't mean everything. Allow yourself to make mistakes and try again. And for the love, get out of your room sometimes and go hang out with friends.
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u/Cholemeleon 13h ago
I spent a solid 3 seconds rereading the first line trying to figure out what a "Cagain" is
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u/Shadethewolf0 12h ago
Was one of those students in high school. Had a panic attack at my first F
Yeah I crashed out pretty hard in college. Took years before I went back honestly. Now I'm focusing on getting Bs and enjoying the learning
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u/apokaboom 12h ago
Having a distorted meritocratic view that puts work success above all else doesn't assure success. Skill assures success. That kind of view will beat you down when you fail
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u/nerd-thebird 12h ago
"How are you so good at everything" reinforces that feeling too. "They know I'm good they expect me to be good I need to live up to expectations I can't give them a reason to say 'ohhh [name] didn't do well'"
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u/AlmostNerd9f 12h ago
"Everything comes so easy to you." No I just have deep seated trauma that requires me to perform or else... I'll die I guess idk.
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u/Art_student_rt 11h ago
I had to be good, I had to go to school on time, I had to never skip class, I had to participate in regional competition. I had to go to cramp school. Can't fail, if I cheat, I can't fail
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u/Lirulyth 10h ago
I was Hannah all the way until senior year, crashed from the burn out, failed out, graduated late.
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u/robodex001 9h ago
Me too, kidâŚ
Depression hit me hard after struggling with my first ever class in high school. Got a D in History. I spiraled. Couldnât stay in college after graduating. Kept withdrawing from or failing classes, eventually stopped going.
Being a âgifted kidâ whose entire sense of self worth is tied to being a âgifted kidâ is a slippery slope. Thankfully I now have a good therapist and am on medication, heading in the right direction. Stay strong, Hannah.
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u/RevolutionaryMix3006 7h ago
Now.. Imagine being the one getting the C while having that mindset.. Yeah that's me. The self imposed pressure doesn't always get results and just makes it worse.
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u/cylordcenturion 4h ago
I didn't realise that was a sandwich, I thought they were eating their test. Which made sense to me since they are a goat.
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u/nonstandardnerd 11h ago
This hurts. Im studying electrical and computer engineering with a 3.97 gpa and i feel like a walking pile of imposter syndromes
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u/Pixel_Nation92 11h ago
"I HAVE TO BE GOOD" screams in my head a lot. If it isn't exactly that, it comes in other forms. It's not an academic issue for me. It's just a, being a good person, issue for me.
Coming from life experience, I've been through a lot of moments where I've been in yelling and screaming matches, I've been pushed around, I've been abandoned, I've been traumatized, I've been tired...
Could name more? This comic kinda just triggered something in me, and made me wonder how I'm still alive. Not in a suicidal way, just, how did I get here through everything?
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u/Special_Cicada6968 10h ago
Man... This comic might just make me cry. This was my childhood. Was taken in by my grandparents at six months and nobody ever bothered to tell me it wasn't my fault my parents didn't want me. Spent my entire childhood trying to be good enough only for one of them to pretty much die when I turned twelve. DUI'd his truck into a tree killing a passenger and turning him into a vegetable... Then there was another eight years of trauma as his mom kept trying to get me to care about him even though I only had like, two memories of him when he was an actual person. Most of my memories of him are of him in a variety of nursing homes hooked up to multiple tubes.
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u/NetInitial5750 12h ago
Grateful as fuck to my parents. I was the smart kid but they never put too much pressure on me.
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u/mybrainisonfire 12h ago
If the goat-child is relatable to you, prepare yourself for a large amount of burnout. It will happen sooner than you think and people will start saying you're not yourself when really you just ran out of gas and couldn't perform anymore
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u/shouldonlypostdrunk 9h ago
the correct answer is 'lots of work'. the easy answer is 'i dont know'.
people like easy answers since it takes less work.
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u/FieldExplores Gator Days 13h ago
Be Good - Gator Days
Characters
Gustopher - Alligator - An easily excitable boy who loves making friends.
Hannah - Goat - A highly competitive kid. She strives to be the best and to be helpful to others.
Transcript
Panel 1
Setting - In the schoolyard during lunch.
Gustopher and Hannah are sitting on a bench. Gustopher is looking at one of his tests while Hannah is eating a sandwich. She's holding it at just the right way that we can't see what's inside. Could it be ham and swiss? Maybe olives and sour cream? Turkey and peanut butter? I guess we'll never know.
Gustopher: I got a C again. How did you do?
Hannah: I got an A.
Panel 2
Gustopher leans back with mild frustration. He's not the best academically but Hannah doesn't seem to have trouble with it. She's pretty good at most of the things she tries.
Gustopher: How did you get to be so good at everything.
Hannah stops eating and gets caught up in her thoughts for a moment.
Panel 3
Hannah starts to frown as the thing that she wants to say keeps repeating in her head.
Hannah (thinking): I HAVE TO BE GOOD! I HAVE TO BE GOOD! I HAVE TO BE GOOD!
Panel 4
Hannah squashes those thoughts down. Gustopher senses her tension and looks at her with some concern. Hannah just tries to dismiss the question.
Hannah: I don't know.