Impaired ability to learn when young?

Are you talking about book learninhg? Yes and no. I was a great student up to my second year of college. After that I got a little shakier. Sexuality may have been part of it, but so could a lot of self-doubt about my abilities in my major. If your talking aboit learning life lessons, I don't know because there are so many other factors that come into play

 

Hmm... This is a fair question, as I think in some ways, it might have. Maybe not across the board or in regards to all academic subjects, but certainly for certain ones, or at least at certain times. I think it also largely impacted my social growth, in that fretting, denying, or feeling confusion/shame regarding my attractions prevented me from working through other issues. This created a backlog, one I feel I'm still working through years after the fact.

 

Not at all, in fact it probably made me more curious but I've always been a glutton for information. What suppressing did do was make me quite lonely as the people I wanted to be with, I couldn't, but I was always able to push it to the back of my mind and not worry about it. It didn't consume me. The only thing I did learn once I stopped the denial/suppression was it was actually feels great to be gay, whereas previously I wouldn't give it the time of the day.

 

I can give you a sort of cliff-notes version. I didn't have the best home life; my step-father was abusive, and my mother was often complicit in said abuse at the very least, and emotionally abusive herself at the worst. Due to years of physical, emotional, and on a few occasions, sexual abuse done by my stepfather, I struggled with lacking self-worth, depression, anxiety, and physical health complications brought on by them (though none of these were formally diagnosed, apart from the physical ailments--though the doctors, while knowing my illness was stress-based, didn't know what caused said stress). I also was bullied a great deal growing up at school (this only petered out around grade 10), so I had little to no reprieve between both academic and home life. In essence, the constant barrage made it impossible to focus on other things, my grades were abysmal in most of my classes, which perpetuated a cycle (the abuse in regards to my grades, my grades suffering from the abuse, ad nauseum). Any time I found myself becoming aware of feelings for other girls, I'd shut it down because I already had too much on my plate. Add the fact that my mother had freaked out (in her words; I actually don't remember which she screamed) "what, are you a lesbian/dyke now?", and I had no desire to further explore my feelings, for fear of what could come of it.

That's basically it, in a nutshell. There were probably other factors, but this is the easiest way I have to break it down.

 

I turned to sports and books due to my suppressed sexuality. I don't think the suppression impaired my learning but it perhaps encouraged my curiosity - especially to finding evidence that I was okay. Eventually more thoughtful science and writings about sexuality became widely available. I envy younger people these days as the positive resources are available even if it takes some looking. The library system in the city where I live has an amazing variety of positive LGBT fiction and nonfiction.

 

I think it has more to do with the environment in which one is raised. An open nurturing space to grow and show expressions would never tolerate the need to suppress emotions. However, once suppression has begun, I think it is not unreasonable to agree with your theory. I was a stellar student until I began to understand my feelings. Then everything kind of went to hell for say 35 years or so. I am pretty much going thru, in my late 40's what I should have experienced as a teen. Thats in regard to life lessons, not just book learning. Something that never should have been allowed to have happen.

 

Yes and no. I was raised in such and environment but society in the 90's wasn't as understanding. I agree that had my parents approached the situation and told me it didn't matter if I were gay (they must have suspected) in my late teens then it may have made a world of difference to me... or not. I may have not had the mental fortitude to accept it then as that most definitely developed with age. With age comes wisdom, or at the very least, acceptance of things we cannot change.

 

Maybe it was more of a distraction so to speak. Not being able to focus due to an obsession with societies stereotypes back then. I spent a lot of effort speaking and acting "correctly". I still catch myself doing it when in a rural setting.

 

Yes. I always felt different but I didn’t know how to explain it. I literally only found out about the LGBTQ+ community because of Covid YouTube binging.

 

This is a really interesting thread. I can relate to this...

Book learning and academia have been a way for me, from my childhood and up til now, to cope with unpleasant and unwanted emotional feelings by distracting myself. Studying has also helped me deconstruct things (culture, society, gender norms, damaging power dynamics, etc) ... But left me lacking in self awareness- knowledge about my true / authentic self and sexuality. It helped me suppress feelings and traumatic experiences through rationalisation.. I could lose myself in ideas and text.

I would say that the learning that suffered was self learning, and the ability to listen to myself (intuition). So emotional intelligence, in a sense?

 

Thought I'd jump into this thread because I've also wondered about the closet's impact on early academic development and found many of the comments eminently relatable, which is like finding the only other person in a gathering laughing at a joke no one else gets.

As child of the 80s I used books and the arts to understand my sexuality because it was a safe way to seek out relatable information, then use it to hyper analyze the hell out everything (which I still do today). I was draw to the obscure, avant-garde, and counter-cultural communities, artists, and thinkers. I suspect an aspect of seeking out creative or iconoclastic ideas was to find ways to access queer culture in a non-alerting or indirect manner. I also, at the time, didn't see myself in pop. cultural images of the queer community, so tried to create positive queer images for myself through the arts and rebellious thinkers. I decided early on, when I realized I was attracted to men (and seemed to be the only queer kid), that I would need to figure this out covertly because I was terrified of being rejected from family, friends, and society.

I also think my 'learning style' is to 'play around' with ideas, take them apart, challenge them, etc.; I'm not one to learn by rote. Maybe having to creatively learn about queerness coupled with my learning style helped my development during a tough time; life finds a way.